Sales Engagement Platform Software – Cloud Ratings Quadrant 2024

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Defining Sales Engagement Platform Software:

Sales Engagement Platform software is a comprehensive product suite designed to optimize and streamline sales processes, fostering meaningful interactions between sales representatives and prospects throughout the sales cycle. By integrating various functionalities such as email tracking, automated outreach, sales cadences, and CRM synchronization, the platform empowers sales teams to efficiently engage with leads, personalize communication, track customer interactions, and manage follow-ups, ultimately enhancing productivity, increasing conversion rates, and driving revenue growth.

Cloud Ratings Chart for Sales Engagement Platform Software:

Over 34,000 customer ratings (inclusive of vendor-supplied NPS data) factored into our category assessment: 

Chart Quadrant Summary:

(Presented Alphabetically by Quadrant)

Leaders – High Market Adoption + High Customer Ratings:

Apollo.io

Close

Groove

MixMax

Reply

Market Excellence – High Market Adoption:

ActiveCampaign

Hubspot

InsideSales

Outreach

Salesforce

Salesloft

ZoomInfo

Yesware

Product Excellence – High Customer Ratings:

Amplemarket

Autoklose

Klenty

Lemlist

Mailshake

Outplay

Saleshandy

UpScale

Challenger – Market + Customer Validation:

ClearSlide

PersistIQ

RevenueGrid

Sales Engagement Platform Software Vendors:

(Presented Alphabetically)

ActiveCampaign – Market Excellence

Amplemarket – Product Excellence

Apollo.io – Leader

Autoklose – Product Excellence

ClearSlide – Challenger

Close – Leader

Groove – Leader

Hubspot – Market Excellence

InsideSales – Market Excellence

Klenty – Product Excellence

Lemlist – Product Excellence

Mailshake – Product Excellence

Mixmax – Leader

Outplay – Product Excellence

Outreach – Market Excellence

PersistIQ – Challenger

Reply – Leader

Revenue Grid – Challenger

Salesforce – Market Excellence

Saleshandy – Product Excellence

Salesloft – Market Excellence

UpScale – Product Excellence

Yesware – Market Excellence

ZoomInfo – Market Excellence

Methodology:

Cloud Ratings Quadrant process combines private vendor responses to our Request For Information (RFI) with publicly visible measures of market adoption and customer satisfaction.

All vendors are presented with the opportunity to complete the RFI. 

The Cloud Ratings RFI focuses on measures of:

  • Customer Satisfaction: Greatest weight is given to internal Net Promoter Score (NPS) data. Why? Certain software vendors are skilled at driving (and often incentivizing) happy customers to submit reviews to popular software directories. This can lead to situations where publicly observable vendor reviews are more favorable than the “silent majority” of customers that do not submit to software review platforms. As such, Cloud Ratings’ use of private NPS data provides a more holistic view of customer experiences. To measure adoption and implementation risk, significant consideration is also given to vendor responses regarding severely negative customer outcomes and retention rates.
  • Market Adoption: The RFI covers a range of traction metrics, including but not limited to revenue, revenue growth, and the current number of customers. Why? Vendors can appear to have an artificially high market share through aggressive marketing spend, public relations, and skillful solicitation of reviews to software directories. Accordingly, Cloud Ratings’ use of RFI-derived information helps provide software buyers with a more realistic view of market adoption.      

G2 Data Partnership: Starting in 2024, Cloud Ratings partnered with G2 to add enhanced data for ROI, implementation timelines, and customer segment mix. However, Cloud Ratings methodology for calculating “publicly visible measures of market adoption and customer satisfaction” is unchanged by this G2 data partnership. Said differently, G2 reviews receive no additional weight in the Cloud Ratings quadrant mapping and ranking process. For clarity, G2 has zero editorial input over Cloud Ratings quadrants. Furthermore, G2 benefits from all provisions set forth in the “Cloud Ratings Disclaimer” section.   

Definitions:

Shaded Areas of Category Chart: Each category of software has a unique likelihood of generating business value and positive experiences for customers. Accordingly, Cloud Ratings customizes the shaded surface area for each category as a visual representation of the zones of positive customer outcomes. A category with higher risk or lower satisfaction ratings (like ERP or HR software) will have smaller Zones of Excellence and Zones of Solutions than a safer, higher satisfaction category.  For Sales Engagement Platform Software, a normalized customer rating score of 4.47 (on a 5.00 scale) was used in setting the Zones’ surface area.  

Zone of Excellence (Light Green): This represents a category’s strongest vendors as reflected by their combination of market share and high customer satisfaction scores.   

Zone of Solutions (Light Yellow): Encompasses vendors with both meaningful marketplace adoption and sufficiently high absolute customer satisfaction ratings.

Notable Vendor: This distinction highlights other vendors identified in the research process as worthy of buyer consideration. Common reasons for Notable Vendors to not be featured in the Category Chart include differing levels of product focus (a secondary feature within a broader suite) or comparatively lower market adoption metrics, especially for earlier-stage companies.  

ROI via G2: G2 asks product reviewers, “How long did it take to go live?” For the ROI gauge featured on each quadrant summary, Cloud Ratings takes the overall category ROI provided in the most recently available G2 Grid report and then compares that ROI against a universe of G2 category ROIs. For Vendor Profiles within this report, the ROI (as measured in payback period months) is inputted from the most recent G2 Grid report.  

Implementation via G2: G2 asks product reviewers, “What is your organization’s estimated ROI on {reviewed_product} (payback period in months)?” Cloud Ratings calculates the median and average category time to live provided in the most recently available G2 Grid report and then compares that implementation time data against a universe of G2 category timelines.

Customer Size via G2: G2 classifies reviewer organizations into three groups: “Small Business: 50 or fewer employees”, “Mid-Market: 51-1,000 employees”, and “Enterprise: more than 1,000 employees.” For the Customer Size row chart on each quadrant summary, the category’s average customer segment data is inputted from the most recent G2 Grid report. For Vendor Profiles within this report, the Customer Size Mix also reflects the most recent G2 Grid report.

Momentum: Derived from sources like RFI-sourced vendor growth metrics and buyer search interest, the Momentum indicator compares a category’s growth rate with overall information technology (IT) spending growth. 

Risk: Influenced by RFI-sourced vendor NPS and adverse outcomes data, the Risk indicator compares the risk profile of a software category to software applications generally. The distribution of strongly negative public user reviews also factors into the Risk indicator level.  

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Cloud Ratings Disclaimer:

Cloud Ratings research analysis and publications represent opinions – expressed at a specific moment in time – and should not be viewed as statements of fact. 

Cloud Ratings is not responsible for any incorrect information supplied by vendors, customers of vendors, or derived from publicly accessible information. 

Cloud Ratings assumes no liability for damages resulting from the application or usage of information, content, or research. 

Cloud Ratings disclaims all warranties as to the commercial success or outcome of any resulting business activities, vendor selections, or investment decisions from the information provided. 

Cloud Ratings does not endorse any solution or service named in its research.

All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only.

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