SharpSpring Software

SharpSpring is definitely a contender when you're looking for a marketing automation or CRM platform that will allow you to tie easily into your website and trigger actions based on a sales funnel.

Pros

SharpSpring offers some advanced functionality that you would expect to find in much more expensive CRM / Marketing software options, but in a friendly and intuitive interface that invites the user to learn more. I loved that integrating website actions into the platform to trigger marketing emails was so easy to execute, and I was able to use advanced functionality within the platform after only a few minutes of review -- even though I had no training.

Cons

I kept running up against hard stops, and a few system limitations that were frustrating. Integration wasn't as one-click seamless as some of the other CRM/Marketing automation platforms that I've used. However, for a small-to-medium sized business, SharpSpring is a great option. Advanced marketers may find a few expected features lacking or difficult to find, but not many.

SharpSprings capabilities are strong as the leaders in the industry and user interface is intuitive. It is helpful as an ad agency to be able to white label the product as our own and resell it many times over. It provides additional revenue stream on a regular basis. The challenge is having it functionally operate as advertised. We've had a few trouble tickets when we couldn't get it to do what it is supposed to do.

Pros

White Label software with the ability to resell at a profit.
Intuitive user interface.
Provides additional monthly revenue stream for content development and management.

Cons

Functional operation meeting expectations.
Some challenges setting campaigns up and have them working properly without customer service.

Advice to Others

You get what you pay for. SharpSpring is a very viable product with some great promise. My perception is they have a way to go compared to leaders in the category, but they also cost much more.

We've been using and recommending SharpSpring almost exclusively since we started investigating and trying marketing automation platforms three years ago. It's the best of all platforms for our business, which focuses on startups and small businesses.

Pros

Ease of use, affordability, broad functionality and ROI

Cons

Customer service is limited. The agency is the first line of service, with escalation to techs at SharpSpring. but that's also how they keep costs down

Advice to Others

If you already have a marketing automation platform and you have people who are working on them full time and are well trained, there is no reason to switch. But if you are considering getting a platform and your marketing and content teams are inexperienced and under trained, this is a great tool to acquire.

I run an agency and B2B Adwords marketing is a specialty of ours. Integrating Sharpspring with our PPC campaigns allows me to look at the lifetime value of the leads we bring in, and tie specific sales, and revenue amounts, back to my ad campaigns to see real ROI for clients. This is critical for profit-driven marketing. Also, the CRM and tracking features allow clients to more effectively nurture leads across longer sales cycles in B2B and high-value conversions.

Frankly, you don't have to use all of the tools to have it worthwhile. If you have a use case where you're actively selling to customers along a not-short sales cycle you really should have something like this.

Pros

Good company. I had an issue I had to take up with leadership and they solved it in a very fair and honorable way. I CANNOT say that about their competitors.

The value for the toolkit is super good, especially if you get it through an agency as they focus a lot on partnering with agencies.

Cons

They've had some growing pains. Some things are not perfect. But I'd rather work with folks who have integrity and are CONTINUALLY working to improve the product. Other companies spend their money trying to lock you down to use their product. They spend a LOT on marketing. Sharpspring focuses its resources on developing the most awesome product for money out there. It also has a very open API so you can make it talk to other products (like if you already have a CRM you use). Sorry, this is cons. The point is there are some things that are not graceful. Like where you would want a notification that an action is complete but it doesn't tell you and you have to look carefully. Some things are a bit ungraceful. It gets it done, but you have to learn the ropes.

Advice to Others

It's good to work with an agency that knows what they're doing to fully maximize your value. Things go much more quickly with some of the setup and API integrations for someone who does this all the time vs. someone doing it the first time.

Shop around on price if you do go with an agency. Some may have a larger markup than we charge.

This is a good starter software for people with a smaller budget looking for marketing automation. The workflow tool is not good, it takes some getting used to and help from SharpSpring to figure it out. The web-tracking and visitor ID is great! The email builder is good as well and very easy to use. I have not taken advantage of the other tools, like the landing pages, because I like using unbounce for this feature. I had hoped they would create more reporting features, but this is not something that has changed and is rather disappointing. If you want to create a report you must create a list and export.

Pros

I like the email builder, visitor ID, campaign tracker.

Cons

Poor reporting.

Advice to Others

This is a god starter software. If you are working with a separate CRM, make sure the integration will work either directly or through Zapier. We ran into a lot of issues when looking to integrate with a CRM. You're rather limited here.

Product was sold that you could track to keyword level - you can't
Outside of that, the product looks good and has some cool features.
The support on it is a nightmare - they don't do the basics right like answering emails and the support line is barely answered or if it is, then you just get a case logged.

Pros

some of the functionality

Cons

the support - the support - the support!

Advice to Others

it is much harder to implement than how it is sold. Do not expect good support back.
Give it

SharpSpring provides a lot of functionalities for a great price. A few examples: Visitor ID (identify your website visitors), create and customize landing pages and email templates, schedule your emails, set up tasks and workflows and get notifications for almost anything you want.

Pros

Easy to use. A great support team. Every Friday a great and helpful Springboard Live webinar (online training). Responsive mailings. A lot of information about our clients. Some good (basic) email and website reports.

Cons

They've got sometimes a few problems with their software, but they help you as fast as they can. You can add and edit custome fields, but we need more options and it should be easier to use them.

Advice to Others

Take a look at what you want to use. Why do you want to use Marketing Automation? Do you need all the stuff or do you want something in specific? SharpSpring is a great software at a lowe(r) price.

We have been on the Sharpspring platform for nearly a year now and it has changed our agency. Back in the day (you know, a "whole" 8 years ago), inbound marketing and the software that supported its methodology was not a very crowded sandbox. But now there are all kinds of full blown platforms and other software stacks - needless to say, the playground is getting full. What made Sharpspring appealing to us what how it allowed us to "handle the transaction". Our clients know we use Sharpspring but they continually refer to it as if it were "our platform" - this instantly changes the way they (and prospects) see us.

That being said, it has not been without its bumps and bruises. There have been times when features just didn't seem to work or required some guesswork (i.e. - building dynamic lists based on lead info seems to be hit or miss and the email builder is a bit clunky). In all fairness, we have just been too busy to become fluent in all aspects of the platform so this gripe may totally be on us, and not Sharpspring.

All in all, I don't see us moving in another direction any time soon. We are a growing agency and we have hitched our growth to that of the Sharpspring platform.

Pros

Positions our agency as the resource.
Up and running in a matter of minutes.
Because of the quick implementation, a quick ROI to the client is much easier.

Cons

Parts of the platform are still clunky.
On rare occasions, the platform cannot be reached.
Because of its age, integrations are still limited.

Advice to Others

If you are a growing agency or business you owe it to yourself to at least give Sharpspring an opportunity. The way it is priced and is ease of implementation will give you and your clients early wins, especially if there hasn't been a platform like this in place yet in your agency or business.

TLDR:
- Destroyed my SalseForce database
- Terrible support
- Bad sales experience

Let's start at the beginning. The sales process was confusing thanks to SharpSpring's disorganized channel model. I was unable to buy directly from them because I happened to speak to one of their resellers after I initiated a conversation directly with SharpSpring. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but it slowed down the purchase which I was trying to expedite. Furthermore, it took about a month for them to find me two relevant reference customers to speak with about their experiences with SharpSpring.

Next, implementation and support were terrible. Because I purchased through a reseller, I was unable to work directly with the SharpSpring team to get my data imported and integration set up with SalesForce. My reseller didn't have the experience to accomplish these tasks, so they ended up working with the SharpSpring team and looping me into a frustrating game of telephone that further extended my implementation time.

As painful as the sales and support experience was, the most critical problem was the complete corruption of my database. SharpSpring managed to swap data on leads such that email addresses, phone numbers, names, and other data was randomized such that a given lead name could have a different email address and phone number associated with it. I didn't catch this issue until it impacted about 70% of my database, causing complete confusion in our sales and marketing efforts. After disconnecting SharpSpring, I was able to clean up some of the data, but I still have a mess on my hands and have sunk a substantial amount of time into cleaning up my data.

Where was support during all this? Practically nonexistent. It wasn't until I emailed as many contacts as I could find at SharpSpring with the threat of abandoning the platform that I finally received limited help.

Pros

The interface is straightforward and fairly easy to use. However, this does not make up for the company's and product's shortcomings.

Cons

As mentioned above:

- Destroyed my SalseForce database
- Terrible support
- Bad sales experience

Advice to Others

Don't do it. Explore other options. ANY other option will be better.

I am impressed with this product and platform. It has met the challenge of being an automation engine and allowed me to worry less about clients continuous marketing efforts. It has a powerful, easy to use automation engine that has all the triggers, filters, tasks, and workflows you could ever want or use.

Pros

The customer success team and training team with SharpSpring are the best I have ever dealt with. There has not been an issue that I haven't gotten the fully attention of the support staff and the issue resolved quickly. Top notch service.

Cons

The ability to assign leads to a sales team does not exist.

Advice to Others

If you are looking for a comprehensive marketing automation platform, SharpSpring's price point and value are going to be hard to beat.

It was a breeze to setup the support is next level and it cuts a huge amount of resource out of our business. I can't rave enough about Sharpsrping.

Pros

The speed at which we can set things up and get them running for our clients. The support documentation is AWESOME.

Cons

southern hemisphere specialist support. The support docs are great, but sometimes you just need that next level.

Likes Best

It helps us stay in regular contact with clients and prospects and it also helps us understand real prospects and actual sales activity. Even though it's a relatively new product, this is a quality tool for less price than some other similar products.

Likes Least

At this point in our relationship with SharpSpring, we have nothing negative to report.

Recommendations

Sophisticated and easy to setup and use, SharpSpring should help your company get a clearer picture of which marketing strategies are working and help you focus on areas that need more attention.

Likes Best

Simple to learn (little to no training needed); user interface is extremely intuitive. Vendor stands behind their product and is extremely open to feedback. Migrating from our old system to SharpSpring was virtually painless. Pipeline/opportunity management is made so much easier with drag and drop functionality (moving an opportunity through the sales cycle). Great analytics of email campaigns.

Likes Least

No auto-save option (although they give you quite a few save buttons on certain pages, and will also warn you to save before you leave a page); reporting on custom fields is lacking.

Recommendations

Take the time to evaluate your processes before looking for a new system. You might feel pressure to go with a bigger name CRM-type system, but at the end of the day, if you really need to focus on sales and marketing (and nothing else), than you will appreciate the laser-like focus that SharpSpring has on these two functional areas. Sometimes the bigger(and more expensive programs) have more functionality than you will ever need, causing processes to get bogged down. Bigger isn't always better!

Likes Best

I like how organized and intuitive it is. There are reminders everywhere. You are able to clearly see what stage your clients are in and their progress. You can update information and connect your leads to your opportunities

Likes Least

That you have to save everything! If you forget to click save, your work is lost.

Recommendations

I would tell them if they need help with their business, Sharpspring is a great tool for gathering new data and organizing it in a clear and effective way.

Likes Best

It can be customizable and seems to have many potential uses.

Likes Least

It's not a very user-friendly interface, it's not intuitive.

Recommendations

Really take the time to decide what you want out of the system, how you want to use it, and then really learn the system before you roll it out with your company/team.

Likes Best

The user interface is relatively simple. It's easy to use and has a decent sales pipeline system.

Likes Least

Sometimes various functions don't seem to work. It's a very basic system and doesn't provide reports on everything you might need.

Recommendations

Take stock of what you need your CRM to do before investing in SharpSpring.

Likes Best

Allows you to track your clients. This website allows you to track your clients step by step which is extremely handy.

Likes Least

I am still learning but the process is a little confusing with multiple pages and links.

Recommendations

Have a main page per client and then can branch off there instead of multiple pages for multiples different things

Likes Best

It is a great way to keep track of all the leads and updates on sales. You can see where and when each lead used the website and what they clicked on.

Likes Least

I wish it would connect with QuickBooks - Would make the information transfer over so much easier and less time consuming.

Recommendations

Make sure you know exactly how the software works and how to utilize all of its features. We did not know all the features it had for a while and were getting tired of using it as it seemed ineffective.

Likes Best

I don't like this product. It might be well suited for someone who is very interested in sales and there seems to be a lot different ways to use this product. But it's not something i'm interested in spending as much time as it would take to learn how use all those functions. So, good selling point for others, but not user friendly for me.

Likes Least

I find it kind of difficult to navigate and I it is extremely confusing figuring out how to save date entered in each tiny little section. there isn't an overall save button, so if you don't click save in each section, you lose a lot of what you've entered. there are way too many things to navigate on the site and I find difficulte to figure how to get from one service to another. Retyping in names and company names as lead's is way too much trouble. I also don't like that you send multiple emails to notify of one lead. Pop ups, every time you click to different page you have to x out of are annoying. Lead assignments are confusing. The Pipeline is confusing to navigate. This could all be because we were not trained how to use the system from the start and the company has decided to use it differently over time, but even still, this system is confusing.

Recommendations

Learn everything you can from the start. If you start using it one way, or certain portions of it, and then add uses, it will confuse you.

Likes Best

I like that the fields it includes and the data it can derive quickly.

Likes Least

It is not user friendly, you have to save almost every field you fill out, going back and forth from lead to lead is very difficult.

Recommendations

Yes, it looks pretty and derives data, but if the data is so difficult to input, save, and go back and check out, it isn't worth it.