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One of the most powerful areas of any business is a solid customer relationship management system. It’s no secret that any business that does not have a solid customer relationship management plan in place is destined for failure.
That being said, it’s no surprise that CRM is the fastest-growing software market, in fact, revenues are expected to surpass $80 billion by 2025! However, CRM is just one piece of the puzzle, there are many moving parts a successful online business must-have, another one is having a solid email marketing plan in place.
The largest share of a digital marketer’s budget is dedicated to email marketing. Furthermore, it’s estimated that the U.S will spend over 350 million dollars in advertising via email! (Super Office). This is expected as marketers are seeing a Return on Investment of $41 for every $1 spent on email marketing.
As a digital marketer myself, I know the importance of having an email marketing strategy paired with a solid CRM but more importantly I know the major benefits of automation. However, finding a platform that combined the three of these is not easy.
So I decided to do my research to find an email marketing tool that took full advantage of both automation and CRM, that’s when I came across Ontraport. I stripped the platform down to its bare bone and analyzed everything about the platform in order to produce a mind-blowing review.
So without further ado, let’s dive straight into this Ontraport review.
Related: The 9 Best Email Marketing Tools of 2020!
Table of Contents
What is Ontraport?
In a nutshell, Ontraport is the ULTIMATE marketing automation tool. That’s it. ROLL CREDITS! No really, that’s all Ontraport is, it’s a software that was designed to make automation easy and it has done just that!
Ontraport seamlessly connects every tool that you will need to make automation possible. These tools include CRM, emails, SMS, Landing pages, and much much more! Don’t worry, we will be diving deep into each of these tools later down in this Ontraport review.
Founded in 2006 by Landon Ray, Ontraport has grown to a team of over 120 employees and has helped thousands of business owners across the globe! They have even helped some of your favorite brands like Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, and HuffPost.
Ontraport has a very simple mission and that’s “To support entrepreneurs in delivering their value to the world by removing the burden of technology”.
Here’s what Ocean Robbins from Food Revolution had to say about Ontraport:
“Ontraport’s the real deal. They’re actually out to help people and work with entrepreneurs to help us succeed.”
Fun Fact: In 2012 Ontraport landed on Inc. 500’s list of Americas Fastest-Growing Private Companies. This was thanks to their three-year sales growth of 3001%!!!
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
What are Ontraport’s best features?
Ontraport is PACKED with amazing features that make it an amazing platform. Here’s a list of Ontraports best features:
- Ease of Use
- Marketing Automation
- Email Marketing
- Landing Pages
- Marketing Analytics
- Referral Programs
- CRM
- Process Automation
- Membership Sites
- SalesForce Automation
- ECommerce
- Ontraport Integrations
Now, let’s take an in-depth dive into each of these features in detail!
Ease of Use
What good is using a platform if it isn’t easy to use? Ease of use is incredibly important when it comes to operating any software product. In fact, I never actually use a product if it isn’t easy to use.
In order to talk about Ease of Use, we have to talk about the first thing that you come across when you join Ontraport and that’s the dashboard. Now despite the fact that the dashboard is organized quite nicely and it is easy to maneuver, it isn’t modern or very inviting to use. I personally love to see charts and maybe even some graphs on my dashboard but unfortunately, Ontraport doesn’t come equipped with that. However, this doesn’t stop you from doing what you have to do.
Now Ontraport has a TON of tools and features that are there at your disposal to fully utilize and take advantage of. Given the fact that you have access to ALL of these tools it can be a bit overwhelming but thanks to the award-winning customer support, any problems that you may face you can get solved in just a matter of minutes.
The best part is that they give you a 14-day free trial, no strings attached so that means you can test out the entire platform yourself so you can determine if it is easy for you to use. I mean 14 days may not be a lot compared to the other competitors but it still gives you ample time to make a decision.
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
Building Campaigns and Marketing Automation
Automation is the backbone of any successful marketing campaign. Being able to automate your entire marketing effort can literally give you the extra boost that your business will need in order to reach the success you always dreamed of.
I like to think of Ontraport as experts in automation, they have developed tools and features that were engineered to assist you in automating the entire customer journey. This allows you to develop a unique marketing system so you can focus on doing the things you actually like to do in your business!
You can automate anything in the customer journey from lead generation all the way down to post-purchase follow-ups! That gives you the full ability to build campaigns designed to provide an overall amazing experience for your customers providing them with the right message at the right time. Cool right?
The campaign builder by Ontraport is probably the one tool that you will be utilizing the most, I can guarantee that you will be working this tool down to the bone so it would be great if you got used to it from the get-go. This campaign builder is the base where you will be setting up all of the automation!
The campaign builder has everything that you will need in order to begin setting up automation in minutes! Thanks to the graphics you can see how your entire customer journey is mapped out and gives perfect vision on how they are related to each other.
Moreover, creating funnels has never been easier, not only can you build campaigns that are tailored to your customer funnel you can also integrate with everything involved in your customer journey from SMS to emails to every ad that you are running.
Email Marketing
Ahhh email marketing, one of the game changers in every marketer’s toolbox. In fact, 91% of consumers open their email on a daily basis, so it would make sense to have a system that is specialized in email marketing wouldn’t it? Yes. Yes, it would! Thankfully, Ontraport has just that.
Ontraport gives you everything that you will need in order to create highly converting and interactive email marketing campaigns. You are equipped with everything from amazing templates to images, videos, and buttons that are designed to improve the overall Click-through-rate of your emails.
Editing and building out these emails are also pretty easy to use and you can grasp the concept of setting up your first email pretty easily. This is all thanks to the block-based editor which means you will never have to build any campaigns from “scratch”, all you have to do is place the appropriate blocks in the right places. The only downside would be the fact that there is no specific page for sending out broadcast emails, however, this is all managed in the Contacts page.
My favorite part about the email marketing system has to be the fact that Ontraport has developed automated email re-engagement campaigns that allow you to remove unresponsive contacts while reconnecting with old ones.
The cherry on top has to be the reporting section which gives you a birds-eye view of everything that you will need to see in order to improve your email marketing campaigns in the future! You can track everything from the bounce rates to how many times your emails have been opened.
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
Landing Pages
Building a landing page is quite important for any business that has a sales funnel as apart of their marketing campaigns. Ontraport gives you all the necessary equipment that you would need in order to build professional-looking landing pages in no time at all! You don’t even need a designer to begin bringing your landing pages to life!
There is a WIDE range of templates that you can choose from to begin building out your own custom landing page. Furthermore, Ontraport does an excellent job of giving you access to a ton of features that are necessary when it comes to constructing a mind-blowing landing page.
Aside from just having a nice looking landing page you are also given the tools necessary in order to improve the overall functionality. For example, if you are selling a product you can easily get this set up and active on Ontraport landing pages in no time at all!
Needless to say, all templates are completely mobile-friendly which is perfect in this day and age where everyone is conducting business using their phones.
Related: 13 Best Landing Page Builders (MUST READ)
Marketing Analytics
Now, this is another MUST when it comes to setting up your marketing campaigns. Being able to measure your marketing results places you in the perfect position to improve your marketing campaigns across the board and who doesn’t like to see improved results? I know I do.
Ontraport everything that you need to know about the performance of your campaigns all from the simple click of a button. You will be provided with all of the information you need to know about your campaign’s performance.
Knowing your analytics will give you a clear idea of how your leads are interacting with your campaigns whether that may be across an email or on your expertly built landing pages. You can track every click and exactly where your leads are coming so you can get a birds-eye view of the impact they are having on your promotions.
Moreover, this would give you the insight that is needed in order to increase your conversions across the board! In other words, you will be able to see which lead source is generating the highest Return-on-Investment.
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
Referral Programs
I found this actually quite unique and a necessary asset to the success of any business. In a nutshell, Ontraport gives you the power to start your own referral program for your business. Now that’s what I’m talking about!
This is no doubt an excellent way to drive more sales for your business by creating your own crew of influencers. The best part is that it will cost you absolutely nothing to reach these new customers.
Creating a referral program is actually not that hard to do on Ontraport. You just need to follow the step-by-step wizard that holds your hand and guides you through the entire process. Needless to say, there’s an excellent tracking system in place which allows you to see exactly who is bringing in these referrals!
Customer Relationship Management
This has to be the heart and soul of Ontraport. Ontraport wouldn’t be Ontraport if it wasn’t for the work and effort they placed in building out the CRM! In a nutshell, Customer Relationship Management allows you to manage your customer’s data all from one central location.
This is one of the best ways to maintain a solid relationship with your customers by keeping track of all the contact information, how they engage with your business online, and of course how many purchases are being generated.
Ontraport also has an interactive and huge database that allows you to keep up to date with every prospect and customer who joins the system. That means you can see each customer’s purchase history, engagement history, appointment history, and a few more options.
My favorite part about the CRM has to be the ability to segment your list based on the criteria that you have chosen. For example, you can segment your contacts based on lead source, engagement, purchase history, contact demographics, and much much more!
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
Process Automation
As discussed earlier, automation is EXTREMELY important to the success of your marketing campaigns. There are tons of moving parts in your business that need to be automated so Ontraport developed a system that provides the all-in-one solution to automate every process that is involved in the customer journey.
This allows you to automate your most time-consuming tasks for example following-up. Imagine if you had to manually follow-up with each customer, you would spend hours if not days responding to each contact individually.
Automation also puts you in the perfect position to scale your business as you can streamline every process with the goal in mind of increasing the output of your entire team which will result in long-term success.
Membership Sites
The popularity behind membership sites has been increasing tremendously over the last couple of years and they are continuing to get bigger and bigger every day! Thanks to Ontraport you can create, launch, and manage an entire membership site all from the comfort of one platform.
Thanks to the intuitive templates you will never have to create a membership site from scratch in your lifetime! All you have to do is download the templates and begin customizing, it’s as simple as that.
As mentioned before Ontraport is a strong believer in automation so it would make sense that they have a system that automates membership management wouldn’t it? Yes. Yes, it would.
Have a WordPress website already? That’s no problem, Ontraport offers seamless WordPress integration. However, in order to get this done, you have to go through the two plugins, these are the Pilot Press and Ontraport Pages plugin. This gives you the ability to create web forms on Ontraport and embed them anywhere across your WordPress website.
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
SalesForce Automation
By now you should notice that Ontraport absolutely LOVES automation and what better way to optimize your automation system that automating your entire sales process. Through Ontraport you can automate every single point in the process from generating leads to nurturing those leads to getting those leads to purchase from you consistently.
If you have a sales team then this would work perfectly for you as you can streamline that entire process. For example, you can set an automated system in place that tells your sales team exactly who to follow up with and when exactly they should follow-up with them.
My favorite part about the salesforce automation has to be the fact that I can score my leads in order to determine the best prospects. Technically speaking I can rank my contacts based on their behavior and the actions that they take which gives me leverage in order to target the most qualified leads.
To see more information on how Ontraport utilizes the Salesforce Automation click HERE.
ECommerce
It is no surprise that e-commerce is completely dominating the business channels in fact by the year 2021, worldwide retail eCommerce sales will reach $4.9 trillion (Source: Shopify Plus). That is absolutely incredible and if that doesn’t inspire you to take action I honestly don’t know what will!
Ontraport helps you with a piece of this puzzle by giving you the tools that are necessary in order to begin selling your products online. You can even create order forms and embed them anywhere on your website. The best part is that it is completely automated!
Ontraport also integrates with different payment gateways that will help you easily and effectively process and fulfill online orders. Some of these integrations include Stripe, eWay, Payjunction, and Paypal!
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
Ontraport Integrations
What good is having a strong CRM platform but it doesn’t work well with other tools in the market? Well, Ontraport has quite a few 3rd party integrations which include some of the most talked-about landing page builders like ClickFunnels and Leadpages.
My favorite integration has to be the one with Zapier, this is hands down my favorite integration because it literally integrates with everything so once you have Zapier plugged in you should be all set!
Ontraport Pricing: How much does Ontraport cost?
When it comes to pricing Ontraport may be on the more expensive side but considering all of the features that it comes equipped with it is definitely worth the extra buck. Needless to say, it’s one of the cheapest all-in-one marketing automation tools. At Ontraport there are 4 different plans, these are the Basic plan, the Plus plan, the Pro plan, and the Enterprise plan.
The Basic plan costs $79 per month and you get access for up to 1000 contacts, unlimited emails, and one account user.
The Plus plan costs $147 per month and you get access for up to 2500 contacts, unlimited emails, and 2 account users. You also get a free account set up and access to the e-commerce platform.
The Pro plan costs $247 per month and you get access for up to 10,000 contacts, unlimited emails, and 3 account users. You also get a free account set up, access to the e-commerce platform, and email consultation.
The Enterprise plan costs $497 per month and you get access for up to 20,000 contacts, unlimited emails, and 5 account users. You also get a free account set up, access to the e-commerce platform, email consultation, and a personal account representative.
If you have more than 20,000 contacts Ontraport offers custom pricing for all accounts up to 5 million contacts!
It should be noted that if you decide to pay annually you will be given an 18% discount. If you are still curious about each plan you can try them absolutely free for 14 days! No strings attached, in other words, you don’t have to enter your credit card info!
Click HERE To Try Ontraport For Free For 14-Days!!
Ontraport Customer Support
Ontraport is not a simple platform to understand, it has TONS of features and benefits that have made it a force to be reckoned with! That being said there will come the time where you will need to ask a question about how everything is set up and thankfully Ontraport provides just that!
The reviews that I have read on the customer support by Ontraport have been MIND-BLOWING! I decided to check out the customer service myself and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The customer support at Ontraport is definitely award-winning, in fact, they hold a 97% satisfaction rate and it isn’t even offered 24/7!
They provide excellent customer support via phone, live chat, email, and even screen share! Needless to say, they also have a Support Centre that was designed to help you with any questions or concerns that you may have. They have articles that are dedicated to answering any question from how to build a landing page to how the marketing automation works.
I think this is due to the fact that all the customer service representatives work from one location which means that there is seamless communication between support and upper management.
If you need any additional help you can always check out the online courses, live video tutorials, or even the in-person learning opportunities! There is also a HUGE Facebook community with over 10,000 members that can help you with any problems they may have faced in the past.
Ontraport Pros and Cons
Like every other software platform out there on the market Ontraport comes with its fair share of Pros and Cons, here’s a list of the pros and cons of Ontraport.
Pros:
- You can try Ontraport for FREE without even having to input your credit card.
- Ontraport offers FREE migration just in case you are thinking of switching from one of your previous marketing automation tools.
- Amazing customer support
- Compared to the competitors Ontraport is actually really cheap
- Not only is the price reasonable you also have to pay no setup fees and onboarding calls are free!
- This is the only email marketing platform that I have seen offer complete CRM capabilities.
- They have amazing Reporting features that give out all the metrics that you will need in order to make smart decisions about the direction of your business.
Cons:
- They have received some negative reviews on the appearance of their dashboard as it is not as modern and visually appealing as some of the other competitors.
- There may be a slight learning curve due to the dashboard and the overall interface.
Who is Ontraport for and is it worth it?
Ontraport is perfect for the digital marketer who wants a platform where they can control everything automation-related from one centralized place. Ontraport essentially has every single tool that you will need in order to build successful marketing campaigns that will bring you a positive Return-On-Investment.
With no setup fees and a monthly cost that is incredibly less expensive than the majority of its competitors, I can confidently say that Ontraport was designed to even out the playing field that small businesses may not have a chance to play on.
That being said, if you run a business that requires just email marketing to be successful I would suggest you check out a dedicated email marketing tool like GetResponse. I would also say that Ontraport is not for the individual who is running a business that is NOT cash flow positive. However, it’s perfect if you have a business that generates tons of online sales for example an online course or a membership website.
All in all, I would definitely say Ontraport is worth checking out and gives you everything necessary that you would need in order to automate your entire marketing efforts. Still not convinced Ontraport is right for you? That’s okay. You can check out them completely free for 14 days!
Still not convinced? Well here’s what Bianca Gignac from Italian Fix had to say about Ontraport:
“I processed, the other day, $51,000 in sales and I was actually at the park with my kid.”
