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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
17th
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 November 2026, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Campaign Automation is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 10.7%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud10.7%
IBM Watson Campaign Automation2.0%
Other87.3%
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."
"The Journey and CloudPages and automation are all great."
"The Salesforce ecosystem is more powerful than Siebel.Salesforce is fully integrated."
"The data management is great; we like how it is organized, and I am able to view the tickets in a well-organized manner, which is quite useful."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"This solution has improved organization brand awareness with prospects and clients."
"The most valuable part of the solution are the selling features."
"The solution is very, very scalable."
"We use it to communicate with our customers, look at the reports to see the communication engagement, and then do sequencing to make sure that there are continuous touchpoints with the client."
 

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."
"This solution could be more user-friendly."
"Technical support is good but could be faster, maybe more knowledgeable, and more customer friendly."
"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."
"Salesforce could benefit by implementing further integration with more platforms."
"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."
"The UA could be better designed for a mobile connection."
"I found that the tool is more complex than expected. It requires a deeper understanding to utilize its capabilities thoroughly."
"Marketing Cloud should change the script language that it uses because it's not good. It's tricky and difficult to develop."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is a bit 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."
"It is a license per user."
"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"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
16%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing 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

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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, Iterable and others in Marketing Automation. Updated: October 2026.
920,223 professionals have used our research since 2012.