HCL Unica vs. Monetate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Unica
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
HCL Unica is available as a cloud or on-premise solution that provides fully integrated marketing automation software for enterprise. It includes enterprise marketing automation tools that optimize marketing activities, to ensure excellent customer experiences and data privacy.N/A
Monetate
Score 6.3 out of 10
N/A
Monetate (formerly Kibo Personalization, powered by Monetate and Certona) is an ecommerce personalization software for consumer-facing brands. Monetate enables brands to create individualized experiences for site visitors, with the goal of improving engagement and business performance. Founded in 2008, Monetate services Adidas, Lufthansa, Office Depot, Reebok, Wolseley, and other companies.N/A
Pricing
HCL UnicaMonetate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL UnicaMonetate
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL UnicaMonetate
Considered Both Products
HCL Unica
Chose HCL Unica
The Salesforce application can handle simple campaigns but I wasn’t convinced that I could handle medium to more complex campaigns that involved detailed changing data.
Chose HCL Unica
The contact history and the response history are so powerful. You can track whatever you want to help the call center to push relevant offers to our customer. In addition, predictive models can be built, with patience, in IBM Campaign. If you have some complaints from the call …
Chose HCL Unica
IBM Campaign is much more advanced and powerful than IBM Eloqua providing many features to play and manipulate the data for Marketers. The good thing about IBM Campaign is that is does not try to solve every problem because it's not a complete marketing automation software like …
Chose HCL Unica
Adobe is a tough competitor, and it's fair to say that you can get the same quality of service from Adobe. Speaking as an Adobe fanboy, it's easy to say that I'm biased – however, from a price standpoint, IBM is cheaper, and you get the same results. I will say that IBM doesn't …
Chose HCL Unica
Unica compares very well against other tools such as SAS CM and Teradata. It is easier to use. However, SAS CM has more built in value added components and Teradata supports highly complex segmentation and campaigns rapid execution a little better. Alterian does not support …
Chose HCL Unica
The consultants of UNICA where very good at their job, fast and efficient. They always had a very convincing answer to our questions.
Chose HCL Unica
Against all the other applications, IBM EMM stands head and shoulders above the others, in terms of sophistication & diverse capabilities - with Neolane being the closest.
Chose HCL Unica
Similar approach to data processing but different applications.
Chose HCL Unica
Alterian is limited on the database side and can limit the amount of reporting and analysis that can be done. Because Unica can support a variety of platforms, this limitation does not exist.
Chose HCL Unica

It's been a market leader within this space for over 10 years, it has a high ability to execute time and time again. Against it's competitors it has been tried and proven to been robust but flexible within reason to allow adaptations that will not break the system. Can be …

Chose HCL Unica
We haven't had a chance to review other products. I went to a conference in Las Vegas where there were many other products that say Unica is old school. Some of the things I saw those companies do, I wish we could do in Unica.
Chose HCL Unica
Adobe is more advanced. I would choose an Adobe product if I needed to purchase one.
Monetate
Chose Monetate
It was what the company used before I started.
Chose Monetate
Easier to use, more flexible, and better vendor support
Chose Monetate
Not as advanced, and possibly not as bespoke in configuration. However as a designer these had a much more user friendly interface and easier to learn/master.
Chose Monetate
Increased options to run multi-variant tests in more complex scenarios allow more autonomy for merchandisers to set more complex recommendation strategies.
Chose Monetate
At the time of selection, it was the best tool to fit our business needs. The day-to-day users were able to create some experiences on their own and did not require much oversight. We also had developer support built into our contract along with internal developer support so …
Chose Monetate
The key differentiator at the time was that Monetate provided strategic resources that the other solutions did not around roadmap planning, development, and QA.
Chose Monetate
The platform evolves as the industry evolves which means it is able to grow with your brand. Upgrades are automatic which means you won't go through hard work in order to use the latest capabilities.
Chose Monetate
Certona offered better pricing, a stronger data-based experience and algorithm-derived solution, and a better account management experience (based on customer feedback). Although the interface/portal for some of the other competitors was a little more user-friendly, we …
Chose Monetate
Monetate is more flexible than Adobe with a much better UI for testing and targeting. It is more cost effective than Certona, and gets higher average order lift than MyBuys for product recommendations.
Chose Monetate
The feature set of Monetate was more robust than Optimizely and analytics were more reliable. Pricing and feature set were pretty close to Maximizer, but the interface in Monetate was more intuitive.
Chose Monetate
N/A
This is my first time using a tool like this so I cannot compare however I don't see any need to try anything else. The team is helpful, the tool works and they resolve any concerns or issues when they do come up.
Chose Monetate
The simplicity, performance, reliability, cost and customer service of Monetate are all superior to Adobe in my opinion.
Chose Monetate
N/A
Chose Monetate
Monetate's user interface is more user friendly.
Chose Monetate
We did look at some competitors and found that Monetate allowed use to build more of the actions ourselves. The builders that Monetate offer are very easy to follow and understand and you don't need to be an expert coder nor do you have to rely on the vendor to build all …
Chose Monetate
Flexibility in building campaigns, interface and support services.
Chose Monetate
Monetate is the first tool of its kind that I have used.
Chose Monetate
I haven't had a chance to use any other tool similar to Monetate
Chose Monetate
I've not used any alternatives and I don't think I would ever need to now.
Best Alternatives
HCL UnicaMonetate
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.9 out of 10
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.0 out of 10
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.0 out of 10
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL UnicaMonetate
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
5.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
6.4
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
3.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
5.8
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL UnicaMonetate
Likelihood to Recommend
Extremely well integrated in the TelCos and Financial Services areas. Retail & Online Gaming are the next big sectors. Real Time capabilities via IBM Interact are starting to come to the fore as marketers start to understand the necessity for true reactive CRM. Additional functionality using IBM Distributed Marketing is also another very powerful area for the future, allowing regional marketers to fill out web based forms, which initiate and run flowcharts & email delivery automatically.
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Monetate is a fully functional space to generate multiple marketing campaigns for your company on the web, many of the functions found in this program are a contribution to manage your content correctly and give it the space you are looking for, we We recommend it one hundred percent. We feel very comfortable with everything we have been able to achieve thanks to this program.
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Pros
  • Campaign treats a marketing campaign as a discrete entity that is made up of one or more flowcharts, which are in turn comprised of one or more processes.
  • IBM Campaign performs actual data manipulation live.
  • Users do not need to know SQL to design campaigns.
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  • Audience segmentation is relatively painless. They provide a robust way to granularly target visitors by device type, location, weather, demographics, etc.
  • Our CSM has been very engaged and detailed in supporting our partnership. She provides very prompt responses and clearly works hard to push the Kibo team when possible.
  • The User Interface to develop new actions is not terrible.
  • Supports Single Sign On, which is the preferred method of managing users at my organization.
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Cons
  • Not suitable to small industries even if they really want to use. It would be great to have a lighter version to let any company use in order to make more customers.
  • It would really great to have support team available whenever having the issues / difficulties with in the tool itself. At least able to respond asap.
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  • The learning curve is a little steep, especially if you're unfamiliar with HTML/CSS. The tool is so powerful but can be overwhelming at first. The intro instructional videos/content is helpful but it doesn't cover everything. We needed to partner with an optimization company to better understand the tool and get started.
  • Setting up an experiment for the first time isn't simple when you're a marketer who is inexperienced with any sort of web development or even just HTML/CSS. While you can easily select the area you want to create a test with, you don't have a way to easily manipulate that section without the use of HTML/CSS.
  • The first optimization company Monetate recommended us to was horrible - it really was awful working with them. We had dedicated (paid for!) hours that got wasted after the company wasted our time in each meeting (when we did have one - they often needed to reschedule) and they barely knew what our company even did despite multiple meetings. Those hours, despite the awful experience, were never fulfilled, never reimbursed, never carried over to the new (and far better) company. This left a bad taste in my mouth. While I really like this product and it does everything we need, this awful experience and lack of ownership on their end was highly disappointing. We are moving forward though - and happy with our results.
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Likelihood to Renew
I know Unica well and can make it do just about anything I need it to do. I love the abiity to call in custom code along the way for extremely complicated scenarios and optimum performance. Situations that would steer me to other applications are: If already a heavy SAS user with Enterprise Miner and/or Enterprise Guide I would seriously consider SAS CM; if already owning Teradata platform would seriously consider Teradata RM.
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I had never worked within a company that had a tool like this. It made my life as a designer and a creative manager much easier with it's easy to use interface and limitless possibilities in terms of creative. I would highly recommend taking Monetate for a test drive, you will not be disappointed.
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Usability
I think it is easy to use, if you don't have to do to complex selections.
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Part of what I love about Monetate is how intuitive the tool is. Very very easy to use - based on the basics - Who/What/When/Where concept. Anyone can jump right in and start using the tool. And very easy to copy campaigns and tweak to continue to build experiences. We recently added Monetate on mobile and similar experience - easy to jump back and forth between platforms. Also love the analytics dashboard...easily quantifiable and easy to get tidbits that are digestible for others not as familiar with tool.
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Support Rating
I didn't use the Unica support since it is with IBM, only before.
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Monetate support team meets with use weekly, answers emails daily and promptly. They are proactive about getting answers for us when we need it and offering suggestions based on observations they have or learnings they want to share from other partners. Monetate's support is top notch.
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Implementation Rating
- We had to rebuild a part of the datamart afterwards to tighten up and simplify the selection process. But as it was too time consuming to rebuild all the existing campaigns, we no run campaigns on different versions of the datamart. - The response tracking of the campaigns never worked out well, it was impossible to implement a direct response where there is a link between the lead and the response in our operational process
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Monetate installs easily and sets up personalization with just a few clicks. We never used the recommendation engine but the multivariant testing was great.
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Alternatives Considered
The contact history and the response history are so powerful. You can track whatever you want to help the call center to push relevant offers to our customer. In addition, predictive models can be built, with patience, in IBM Campaign. If you have some complaints from the call center about any campaigns, you can easily validate it into the contact or response history.
Read full review
At the time of selection, it was the best tool to fit our business needs. The day-to-day users were able to create some experiences on their own and did not require much oversight. We also had developer support built into our contract along with internal developer support so most experiences were achievable. We believed it was as good and in some ways better than the other comparable tools on the market.
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Return on Investment
  • We’ve been able to send out Thousands of communications and generate over 1 billion touches per year because of the speed and flexibility of the tool.
  • We’ve helped our marketing partners achieve or exceed some very lofty goals in the past two years because of the tool
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  • We've had great results with our tests! We've seen a solid ROI on most, and we've been able to identify areas we shouldn't be investing resources into.
  • Our teams have really pulled together to come up with ideas and test them. Putting a monetary amount on new features has helped the company understand the value of web dev, CX/UX, and marketing campaigns.
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ScreenShots