Sales Engagement Platform Software – Cloud Ratings Category Report 2023

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Sales Engagement Platform Software - Cloud Ra…

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 25,000 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

Groove

MixMax

Reply

VanillaSoft

Market Excellence – High Market Adoption:

Hubspot

InsideSales

Outreach

Revenue Grid

Salesloft

YesWare

ZoomInfo

Product Excellence – High Customer Ratings:

Close

Klenty

Mailshake

Outplay

Revenue.io

RightBound

Challenger – Market + Customer Validation:

Amplemarket

ClearSlide

Lemlist

PersistIQ

Notable Vendor

Upscale

Sales Engagement Platform Software Vendors:

Amplemarket – Challenger

Apollo.io – Leader

ClearSlide – Challenger

Close – Product Excellence

Groove – Leader

Hubspot – Market Excellence

InsideSales – Market Excellence

Klenty – Product Excellence

Lemlist – Challenger

Mailshake – Product Excellence

Mixmax – Leader

Outplay – Product Excellence

Outreach – Market Excellence

PersistIQ – Challenger

Reply – Leader

Revenue.io  – Product Excellence

Revenue Grid – Market Excellence

RightBound – Product Excellence

Salesloft – Market Excellence

UpScale – Notable Vendor

VanillaSoft – Leader

YesWare – Market Excellence

ZoomInfo – Market Excellence

Methodology:

Cloud Ratings Category Report 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.       

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 4.50 (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.      

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.  

Related Research:

Demo + Pre-Sales Software

Digital Sales Room Software

Sales Compensation Software

Sales Conversation Intelligence Software

Sales Training + Onboarding Software

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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