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IBM Watson Campaign Automation 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

IBM Watson Campaign Automation
Ranking in Marketing Automation
20th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Campaign Automation is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 12.3%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud12.3%
IBM Watson Campaign Automation1.6%
Other86.1%
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

it_user701487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Marketing Administrator and Member Web Support at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Valuable features include creating and using defined templates. I would like to see reporting capabilities and graphing reports.
We are currently planning to switch at the end of this year to a different ESP. One reason was that, with IBM's takeover of SilverPop, we did discover that customer care and our relationship/sales manager were no longer responsive or as caring as they had been in the past seven or eight years. The feeling is very different. We had never felt ignored because we are not super-users, but now, we do feel that way.
GauravSingh2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Targeted email journeys have boosted campaign insight and now need better data access and support
I feel that Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be improved in how the data views are accessed; it would be better to have something more physical. With data extensions, you can view them directly, but for data views, it is very difficult as you can only send it out or load it into data extensions. Improvements can also be made in the connections to different external tools such as Azure or AWS. Customer support can be improved in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as sometimes it is not clear what the issue is or how to approach solving it, and it also takes time to resolve issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I love their tech support; they have not been needed frequently, but when needed, they are quick and very knowledgeable."
"We use this solution for reporting, pipeline generation, and forecasting."
"Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud."
"Allows organisations to engage customers with one integrated platform to unify sales, service, and marketing."
"It has excellent lead and opportunity tracking."
"Marketing Cloud offers a 360 customers experience as it integrates with Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, the CRM portion of Salesforce. The different platforms integrate easily which makes it easy to manage customer communication using a single point of truth."
"Overall, I would rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud a nine out of 10."
"I like that Salesforce allows for the integration of different data sources."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides an edge for my organization by tracking the budget, how it is spent, where we stand, and how many cold calls or nurtured calls have been converted into sales."
 

Cons

"One reason was that, with IBM's takeover of SilverPop, we did discover that customer care and our relationship/sales manager were no longer responsive or as caring as they had been in the past seven or eight years."
"If you want to use advanced features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they are extremely difficult to use."
"The dashboards should be more intuitive, as there are far too many items on them."
"The general setup and understanding of how to use it can be improved. There should be easier self-service for setting up dashboards. Currently, we have someone setting them up for us. I wish it was easier."
"They can perhaps simplify the dashboards. In my opinion as an end-user, reports could also be simplified, but it also depends on how your company is set up."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud could improve by having more graphical options because a lot of tables are now only numbers and percentages and data."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud should be linked to an email ID, so the features after 15 days can update on the opportunity. You should not have to update them manually to the next step."
"I would like to see more ways to accomplish specific tasks."
"Clarity around new features could be improved when they are released."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price is expensive."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
"I don't know if my company pays for Salesforce Marketing Cloud monthly or yearly. It's a SaaS, so it's a recurring cost, but I have no information on its price."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"Salesforce is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
I feel that Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be improved in how the data views are accessed; it would be better to have something more physical. With data extensions, you can view them directly, but ...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
The main use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud is email marketing through Salesforce for the B2B segment on a day-to-day basis.For B2B email marketing using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, I can prov...
 

Also Known As

IBM Marketing Cloud, IBM SilverPop
ExactTarget
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The King Arthur Flour, Stonyfield, InsideOut Development, Moosejaw, Big Scary Cranium, Paper Style
American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Adobe, HubSpot and others in Marketing Automation. Updated: May 2026.
892,678 professionals have used our research since 2012.