Act-On now a growth marketing platform, launches upgrades

Act-On recently announced not just a series of upgrades to its marketing automation platform, but also a rebrand.

Act-On's shift from marketing automation to a growth marketing platform is part of a growing trend in the industry, according to experts. Growth marketing uses experimentation to improve and grow target areas.

"A rebrand is not an easy process to go through, and most people are wanting to rebrand to be more aligned with the needs of their customer, versus being aligned to the demands of their product," said Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. "So, they're kind of looking to have not only a branding shift, but also try to change their language so that they are more in line with what their customers are talking about."

The upgrades to Act-On's growth marketing platform include interactive reporting features and changes to the user interfaces for content creation tools.

"We save time on the landing pages and emails and everything like that. It's all super user-friendly, especially for folks that aren't coders, like I've never done HTML code," said Karli Brophy, project manager at HST Pathways, an Act-On user. "So, to have a tool where I can drag and drop and have such ease of use to make things so pretty, it's really convenient for me and my team."

Act-On's product upgrades include:

• SMS messaging. Mobile messaging to connect to an audience and improve workflows;
• Event triggers. Real-time digital messaging based on customer-interaction on any third-party systems;
• Transactional emails. Non-promotional messaging can be sent to customers;
• Zapier partnership. Users can connect to and leverage data collected from platforms including Zoom, Google Suite, EventBrite and Shopify;
• Interactive reporting. Offers insights into campaigns by identifying patterns;
• Enhanced content creation tools. Create and edit content, including landing pages and emails.

Miller said the upgrades to the SMS messaging and event triggers are most interesting because customers are more mobile and need tools that can keep pace.

"[Act-On is] also really understanding how today's customer is far more mobile, and they're taking a lot of their experience both across social as well as email, across moments in time on a very connected landscape that can't just be managed by saying 'OK, I'm going to manage this drip campaign of my email workflow,'" Miller said. "It's really looking to bring the omnichannel solution to the forefront."

Product pricing varies: some features are free; Zapier integrations and other feature prices are based on the package.