Salesforce Marketing Cloud Vs MoEngage – What’s Right for Your Organization?

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If you’re looking to migrate or considering your first digital marketing platform, you probably thought about Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It’s a popular option that, according to Salesforce, “allows businesses to create, automate, and personalize marketing campaigns using email, social media, mobile messaging, advertising, and web channels.” But it’s one of the most expensive options out there and has many competitors (including MoEngage) who might be better suited to your exact use case. So, let’s look at Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs MoEngage – what’s right for your organization?

What does Salesforce Marketing Cloud do?

According to beloved guru, Salesforce Ben, it’s “a digital marketing platform that automates marketing across email, social media, mobile apps, SMS, websites, and more.” And that’s exactly what it does. With Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), you can combine all your messages across all channels into one place via connectors that sync data between your overarching Salesforce cloud and the SFMC. And there’s the rub. Most businesses need more than just Salesforce Marketing Cloud. They’ll need Salesforce CRM, Sales Cloud, and more to create a full funnel. This makes it a more expensive, siloed, and developer-dependent platform vs MoEngage, a one-stop integrated self-serve platform with a cross-channel marketing focus.

What did Salesforce Marketing Cloud used to be called?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud used to be called ExactTarget. They got it through an acquisition in 2014. 

Is Salesforce for email marketing?

Sure, SFMC is used for email marketing but that’s not all it does. You can also send push notifications, SMS, manage online ads, and make content. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

One of our clients, a Director of Martech at an Australian bank, stated that…

Getting under the hood of Salesforce, the surface appears easy. But as you get deeper into the platform, it is a siloed tool with fractured UI. As I switch from automation studio to journey builder to interaction studio to tracking everything; it looks like it was built by a different developer (because it was). So, it’s not really the most marketing-friendly environment.”

That’s because Salesforce is a collection of acquired products like ExactTarget (rebranded to SFMC). You aren’t getting one tool to do the job, you’re getting a few legacy software platforms stitched together. And, according to reviewers, it shows:

The UI is very out of date and has a lot of mixed features (old with new) creating a bad UX. The high cost of sending super messages which for some channels it is really very high considering the average in the market As ampscript is a great tool, it is needed to be fully understood to work …-Gartner Review from a SFMC user

MoEngage has one of the most sophisticated email marketing systems available as part of its CEP. With a selection of tastefully designed pre-built templates to choose from and a drag-and-drop template builder that requires no coding, marketers can launch campaigns in minutes. Of course, you can also tailor the content of your email to the specific events in the customer’s lifecycle, such as extending a warm welcome to a new customer, reminding them of items in their cart, reactivating dormant customers, and more.

What is the difference between Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Salesforce?

Salesforce is the cloud-based CRM that connects to SFMC to enable marketing automation. They are separate products, designed to work together for email marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, ads, and more.

What is the difference between Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud?

To further complicate it, you might also add Salesforce Sales Cloud to your suite. This brings new insights into your CRM and allows you to drive revenue and streamline the sales process. In contrast, SFMC is about turning prospects into warm leads via nurturing. That makes it more of a stage one product to Sales Cloud’s stage two funnel. Worryingly, most organizations will need both, ratcheting up the price.

Is Salesforce Marketing Cloud a CDP?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is not a CDP. That’s Salesforce Data Cloud (formerly Salesforce CDP), a data management and audience segmentation layer within the SFMC ecosystem. AIQ explains, “To support CDP use-cases throughout the customer lifecycle, multiple Salesforce tools are required in addition to just the Salesforce CDP. This results in high license and service costs, and increases time to value. Most of these tools were acquired by Salesforce, so they do not work together as seamlessly as expected.” In comparison, MoEngage has native integrations with well-known CDP technologies such as mParticle, Tealium, Segment, and others to ensure interoperability.

What are the drawbacks of Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud analytics and tools thrive in a traditional marketing environment. While it has a wide range of features, some are more basic than others and require further development to overcome deficiencies.

Citibank previously used SFMC for emails but developed its own technology for push campaigns due to Salesforce’s limitations. There were problems with compatibility between platforms, which resulted in low efficiency, poor connectivity, and a lack of visibility into data flows between channels. Having a single platform for engagement and a unified view of behavior and campaign results was the main reason behind their decision to migrate to a more modern, agile platform.

It’s also very expensive, often requiring several products and licenses to execute the same functions as competitors like MoEngage. And it’s not geared towards mobile or web-centric businesses. In comparison, MoEngage has cutting-edge features like Push Amplification Technology to get higher conversions from web 2.0 channels.

So, let’s dive deeper into the comparison of Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs MoEngage.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs MoEngage scalability

MoEngage is a popular Salesforce Marketing Cloud competitor and a viable Salesforce Marketing Cloud alternative. Not only is it scalable – handling vast amounts of data and integrating with most other marketing tools and platforms, but it has powerful personalization capabilities, localization tools, and an integrated campaign management function with over ten channels. This allows you to take your marketing from a few routes like email and SMS to everywhere including – WhatsApp, Cards, In-app, and more, all from a single interface.

Plus, if you’re sending transactional alerts at scale, MoEngage is the undisputed innovation leader. With one API, get a unified view and send time-sensitive messages in under 5 seconds (nearly half of what SFMC promises).

Another sign of MoEngage’s scalability is the AI-powered assistant, which proactively delivers key insights, enabling you to amplify your efforts without deep technical know-how. This feature supports deep segmentation based on user behavior and event attributes, facilitating highly personalized messaging that resonates with the target audience. Importantly, all these powerful features are accessible via a self-serve, zero-code platform, eliminating dependency on developers, designers, or extensive testing teams. In comparison, Salesforce Einstein is limited to 5,000 requests per month for free.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs MoEngage ease of use

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud analytics and automation platform is a monolith, built by cobbling together a range of disparate tools that have been bolted on over the years. Data Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Mobile Studio, and Interaction Studio are four separate acquisitions that are not well integrated. As a result, switching between these products to complete a simple task like having a single view of the customer, creating a true multi-channel journey across outbound and inbound channels, and using real-time data to orchestrate in-the-moment messaging is almost impossible. You’d most likely end up with several expensive products that you’d never use.

The added impact is a UI with quite a learning curve. And when you do need support, getting through can be tough.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs MoEngage support

Even with its Premier Success Plan, long wait times for support calls and minimal hands-on coaching can hinder the effective delivery of campaigns and integrations.

Service is shared in a large corporation and uses agency model to hire needed help based on the project – it just doesn’t work to wait weeks to allocate a resource or to compete with another internal team’s priorities. -Director of Marketing, Healthcare and Biotech, US

To get the most out of Salesforce Marketing Cloud analytics and automation, you really need Salesforce experts in-house or a consultant on hand. This can cost up to $350/hour.

In comparison, MoEngage has dedicated customer success consultants to help you with onboarding, platform adoption, and ongoing optimization. Onboarding MoEngage takes roughly 1.5-3 months with a dedicated customer support consultant in your time zone and, during that time, you’ll have a reliable resource in your corner, helping you set up and configure everything

Just have a look at the 350% uplift in conversions one client saw with help from the MoEngage support ecosystem.

One word to describe MoEngage is ‘magic’. And their support is great. They are fast, efficient, and always solve our problems. -Katka Dobešová – User Activation Specialist, HoppyGo by Skoda

Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs MoEngage pricing

Salesforce Marketing Cloud product pricing varies depending on the package you need. To consolidate all of your data into a single customer profile and gain access to personalization and intelligence capabilities, you could pay $16,800 per month (and this is just the starting price for three core products). Any extras or personalization you need will increase this price. 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud requires a large consulting agency to implement, maintain, and run its products because most implementations require customization, which cannot be done in-house. This means a higher overall total cost of ownership (TCO), longer initial time to value and total return on investment, and an ongoing need to hire an agency to support internal team members for routine campaign operations.

Alternatively, MoEngage pricing for enterprise businesses starts at $3,000 per month. Pricing is based on MTUs and is usually flexible depending on your business needs. The Enterprise edition of the platform already includes all advanced segmentation, customer journey orchestration, analysis, engagement channels, and more.

What is better than Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

For many businesses, MoEngage is better than the Salesforce Marketing Cloud analytics and automation platform. It’s more affordable, offers a more user-friendly UI, and provides enhanced support. While SFMC and MoEngage both offer marketing automation capabilities, they cater to different needs and priorities. SFMC’s strength lies in its extensive customization options and compatibility with existing enterprise systems, making it a good fit for businesses with complex, established marketing processes. But you’ll need the help of tech experts – adding extra costs. MoEngage, in contrast, stands out for its agility, user-friendly interface, and modern architecture that leverages AI and machine learning for segmentation, predictions, and advanced personalization. It’s ideal for businesses seeking rapid growth, adaptability, and superior user experiences.

Feel free to speak with a member of our friendly team about your pain points or use case, and how MoEngage can help. Just pop your details into this form and we’ll be in touch with some recommendations.