Bronto

Pros

We started using the Bronto Marketing Platform about a year ago for all of our in-house email marketing efforts. Compared to our previous platform, it was easy to tell that Bronto was a more robust platform from the get-go. It's easy to work with, extremely smart and offers powerful strategies to get the most out of email marketing. This includes automated responders which are helpful for our e-Newsletter welcome email, campaign signups and more. Bronto also allows us to target subscribers based on what content they have clicked on in previous emails. We love the ability to optimize sends by time of day or day of the week and how easily we can segment our lists. Even the reporting within the Bronto platform itself is top notch and provides the detail we need. We've had it for a year, but there is still much more capabilities that we have yet to explore.

Cons

It would be nice if Bronto had an easier way to identify hard vs. soft bounces each email send. You either have to run a segmented report or pull from all contacts in Bronto and sort based on list. It would be great if this was a Legacy Report option. We also track list growth each month in the Legacy Reports, but it would also be great to track segment growth. Right now I jump in at the beginning of each month to compare growth from the previous month for all segments.

Pros

Bronto is logically organized, something which unfortunately can't be said of all ESPs. It offers programs like abandoned cart, email signup modals (layers) with fairly easy implementation. Easy to add variables to subscriber profiles. But the BEST element is the live chat support. These folks truly unlock the potential of the platform.

Cons

It could hold sales data, but doesn't allow you any easy way to see that data in tables. And you can't add tables for ancillary data like "store locations" that would make dynamic content easier. As with any software, sometimes you run into road blocks: they have a site where you can post ideas for the platform and other users can vote on them, but even then these take time.

Pros

In a word, Segmentation. Bronto is one of the best in the industry at segmentation and I can't find much of anything I can't build a segment for. The workflow tools are also pretty nice.

Cons

Bronto is still years behind other platforms when it comes to the data they provide about opens on specific devices. Mobile or desktop are generally grouped and same for the rendering engine of the mail client. This is better than it was but still poor. I would also like to be able to pull proper data from the dashboard instead of being given some arbitrary presets that are never accurate for the timeframe I need them to be. This would help evaluate yearly results and even compare with the same month of the previous year. Bronto only holds 3 months of data by default whereas I have reviewed other platforms that hold 18 months (by default) in order to allow these types of comparisons.

Pros

I like the time release of emails, and the resend option for emails that weren't open. I also really like the list cleaning options.

Cons

It isn't very easy to use on mobile I have to use the desktop version on my phone. I wish there were more ways to learn how to use all of its features. I also think the site can be slow at times.

Pros

Bronto's WYSIWYG user interface to design emails is extremely user-friendly and a knowledge of HTML is not required to design fantastic emails. A code view is available if preferred, and is sometimes needed to add in elements like animated gifs. A/B Testing, delayed sends, and Netsuite integration for more personalized send have all contributed as our email revenue has grown in our time with Bronto.