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IBM Watson Campaign Automation vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

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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
19th
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 (3rd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Campaign Automation is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 10.5%, down from 20.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud10.5%
IBM Watson Campaign Automation1.8%
Other87.7%
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 Marketing Cloud for marketing campaigns and engaging customers, and it is a business-focused application for a specific area of business, which is acquiring customers."
"The ability to automate processes is one of the most valuable features of Salesforce, which sets it apart from other systems, and we use the journey builder to design a fully automated journey."
"I like this solution because of its versatility."
"The user interface is easy to use, especially for my staff who use assistive technology."
"The Journey Builder and the Email Studio features are most valuable."
"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."
"It makes it easy for a business to use any module based on their preference."
"The Journey and CloudPages and automation are all great."
 

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."
"Technical support is good but could be faster, maybe more knowledgeable, and more customer friendly."
"The data extension tools are not very user-friendly."
"The solution can be difficult to set up for non-technical individuals."
"The product takes too long to manage a large volume of data, it lacks that capacity."
"I would like to see more ways to accomplish specific tasks."
"The pricing is a bit high."
"Managing large volumes of data takes too long."
"Query Studio in Salesforce Marketing Cloud needs to be improved because not all queries are supported and we cannot debug the AM Script or SSJS code, which makes code debugging manual."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"The licensing cost for the solution is on a yearly basis."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"It's normal pricing."
"The price is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise34
 

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?
Regarding areas for improvement, the realization of value from Salesforce Einstein's predictive AI features is a notable challenge. Although the implementation partner highlighted these capabilitie...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
As a consultant, I partner with organizations to optimize their use of Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). My engagement often begins pre-implementation, where I lead the requirements gathering proc...
 

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, HubSpot, MoEngage and others in Marketing Automation. Updated: September 2026.
917,181 professionals have used our research since 2012.