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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
21st
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
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (4th), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Campaign Automation is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 11.7%, down from 23.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud11.7%
IBM Watson Campaign Automation1.5%
Other86.8%
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."
"What is most valuable is that you can schedule reports, there are a lot of supporting tools, and you have access to all that information."
"Marketing Cloud offers a 360 customers experience as it integrates with Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, the CRM portion of Salesforce."
"The AI-powered tools such as Salesforce Datorama and Einstein save time and have an impact on marketing strategy decisions for my customers."
"This solution has improved organization brand awareness with prospects and clients."
"The most valuable part of the solution are the selling features."
"If someone wants to sell their product in a very good manner, they can use Salesforce Marketing Cloud."
"I recommend Salesforce Marketing Cloud; it is easier to implement and cost-effective."
"It is a great solution. I like its stability, scalability, and performance."
 

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."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud could improve by having more graphical options because a lot of tables are now only numbers and percentages and data."
"Managing large volumes of data takes too long."
"We would like an improvement to the 'Einstein Engagement Frequency'; the optimal range of emails that our subscribers will engage with."
"We need a development environment for Marketing Cloud. Currently, there is no development environment for this solution."
"The processing speed, the way information displays, and scrolling options can be improved."
"I've noticed on one-to-one leads, the customer objection option is not available."
"In a future release it would be great to have the ability to connect the data from social media and email marketing and have it in one dashboard."
"The analytics feature needs some improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"This is a low cost solution suited to larger organizations."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"It is a license per user."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"The solution is paid for monthly."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"It's normal pricing."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
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: March 2026.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.