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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
55
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
SAP Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
7th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Resource Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 22.8%, down from 25.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Marketing Cloud is 5.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

SantoshKrishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
The encryption and decryption have room for improvement. We need to be confident that the customer's data is secure when shared outside of the organization. I would like to request additional mobile app features that go beyond push notifications. As the mobile development industry continues to advance with new technologies, such as AI components, it is important to consider these advancements when setting up campaigns. Currently, campaigns are scheduled to be sent to customers at a prescribed time, but they may not be relevant to the customer unless they see them as valuable. For example, if I want to run a campaign offering loans, I would need to consider the customer's needs and balance. In the future, I hope Salesforce can incorporate an AI component that utilizes the shared data, rather than just scheduling campaigns.
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

"I think the product's best feature is its analytics, as that's where customers derive value. The second thing is its ease of implementation."
"The most valuable feature is the 'Accelerators', which are expert-taught subject matter webinars on items such as personalization of emails and SMS to contacts and prospects."
"The notification system for customer alerts, including the integration of various communication channels such as email, SMS, and mobile push, is excellent."
"You can schedule reports, there's a lot of supporting tools, and you have access to all that information."
"We use Marketing Cloud for marketing campaigns and engaging customers. It is a business-focused application for a specific area of business, which is acquiring customers."
"It makes it easy for a business to use any module based on their preference."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to get quotes out in a timely manner."
"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."
"Segmentation and campaigning are very important features."
 

Cons

"Marketing Cloud should change the script language that it uses because it's not good. It's tricky and difficult to develop."
"Managing large volumes of data takes too long."
"The performance is sometimes sluggish, but I think that's to be expected with a heavy CRM tool because they're running reports in real-time on the data that you have entered."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud should provide some debugging facilities for every user."
"We need a development environment for Marketing Cloud. Currently, there is no development environment for this solution. Other Salesforce products, such as Sales and Service Cloud, have a development environment in which the developers can do some things and then post them in production. Currently, everything happens in the production for Marketing Cloud. There is only one environment, and the developers and the end-users have to work in the same environment, which seems to be challenging. If Salesforce can bring a developer environment for Marketing Cloud, it will be good."
"The customization of Salesforce, a generic CRM software, has room for improvement."
"There is a lot of room for improvement in Salesforce Marketing Cloud's dashboards and the visualization of information in each journey."
"User management could be better."
"Email response could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"The price is expensive."
"We did a yearly license. We negotiated and got a great deal. I don't think we would have gotten far with the regular price, but they negotiated, so it was worth that."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."
"It is a license per user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

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 needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email.
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: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.