Lead Forensics vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Lead Forensics
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
UK company Lead Forensics offers their eponymous platform for lead generation and web analytics.N/A
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Marketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.
$1,250
per month per installation
Pricing
Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Account Engagement
$1,250
per month
Engagement
$1,250
per month
Intelligence
$3,000
per month
Loyalty Management
$20,000
per month
Personalization
$100,000
per year
Data Cloud for Marketing
$108,000
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Considered Both Products
Lead Forensics
Chose Lead Forensics
Previously, we used HubSpot and Pardot, neither of which had the depth of data matching needed to report relevant visits in our B2B environment.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud

No answer on this topic

Features
Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
8.0
22 Ratings
0% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking7.817 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement7.715 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting8.116 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.521 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking7.514 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time8.218 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking8.317 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards8.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
167 Ratings
4% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings8.1118 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings7.6149 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings7.7108 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings7.8117 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings8.0147 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.3107 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings8.3128 Ratings
List management00 Ratings8.5125 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings8.191 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8.3
121 Ratings
6% above category average
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings8.2107 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings8.2108 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings8.1113 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings8.599 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.8
111 Ratings
5% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings8.3100 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.494 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8.1
85 Ratings
7% above category average
Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings8.380 Ratings
Social profile integration00 Ratings7.836 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8.2
121 Ratings
11% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings8.3115 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.3120 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.997 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Lead Forensics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.7
121 Ratings
3% above category average
API00 Ratings7.187 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings7.586 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings7.4108 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings8.3110 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings8.613 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings7.610 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
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Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
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Optimal
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Score 9.1 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(41 ratings)
8.1
(325 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(114 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(23 ratings)
4.1
(35 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(3 ratings)
7.0
(36 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(17 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(34 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Lead ForensicsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Lead Forensics
Lead Forensics was especially effective in identifying returning visitors from existing customer accounts. This allowed me to proactively reach out, understand their interests based on web activity, and successfully expand the scope of services they were already purchasing. It's less appropriate for brand-new lead generation, as it doesn’t capture anonymous traffic without prior engagement or recognizable IP data.
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Salesforce
I rated this a seven because I love Salesforce, and it is excellent on the sales side. However, the marketing side has some pros and cons. It is terrific for keeping track of lead, customer, and dealer information, but it is not easy to automate workflows, integrate other software, or create well-designed emails. It is also straightforward to generate reports, which is very helpful in keeping track of lead progression to better market those leads and turn them into customers.
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Pros
Lead Forensics
  • Lead Forensics helps us see which companies are visiting our site, even if they don’t fill out a form. This gives us a chance to reach out to businesses that are already showing interest but might not have contacted us yet.
  • Instead of cold-calling random prospects, we can see which pages a company has viewed and how often they return. This helps us tailor our conversations based on what they’re actually interested in.
  • The Lead Forensics support team has been great whenever we’ve had questions. They’re quick to respond and always ready to help, whether it’s troubleshooting an issue or offering advice on how to get the most out of the platform.
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Salesforce
  • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
  • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
  • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
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Cons
Lead Forensics
  • Better updates on companies' current names. Often if a company was a different company years ago it still says the old company name which is confusing.
  • Better identifying the correct location. Sometimes it seems like that the location coming up is the wrong location.
  • Giving a better understanding of how they got to the website would help too. Often is says "direct" but I would like to know if it was via a link from an email or what
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Salesforce
  • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
  • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
  • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
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Likelihood to Renew
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
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Usability
Lead Forensics
Lead Forensics dashboard is fantastic. Lets me see what companies are hitting what parts of the website so I know what to offer them. Often times I’ll offer one thing, only to get told no. Then the client goes to the website and pokes around at other things we offer. Then they reach out to me asking about different services, or next time I reach out I can offer what they were looking at.
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Salesforce
You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
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Reliability and Availability
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
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Performance
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
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Support Rating
Lead Forensics
[Their] support is great, [whether] you call or send in an email. They are always friendly and willing to help. Anytime I can’t figure something out and need to reach out, I always get a response back quick[ly] - and they will always offer to go in and make the change, but I like when they show me so I can do it next time.
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Salesforce
They are really responsive and more than not solve the problem or give you insight to how you can manage the solution yourself. I do find however sometimes a long delay on the more complex issues when they need to loop in other departments. but overall a good experience with support
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In-Person Training
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
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Online Training
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
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Implementation Rating
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
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Alternatives Considered
Lead Forensics
We used to use Visual Visitor. This would give us an email every time someone visited our website. This would give all the information like Lead Forensics does but in a smaller quantity. It used to not integrate with WIX but now it does. We selected Lead Forensics because we saw our site activity was high & wanted to see who was on the site and because of WIX
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Salesforce
I think that all of the marketing platforms I have evaluated and used in the past serve different markets and purposes. Salesforce Marketing Cloud was more palatable to our team because of our existing tech stack where we had Salesforce CRM already deployed and in use. Compared to Marketo and Hubspot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a bit dated in terms of the UI/UX and the overall experience but still meets the needs of our organization. Mailchimp, however, isn't even playing in the same arena and is meant for small organizations and companies that don't have a need for a full fledged offering that SFMC brings to the table.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
was not involved with this part but i have not heard about clompaints
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Scalability
Lead Forensics
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Prior to this, we had no solution and literally were doing things on paper in a world where technology is outpacing paper. Having this process optimized has made it easier for the sales and marketing people to change information. From the training perspective, it has allowed us to see holes in where we could create additional support training, so the ROI here has been a lot more than just the optimization of a process.
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Return on Investment
Lead Forensics
  • We are still in the very early stages of using Lead Forensics for our agency, but I can see that it could already be very useful to us as we haven't had insights like this previously.
  • Our very first use case with Lead Forensics was with a brand-new client and I would say it went exceptionally well. We were running a large media campaign for them, and it was very insightful to see how those specific businesses were getting to the site and what page they were going to. Like mentioned previously, this helped their very small sales team to go after businesses they know were interested in them.
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Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
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ScreenShots

Lead Forensics Screenshots

Screenshot of Lead Forensics' insight with regard to who is visiting a website, where they have come from, how visits trend over time, what they have looked at on the site, as well as detailed firmographics about each and every business visitor identified. This is presented at a glance insight for marketers to understand website performance, weak spots, campaign effectiveness and market engagement.Screenshot of a view of which businesses are visiting a website, in real-time. Users can categorize visitors according to their stage in the sales pipeline and create actions based upon each visitor profile to commence further engagement, understand what each visit is interested in by reviewing the time they have spent on each page, and use this information to start valuable conversations, and review the contact information to commence pro-active engagement to give each customer and prospect an exceptional first impression.Screenshot of marketing campaign analytics that help locate which are driving high value opportunities to a website. Users can track changes over time to understand the success of specific campaigns and monitor the performance of social media, PPC, SEO and any other referring source, to optimize campaigns and invest marketing budget where campaigns are driving maximum engagement and return.Screenshot of detailed firmographics relating to each visiting business, used to qualify and score a visitor, according to their 'fit' for a business. This helps users to understand the size and scope of each visitor, identify where they are located and get their contact information. Automated lead scoring against any specific criteria can be used to focus on the highest priority opportunities, in order to acquire new business, expand existing customer revenues and deliver excellent levels of customer service.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.