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SAP Marketing Cloud vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
SAP Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
9th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Resource Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 21.4%, down from 23.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Marketing Cloud is 4.8%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Napitch K - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration challenges impact workflow efficiency
The features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I have found most valuable are the Journey Builder and Flow. These capabilities are valuable because they make managing automation easy. Automating customer journeys saves time when scheduling content through every channel, and we can set the automation in advance when planning marketing content. The AI-powered tools such as Salesforce Datorama and Einstein save time and have an impact on marketing strategy decisions for my customers. I have noticed a positive impact from Salesforce Marketing Cloud through customer feedback. For example, a customer mentioned after project completion that it had a significant impact on their marketing team by eliminating the need to hire additional staff for marketing content and planning.
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for customer segmentation and campaign management but have slow email response
Deployment is not complex and takes six to eight weeks. You need to understand what exactly it entails. The customer is the client, the business that will use and benefit from the software. We need to understand their business processes, particularly how they want to build the customer profile. Once we understand that, we may need to integrate with various source systems where interactions occur. For example, a customer may purchase many products through Amazon, and the client may want to integrate data from these Amazon transactions to understand the customer's buying patterns. This is a typical e-commerce scenario, not limited to Amazon. So, you connect to a third-party system to extract data and capture it in the Marketing Cloud. You create a customer profile to analyze behavior, such as if a person buys expensive items when they get their salary or during promotional periods. Based on this profiling, you can push targeted marketing campaigns to customers, such as promotions during a long weekend or Easter holiday. Understanding the customer profile is crucial for effective marketing.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is easy to use."
"Salesforce is constantly evolving and have a good release cycle."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud's journey builder is very easy to handle and quickly sets up a journey for clients who use a lot of communication."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the seamless conversion of lead to opportunity, in relation to orders is good. That seamless connection is beneficial and simple."
"It is easy to send emails and SMS's."
"Overall, I would rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud a nine out of 10."
"If you want to be able to communicate with your client using email, WhatsApp, and push notifications, know if the client opened the communication or not, and create and automate their journey, Marketing Cloud is very good."
"We use this solution for reporting, pipeline generation, and forecasting."
"Segmentation and campaigning are very important features."
 

Cons

"They could improve the product's data integration functionality for larger companies."
"Marketing Cloud's forecasting could be improved."
"The quality of support for this solution has been decreasing over time and the support team are sometimes more focused on closing tickets that resolving issues. Often the support team is not well trained or aware of the new features or products released by Salesforce."
"If you want to use advanced features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they are extremely difficult to use."
"It's a very good solution, but the way the prices are structured is not always good, and I feel like that is a problem."
"Clarity around new features could be improved when they are released."
"The customization of Salesforce, a generic CRM software, has room for improvement."
"I've noticed on one-to-one leads, the customer objection option is not available."
"Email response could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."
"It's not cheap, which is why I recommend that you use Marketing Cloud to create automated journeys. If you plan to use Marketing Cloud just to send emails, use another tool."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is affordable, considering the significant improvements it brings to our campaign results."
"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Healthcare Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Datorama is part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is quite a valuable feature that provides customer analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
I did not work on any pricing or implementation aspects but learned on my own when dealing with Revenue Cloud products.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
An area of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that could be improved is the connectivity between Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud platforms. The issues with integration between different platforms arise bec...
What needs improvement with SAP Marketing Cloud?
Email response could be improved. SAP Marketing Cloud may be difficult to sell to a sports club. Sports fans can be numerous, often in the millions or even billions. If you want to reach them, this...
What is your primary use case for SAP Marketing Cloud?
We use the solution for customer segmentation and campaign management. It allows us to capture customer information in a single system.
 

Also Known As

ExactTarget
SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
PT XL Axiata Tbk, Lenovo, Molson Coors Brewing Company, Sailing Team Germany, CHIO Aachen, Danone, Evoshield, Mohawk Industries, FC Bayern Munchen AG, D. SWAROVSKI KG, WeissBeerger, Groupe SAMSE, Cox Communications Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Adobe, HubSpot and others in Marketing Automation. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.