Endless customization + excellent support

Pros

Bronto offers a sophisticated email marketing platform that allows very complex segmentation, A/B testing capabilities and workflow triggers to automate campaigns. Templates provide quick-start opportunities, while there is also the option to get fancy with dynamic content. The live chat support team and account managers are very knowledgable, highly available and provide excellent guidance.

Cons

The message design interface can be a little restrictive for message styling, unless you are working in CSS. Opening a more intensive support case can take a week or longer to resolve. The pop-up manager is a bare bones app.

Evolving platform with strong customer support and accessible features

My experience with Bronto was always positive. 6 years ago, when I began using it at a company acquired by Fandango, it was the best platform at creating sophisticated customer segments and personalized automated campaigns. Fast forward 5 years when I came back to it at a new role at DIFF Eyewear, I saw how it evolved and improved. Revenue tracking, site integration, deployment speed and the ui all improved significantly within the platform.

Pros

- Customer care team is top notch - Segmentation is fast and easy even with databases containing over 2mm subs - Deployment time improved greatly over the last 5 years - Easy-to-use journey builder with drag and drop tools - Exporting stats and reports is also fast and easy compared to many other ESPs - Owned by Oracle and strongly supported by mother organization - Competitively prices - Integrates natively with many other 3rd party platforms, e-commerce shops and content management systems

Cons

- Like most platforms, there is a learning curve to understand all if its features, but they offer online learning, documentation and hand-held tutorials.

Bronto only for BIG business

Amazing! Everyone at Bronto and oracle were super professional and supportive.

Pros

Bronto is robust! It has all the bells and whistles you could want for an email platform.

Cons

The cost! We realized our email campaigns needed a better platform to grow so we decided to give Bronto a try. They were able to do a lot more than our last platform (Mailchimp) but we quickly learned that the cost versus features was not helping us grow. This is not me saying don't buy Bronto because it's expensive, the opposite. I would say smaller businesses should look into smaller options. The features are nice but the price tag makes it hard to justify at that level. But if your revenue from the emails can support Bronto, then totally go with it!

Very expensive platform with poor support and missing features

Poor. Bronto is very expensive with very poor support and service. Their business model appears to revolve around how they can get the most amount of money possible out of the customer with add ons, missing features, support, integration etc. We were forced to do a finance agreement, instead of monthly payments for the year. I understand now, why they did this, as I would have disputed and stopped paying when their service stopped working. However, now we have no choice.

Pros

Not much. The email design interface is basic at best. The user interface is clunky. Most of the advanced features never worked for us or worked for a very brief period of time, like until we upgraded our shopping cart, then they wanted more money for implementation and support again.

Cons

Expensive with lots of nickel and diming. The sales rep promised the world, however when it came time to implement these, it never happened. We ended up using Bronto as a really (REALLY) expensive version of Mailchimp. We make very clear exactly what we needed and were given a crash course in the software and implementation with an Indian support team. We made a change to our shopping cart and lost the connection and were charged for the entire implementation again. Features like cart recovery worked for a very brief period, then stopped and we were not able to get the support to get it to work again. Other advanced features like B2B marketing and trickle campaigns just never happened. Things like coupon codes, were part of our discussions all along but somehow left out fo the contract and we were hit with more fees and were never able to get it set up. They also don't tell you that you need an extra license (at your cost) in NetSuite to use Bronto. Initially they only included 1m emails, even though we never discussed a limit. They changed this to 4m, which was used up in 6 months. Now they want more money to continue to use it.

Miss working with Bronto

Overall, Bronto was the best ESP I have used for small-medium sized B2C businesses (~400 employees worldwide). If you are tiny, it's probably overkill. If you're larger, it won't have flexibility of some of the enterprise-level ESPs. Their employees are all about practical, quick solutions to real problems faced by email marketers.

Pros

Bronto is logically organized, something which unfortunately can't be said of all ESPs. It offers programs like abandoned cart, email signup modals (layers) with fairly easy implementation. Easy to add variables to subscriber profiles. But the BEST element is the live chat support. These folks truly unlock the potential of the platform.

Cons

It could hold sales data, but doesn't allow you any easy way to see that data in tables. And you can't add tables for ancillary data like "store locations" that would make dynamic content easier. As with any software, sometimes you run into road blocks: they have a site where you can post ideas for the platform and other users can vote on them, but even then these take time.

Bronto has helped in growing our email results across our 2 unique storefronts.

Bronto was instrumental at the start in helping us manage our lists better, and through A/B testing refined what our customers enjoy seeing from our email marketing. Cost - for our usage there are others who are now providing the capabilities for our needs as Bronto at cost savings. Bronto still continues to offer innovations to help in customer engagement, but these are all offered as an additional monthly charge and not part of their standard package.

Pros

Bronto's WYSIWYG user interface to design emails is extremely user-friendly and a knowledge of HTML is not required to design fantastic emails. A code view is available if preferred, and is sometimes needed to add in elements like animated gifs. A/B Testing, delayed sends, and Netsuite integration for more personalized send have all contributed as our email revenue has grown in our time with Bronto.

Bronto has proven to be a great email service provider.

The software allows us to deploy all sorts of emails to our audience and customers. They allow for transactional emails, triggered email, full send emails, and any other type of emails we want to send.

Pros

The UI is very easy to understand and use. The deliverability is high for email marketing. They offer many add-ons to their standard platform. Their support is very responsive and knowledgeable.

Cons

Many of their add on services are standard at other ESPs. Their pricing is high, and cryptic. You can get a good deal if you negotiate like crazy. Their reporting is limited.

Best in class

Bronto has most of the key features you would expect from a high-end email platform. The learning curve is very short and navigation is very easy to get used to. Support is very helpful.

Pros

Simple contact management and ease of setting up emails. It's really easy to carry out tasks once you get used to the process.

Cons

It's not easy to set-up drip campaigns and automate tasks. UI is very basic and old school. Sometimes list exporting can take very long.

Once I got used to using the software, I have found that it is extremely powerful and functional.

Very custom designed emails, learned more about segmenting and analytics of emails, learned more about coding for email

Pros

The flexibility in design- lots of powerful tools (e.g. the content tags). I use MailChimp for some other clients and I find it to be very frustrating and limiting in comparison. The ability to segment and create lists that are extremely nuanced is nice. I also have had great experience with customer service.

Cons

I think that it isn't the MOST user friendly platform -- it took me a while to get used to using it. Sometimes it is hard to find exactly what you are looking for.

Good platform that has worked well overall.

email list send with high-end features

Pros

We switched to another platform for a few months, but had difficulties with them. They were able to easily have us return because they hadn't permanently deleted.

Cons

We have never been able to get the functionality that is related to ROI to work properly. They, essentially, switched to REST from SOAP without telling us.

Fantastic platform with big capabilities.

Pros

We started using the Bronto Marketing Platform about a year ago for all of our in-house email marketing efforts. Compared to our previous platform, it was easy to tell that Bronto was a more robust platform from the get-go. It's easy to work with, extremely smart and offers powerful strategies to get the most out of email marketing. This includes automated responders which are helpful for our e-Newsletter welcome email, campaign signups and more. Bronto also allows us to target subscribers based on what content they have clicked on in previous emails. We love the ability to optimize sends by time of day or day of the week and how easily we can segment our lists. Even the reporting within the Bronto platform itself is top notch and provides the detail we need. We've had it for a year, but there is still much more capabilities that we have yet to explore.

Cons

It would be nice if Bronto had an easier way to identify hard vs. soft bounces each email send. You either have to run a segmented report or pull from all contacts in Bronto and sort based on list. It would be great if this was a Legacy Report option. We also track list growth each month in the Legacy Reports, but it would also be great to track segment growth. Right now I jump in at the beginning of each month to compare growth from the previous month for all segments.

Mixed Thoughts

Pros

I like the time release of emails, and the resend option for emails that weren't open. I also really like the list cleaning options.

Cons

It isn't very easy to use on mobile I have to use the desktop version on my phone. I wish there were more ways to learn how to use all of its features. I also think the site can be slow at times.

Mostly Good.

Pros

In a word, Segmentation. Bronto is one of the best in the industry at segmentation and I can't find much of anything I can't build a segment for. The workflow tools are also pretty nice.

Cons

Bronto is still years behind other platforms when it comes to the data they provide about opens on specific devices. Mobile or desktop are generally grouped and same for the rendering engine of the mail client. This is better than it was but still poor. I would also like to be able to pull proper data from the dashboard instead of being given some arbitrary presets that are never accurate for the timeframe I need them to be. This would help evaluate yearly results and even compare with the same month of the previous year. Bronto only holds 3 months of data by default whereas I have reviewed other platforms that hold 18 months (by default) in order to allow these types of comparisons.

We transitioned from HubSpot to Bronto and have been thrilled with the improved environment.

Great marketing automation.

Pros

HubSpot was a real pain to use and was more B2C focused. We kept getting banned by various email providers and it may take me a week to get it fixed. And the "workflows" were horrific, both in creation and monitoring. And most of all, customer support was non-existent!! I love that Bronto is so much easier to use. Creating newsletters in Bronto is a breeze. Creating workflows in Bronto is a breeze. Having at my disposal a marketing strategist makes life so much easier. I still am not fully utilizing all of the Bronto capabilities but that is my goal for 2019.

Cons

The connector to Magento 2 has been an issue since we navigated to M2 in November. There have been a few issues, most we've worked out fairly quickly but getting my review request to trigger has been an ongoing issue now for quite some time. I do now have someone in support that is getting it working for us.

Great for larger companies

It provides a good solid foundation for all of our email marketing requirements.

Pros

Bronto works with a lot of large, successful business and therefore has a good amount of experience in dealing with corporate clients and larger tasks. There are a lot of valuable features in Bronto and (most of) their strategists are pretty good.

Cons

Bronto is definitely not for the small business as the cost and features may be more than the start up desires. In addition, their tech support never seems to know what is going on when there is a technical issue. You can ask and ask again and they basically tell you, "It's being looked into." Problems do get solved eventually but they don't give you much insight as to why the things that are going wrong, are going wrong.

Gets the job done well and easy

Customer service is great. Our dedicated account person also got the answer we were looking for. Their online support chat is also a huge help if you have a quick question. They have helped me out quite a bit.

Pros

Workflows are easy to maintain and create. Webforms that we put on our website is a great help to get new contacts. The email Message Editor is pretty easy to use if you don't know code and you can still put in your own css if wanted to.

Cons

RSS Feed emails was something we were looking into for our blog. Wasn't fully functioning at 1st but think we are going to get something from the new Tool Box

Feature Laden Email Client

Over all I have had positive experience with Bronto and would recommend them for other medium sized businesses, particularly if you wish to build out automated email workflows such as cart abandonment, nurturing series based on user actions, etc.

Pros

In my role for managing data and building workflows I have appreciated these Bronto aspects the most: 1. Multiple sources to add contacts including embedded webforms, APIs, FTPs, or uploading a CSV 2. Ability to add many data fields and have automated updates of those data fields 3. Ability to create dynamic user segments based on data fields you add, user behavior, etc 4. Ability to create multi-step work flows based on dynamic segments 5. Responsive technical support and training. Great help documentation.

Cons

Some of the reporting tools don't allow the granularity or groupings I would prefer but over all it's a great platform.

Bronto User for 3 Years

Pros

The software for the most part performed the tasks we needed. Most of the setup and use was easy to navigate. The features out of the box were adequate but we did have to add some Apps to make it the way we wanted it.

Cons

Some of the things we wanted were not out of the box features. That added additional cost. We had really good account managers for most of our time with them but after the Oracle buyout things were not as good toward the end of our contract with our Account Manager.

Lots of features, ease of use, premium price

Bronto has been a great email marketing tool. We didn't run an e-commerce business when we first started using them, but we were still able to take advantage of all of their great features.

Pros

There are a lot of features within Bronto for tracking, analytics, customers, automation, workflows, welcome series, cart abandonment, etc... Great Customer service whenever you need it!

Cons

Comparing to other similar services, you pay a premium price.

Very easy product to use

We are using Bronto for our marketing email messages - product, content, retargeting, and cart recovery.

Pros

I'm finding this software very easy to use, especially for someone that is new to email. There are options to create emails within Bronto with a drag-and-drop feature, or you can upload and edit HTML emails. Customer service has been great.

Cons

It would be great to have more customized reporting tools to help manage email lists.

Highly Recommend

We have thoroughly enjoyed using Bronto and would recommend them. We are able to give feedback easily and using live chat helps us in the midst of a problem, rather than having to wait.

Pros

I like the ease of use and simplicity of the functions. I can do a lot with the tool, even if what I'm trying to do is complex.

Cons

There are some inconsistencies with some features within the tool, and the reporting is not as robust as we'd like.

Bronto's platform has been a great tool for understanding consumer interest.

The ability to customize deliveries to segments that I want to target. The ability to send dynamic subject lines AND send A/B tests all at the same time.

Pros

The ability to create workflows is one of my favorite things about Bronto. They have really made personalization and segmentation possible for us and I love it! I also like their cart recovery platform and the templates that they provide in order for us to be successful in our marketing messages.

Cons

Their customer support is terrible, and they do not understand their software nearly as much as I do, which I believe is not how it should be. When it comes to the software, I wish they were able to report more accurate revenue, (translate international dollars).

Bronto has a lot of tools

I have to use Bronto every day, so its a good experience.

Pros

There is a lot you can do with it, I am always learning new features. Customer Service is on point too.

Cons

Could be a little more user friendly, but once you figure out how to navigate its really easy

Could use a little work.

Pros

I like The drag and drop feature in the email marketing section of the platform. It’s pretty easy to deal with but there are a few glitches that caused issues when my Trya The drag and drop feature in the email marketing section of the platform. It’s pretty easy to deal with but there are a few glitches that caused issues when my client tried to send out Image-heavy emails.

Cons

Some of the cons were long customer support wait time, being bounced around to different customer support agents and we also had an issue with email marketing data not matching up with our google analytics.

Bronto has created a user-friendly and robust software that I enjoy using day-to-day.

Pros

I like the new drag-and-drop email editor and how easy it is to organize my entire library of marketing and transactional emails. The customer support is superior.

Cons

The work flow when I am entering and exiting emails within the same folders is frustrating as it doesn't remember the last folder you were in - so I am always having to drill down to where I need to be multiple times. Additionally, there have been small bugs that are difficult to work through with support if they can't be reproduced on demand.

Very easy to use, clean platform and can make adjustments quicklly.

Pros

I like the ease of use. I can quickly upload lists and deploy emails whenever it's needed. I like how I can schedule emails days in advance and run tests. I also like being able to easily capture results with just a few clicks.

Cons

Sometimes I find it to be annoying when I'm forced to log back in when I navigate from one account to another.

Bronto is a great ESP for our brands because of the people.

Pros

I like that my rep at Bronto responds to my emails in a timely manner & that the people who are on chat are helpful and knowledgeable about the software.

Cons

I'd like for the Bronto interface to be more customer-centric. For instance, it's hard to create automated deployments based off of certain customer segments and site interactions. I'd also like for Bronto's script to pick up category and subcategory behavior. Right now we can only target based off of click, product or cart sends.

Good ESP

Pros

Straight forward to use and build emails

Cons

Can be clunky at times and RFM functionality isn't as native as others such as Emarsys

Platform is good. It works but needs some TLC

Pros

Features, support and comoany name behind the product.

Cons

API, integrations, GUI & a few other items.

Execution of email is fairly intuitive and straightforward but with a couple hiccups.

Pros

Drag and Drop editor that supports responsive Drag and Drop workflow editor Opportunity to send behavioral email

Cons

Not being able to kick off a workflow from an existing segment (need to merge into a list to kick off) Reporting not as robust as other ESPs

Experience as a User

I like this ESP much more than our previous one which was Oracle. Much easier to navigate!

Pros

Easy to use and navigate! Reporting seems robust and provides good insight into consumer behavior.

Cons

Customer Support for challenging issues seems to be delayed.

Bronto exceeded my expecations

The ability to create a personalized email experience with the goal in mind of increasing activity, engagement and sales through ecommerce. Using Bronto has allowed us to optimize and maximize the experience through the sales cycle, from start to finish.

Pros

The tools that are built in to help with drilling down audience members and personalizing email creative assets, email designs and templates really has allowed us to get the most out of the program. Its flexible user interface and personalization capabilities stand out to me.

Cons

The process of adding on apps to help with customizing our platform can be a little tedious and lengthy, although very much worth the time in the end, it would be ideal if it weren't really time consuming.

Expensive for the value created

Bad experience in customer service and paying lots of money.

Pros

It has a good database management. It has a corporate backup giving trust in the tool.

Cons

But the tool is old and inflexible. We had a lot of trouble configuring it and at the end we decided to go for a simpler solution.

Full Email Marketing Suite

Being able to have everything autoresponders, webforms and more in one place instead of paying for and integrating lots of software.

Pros

I love that i'm able to map out my workflow for autoresponders, create welcome series on the fly and also use the webform feature on my website. Bronto is a one stop shop unlike it's competitors that are either just for email blasts or has to integrate with 3 different softwares to keep everything automated.

Cons

The dashboard is a little aged, slow to load and some of the features are not initiative. It is functional but could use an overhaul to make it easier for users to get the information they need.

Advanced Use and Excellent Training

Pros

The on-board training and netsuite integration were top notch. I left the launch period ready to send marketing campaigns. I am excited about the opportunity within the program to improve all of our messaging. Also the reporting on email campaigns is excellent.

Cons

The cost is a bit higher than we were used to.

Great customer support

I've used the live chat and my company reps frequently and am always pleased with the service provided. I am responded to quickly and always get my questions answered. If I need to contact someone else, I am given the information to contact the right support team for the questions. Always a pleasure.

Pros

Good customer support and useability

Cons

Hard to learn the program at first but excellent documentation and help section is helpful.

Great platform, robust automation tools.

Pros

I love the powerful segmenting, scheduling and automation tools. The support is always extremely fast to help and will elevate the issue if they can't resolve it. I love the reporting on the programs.

Cons

I find the email editing tools to be cumbersome and hard to use. Templates are not flexible and it's taken me a few years to get the hang of the manual email settings.

Bad Customer Service/Sales Swayed My Decision

I have been researching new email software and talking with MANY ESPs of all market range. I came across Bronto and was intrigued by their niche platform. From the start they had tried to position them selves as an "exclusive" platform and made it feel as though you were trying out to gain their services. I received a demo and was impressed by the tracking capability along with the transactional revenue generating component that they have. Unfortunately, when it came to email design they have a dated editor. It wasn't up to par with the more innovated forward thinking programs that I had been seeing. Because of this I wanted to demo the product to see if I was worth dealing with the poor email creation tool, but I was then asked to schedule a third call to explain why I should be eligible for a demo. I then responded that I was unable to attend yet another call because I had other meetings and received a rude email back that implied they were too expensive for us and I would be better off with a lesser ESP. Honestly I was happy to got a sense of their attitude and lack of service before we decided to spend thousands of dollars with them. There must be problems when users try to test the platform, otherwise they would at least offer to screen share and demo in a nice manner. Pros: Great tracking, retail ability, transactional, lots of data Cons: Large but confusing interface, poor email creator program, terrible customer service( even before the sale?), relatively knew and still working out kinks , they don't offer standard features such as surveys, recently acquired so they may become another lost platform with potential All in all hopeful company on paper and seems like they have a decent product but when it comes down to it they weren't a great fit due clunky interface and poor sales tactics

Tons of features with a great UI

Increased ROI from virtually every aspect of our emailing campaigns

Pros

The Bronto mailing platform has ENDLESS features. The team is always willing to help with support and/or special projects.

Cons

It's very expensive and the reporting could definitely benefit from a remodel. Other than the reporting it really leaves nothing to be desired.

Year over Year Improvements

The support staff has helped us evolve and integrate with our website to create a better and more effective shopping experience and marketing strategy

Pros

Ongoing improvements to reporting and new tools for better marketing continue every year

Cons

Nothing...overall we haven't been able to test all the new tools yet.

Email creation has never been easier

Pros

Very easy drag-n-drop email builder. No need to edit the code. This makes it very easy to train new employees that have no HTML experience.

Cons

Cost. A lot of the advanced features are add-on apps that can up the cost quite a bit if you are not careful.

Easy To Use, Social Ad On Needs Work

Pros

The entire system is very easy to work with. From building lists and segments to creating and sending emails, Bronto makes it easy.

Cons

The socialite app needs work. I've had connections with Facebook break with no notice and it can take days to diagnose and correct the issue.

Great service. Reliable. Intuitive.

Increased customer contact, increased revenue

Pros

I've never experienced any glitches. The workflow process is intuitive. This is a workhorse; very dependable.

Cons

Uploading images is a painful process. Too many steps. Also, difficult to add new contacts and to edit customer lists.

The lowest rating I have ever given on here

Good in the very beginning but after client support turnover and a few years, it fell flat.

Pros

I started using Bronto years back, and I was surprised years later to work for another company that had it, and seemingly nothing had changed. They don't seem to be keeping pace with the industry and competitors.

Cons

If you are just getting started and have no plans for growth, then this might be the tool for you. Otherwise, keep shopping. There are many more robust and growing platforms out there.

Good platform

Pros

Does its job, dependable, many features, robust handling of high volumes and many subscribers

Cons

Not super flexible, cant handle some things and need to pay extra to get all types of added features that are a basic part of other systems.

Absolute Garbage

Pros

Only Pro is simplicity of the Automated Message Rules which ultimately leads to a Con as it's extremely limited in functionality.

Cons

Extremely expensive, little to no (poor) support, buggy an outdated software. Requires annual contracts that can only go UP, regardless of business needs... zero flexibility.

Helpful for email marketing and more on a daily basis

This software has really helped me to better understand how to automate my email marketing and reach more people on a daily basis.

Pros

I like that this software helps organize the many aspects of email marketing that I need on a daily basis to do basic advertising for the company I work for.

Cons

Sometimes this software is tricky to use - for me, anyway. I'm less experienced with online marketing software and often take awhile to adapt to new programs. This one, once I became familiar was very easy to use.

Bronto is a good tool for marketing. It is very user friendly and the customer service is helpful.

The ease of scheduling marketing emails. That is all that I use it for, but I am sure others in my organization have other benefits.

Pros

Bronto is very user friendly, and easy to use. The customer service department is very helpful and willing to explain things to you even if you don't understand.

Cons

When I try to upload several pictures into Bronto using Chrome it doesn't allow me to. When I used Internet explorer last time it would not let me either.

They finally harassed us into the software and we're not disappointed.

Pros

After about a year with a phone call every month, we finally decided to try out the software. Once you figure out the basics, it's very easy to use and customize with the use of templates. Spice it up with gifs and other coding even if you're not HTML savvy.

Cons

It does take a little to figure out all of the features with the overuse of subcategories and other things clogging up the site. A simpler backside layout would be great.

I am fairly new to Bronto and I find the platform to have a pretty simplistic UI

Pros

Importing contacts is a breeze along with scheduling emails. My favorite thing has to be the option to set-up an email resend while I am in the process of scheduling an email

Cons

The editor can be a little glitchy at times where it will move the spacer element to a part of the email where I didn't want it. Also, why do the font size go from 18px to 24px? It would be nice to have the option of 20px and 22px.