Ontraport CRM Software

Key Features of Ontraport CRM Software

Ontraport is a comprehensive CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software designed for small businesses and particularly suitable for coaches, teachers, and businesses focused on information products. As a multifaceted platform, it offers a range of features that cater to various aspects of sales and marketing.

Key Features of Ontraport

1. Advanced CRM System: Ontraport provides robust tools for managing customer relationships. It includes features for contact list building, segmenting contacts based on custom fields and behaviors, and tracking customer interactions like appointment history, account activity, and purchase history. This system aids in tailoring marketing campaigns to customer preferences​​.
2. Design Elements: The software includes a block-based, drag-and-drop editor for creating emails, funnels, landing pages, and sign-up forms. It offers pre-built, customizable templates that are responsive, enhancing the user experience in design and deployment of marketing materials​​.
3. Email Marketing Campaigns: Ontraport supports diverse email marketing needs with three different editors: a Simple Mail Editor for text-focused emails, the OntraMail Editor for graphical newsletters, and an HTML Editor for more technical users. The visual campaign builder feature allows for the creation of detailed marketing workflows and running A/B tests​​.
4. Automation: A significant aspect of Ontraport is its ability to automate various business processes, such as marketing campaigns. This automation extends to different stages of the customer life cycle, enabling businesses to nurture leads effectively and manage them through sales funnels based on their preferences and behaviors​​.
5. Webinar Service: Ontraport includes built-in support for webinars, allowing businesses to offer a more personalized experience to their customers. This service covers the entire process, from recording and storing webinars to scheduling and sending automated reminders and follow-up emails​​.
6. Time Zone Delivery for Emails: Recognizing the importance of timing in email marketing, Ontraport provides a feature to send emails at specific times across different time zones, ensuring optimal engagement with the audience​​.
7. Membership Site Support: The platform is well-suited for businesses offering subscription-based services. It includes a membership site builder with functionalities for content delivery automation, login features, and management of subscription fees​​.
8. Ecommerce and Payment Features: Ontraport supports online selling of both physical and digital products. It offers tools for creating order forms, managing upsells and downsells, handling payment collections, and reducing abandoned carts. The platform supports various payment plans and subscription models​​.
9. Reporting and Analytics: Ontraport provides comprehensive analytics and reporting features. These include tracking of email campaign metrics, customer purchase history, demographic performance, and the effectiveness of individual marketing funnels. This data helps in making informed business decisions​​.
10. Support Resources: Although Ontraport is known for a steep learning curve, it offers extensive support through various channels, including email, live chat, and screenshare. The platform also provides beginner guides and video courses to assist users​​.

Pricing and Affordability

Ontraport’s pricing starts at $24 a month for a single user, making it an affordable entry point for small teams. It is scalable, offering competitive plans as businesses grow​​. The comprehensive package at $297/month includes a wide range of features, two hours of free onboarding calls, and a 90-day risk-free guarantee​​.

User Experience and Reputation

Ontraport is highly regarded for its affordability, community support, and unified system that integrates various marketing tools into one platform. Its updated interface (version 4.0) has been praised for being bold and user-friendly​​. The platform is particularly well-suited for small businesses, bloggers, coaches, and online training companies, as reflected by its growing user base​​.

Overall, Ontraport stands out as a versatile and user-friendly CRM and marketing automation tool, offering a wide array of features and capabilities that cater to the diverse needs of small to medium-sized businesses in various sectors.

Performance

The performance of Ontraport is varied, as reflected in user experiences across different industries and use cases. Here are some insights based on user reviews:

1. Versatility and Powerful Automation: Ontraport is praised for its powerful and flexible features, particularly in automation. It allows users to intelligently segment customers, providing a comprehensive CRM to track interactions and troubleshoot errors. The software’s capability to handle multiple business aspects without external developer support is a significant advantage. However, its extensive functionality can sometimes be overwhelming and potentially lead to a confusing user experience due to its flexibility​​.
2. Advanced User Experience: For experienced users, Ontraport offers comprehensive tools for marketing automation and advanced marketing campaigns, including lead generation and sales. The platform is specifically well-received by advanced users who can fully leverage its capabilities. However, the complexity of its user interface, especially in metrics and reports, can be challenging. It requires a deep understanding of the system to efficiently use these features​​.
3. Technical Challenges and Learning Curve: Some users have reported issues with automation not functioning as expected, leading to significant time and effort spent troubleshooting. The user interface and the process of setting up automations can be complex and time-consuming, particularly for users who are not technically proficient. This complexity extends to the page building tool, which can be glitchy and sometimes freeze​​.
4. Integration and Dashboard Limitations: While the automation features are highly regarded, Ontraport’s connectivity with other platforms and the effectiveness of its tracking and dashboard have been criticized. Compared to similar tools like Keap, some users find Ontraport’s tracking and dashboard features less efficient​​.
5. Customer Support and Learning Curve: The customer support is generally viewed positively, with responsiveness and helpfulness being highlighted. However, there is a notable learning curve when using Ontraport, especially for solo entrepreneurs or small teams without technical expertise. This can pose a challenge in efficiently utilizing the software’s full capabilities​​.
6. Comprehensive Campaign Features with Challenges: The software’s campaign feature is comprehensive and becomes easier to use with understanding. However, challenges in customer support knowledge, lack of autosave features, and limitations in email template customizability have been noted. Users also mention issues with email templates’ alignment and lack of mobile preview​​.
7. Digital Marketing Tool Efficiency: Ontraport is appreciated as a complete digital marketing tool, allowing users to manage entire campaigns, including email marketing and SMS reminders, in one platform. This integration across various marketing channels helps in analyzing and identifying broken parts of a sales funnel. However, the tool is not straightforward to use, and even long-term users sometimes struggle to maximize its potential​​.

In conclusion, Ontraport offers a range of powerful features suitable for advanced users and those requiring extensive automation and marketing tools. However, its complexity and steep learning curve can be challenging, especially for less technical users. While customer support is generally viewed positively, the need for more technical understanding to fully leverage the platform’s capabilities is evident.

Pros

1. Affordable Pricing: Ontraport offers competitive pricing with no setup fees and a comprehensive range of features, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses. Their plans are scalable, accommodating business growth without the need to switch systems​​.
2. Excellent Customer Support: The platform provides award-winning customer support via phone, chat, and email during business hours. Their support team is known for being responsive and helpful, consistently maintaining high customer satisfaction rates​​​​.
3. Unified System for Marketing Automation: Ontraport integrates various marketing tools, including emails, landing pages, and ecommerce, with CRM functionalities. This unification allows for efficient targeting and conversion of leads into customers​​.
4. Advanced Marketing Campaign Capabilities: It offers advanced features for marketing automation and campaign management, including lead generation and sales tools like one-click upsells, suitable for users with a deep understanding of such systems​​.
5. Comprehensive Campaign Features: The platform’s campaign feature is comprehensive, providing functionalities like custom fields, link tracking, and automatic tagging, which are highly valued by users​​.

Cons

1. Complex User Interface: Despite its capabilities, the software’s user interface, particularly in areas of metrics and reports, is considered complex and requires many filters to extract desired information​​.
2. Technical Challenges and Bugs: Users have reported issues with automation not functioning properly, page building tools being clunky, and a confusing structure for setting up automations. These issues can lead to significant time consumption and frustration​​.
3. Limited Integration and Dashboard Functionality: Ontraport’s connectivity with other platforms and the effectiveness of its tracking and dashboard are seen as limited, especially when compared to other software like Keap​​.
4. Steep Learning Curve: The platform has a substantial learning curve, and its terminologies differ from other similar programs. This can be a challenge for solo entrepreneurs and small teams without technical expertise​​.
5. Rigidity in Email Templates: The email templates provided by Ontraport are considered too rigid by some users, lacking flexibility in customization and alignment. Additionally, there is no mobile preview for email templates, which can be a drawback in today’s mobile-centric world​​.
6. Limited Text Message Notifications: Ontraport allows texting contacts, but the notifications for text message replies are reportedly nearly non-existent, which could be a drawback for businesses relying on SMS communications​​.

In summary, Ontraport is a feature-rich and affordable CRM solution with excellent customer support and advanced marketing capabilities. However, its complexity, steep learning curve, and certain functional limitations may pose challenges for some users, especially those who are less technically proficient or require extensive integration with other platforms.

Conclusion

Ontraport, as an all-in-one CRM and marketing automation platform, offers a diverse range of features and capabilities that cater to different aspects of customer relationship management and business operations. Drawing upon various expert reviews and analyses, here is an in-depth perspective on Ontraport:

Comprehensive CRM and Marketing Automation

1. Advanced CRM System: Ontraport’s CRM tools are designed to support the entire customer life cycle, including phases like attract, convert, fulfill, delight, and refer. Its advanced system allows for detailed contact list building, contact segmentation, and engagement tracking, ensuring a deep understanding of customer interactions and preferences​​.
2. Marketing Automation: Ontraport excels in automating marketing processes, enabling businesses to nurture leads efficiently. It offers a visual campaign builder for creating detailed marketing workflows, and the ability to run A/B tests to optimize campaigns. The platform’s automation capabilities extend to managing various parts of the customer life cycle, allowing businesses to group leads based on preferences, behaviors, and demographics​​.
3. Email Marketing: The platform provides three distinct email editors catering to different needs – Simple Mail Editor for text-focused emails, OntraMail Editor for graphical newsletters, and an HTML Editor for tech-savvy users. This versatility ensures that businesses can create and manage email campaigns that align with their specific marketing strategies​​.

Unique Features and Functionalities

4. Webinar Support: Ontraport includes built-in support for webinars, a feature that enhances customer engagement and personalization. It allows recording, storing, and streaming of webinars, and takes care of scheduling, launch, reminders, and follow-up emails automatically​​.
5. E-commerce and Payment Features: The platform supports online selling with a range of e-commerce features. These include drag-and-drop form builders for order forms, tools for managing upsells, downsells, and coupons, built-in payment tools, and pre-made automation sequences to reduce abandoned carts​​.
6. Membership Site Support: Ideal for businesses offering subscription-based services, Ontraport provides tools to create and manage membership sites. This feature is particularly beneficial for educational businesses or those selling information products​​.

Reporting, Analytics, and Support

7. Robust Reporting and Analytics: Ontraport offers detailed insights into various business metrics such as email campaign performance, customer spending, and demographic analysis. This level of reporting allows businesses to make data-driven decisions and identify areas for improvement​​.
8. Exceptional Customer Support: The platform is known for its responsive and helpful customer support team, which assists users through various channels including email, live chat, and screenshare. Ontraport also has a large user community on Facebook, where users can engage with peers and access weekly tutorials​​.

Suitability and User Experience

9. Ideal for Specific Business Types: While Ontraport is a powerful tool for businesses with a focus on educational content, membership sites, and information products, it might not be the ideal choice for startups or small business owners due to its complexity​​.
10. Ease of Use and Learning Curve: The platform’s user interface is intuitive and built around a Page Builder, but there is a notable learning curve. Despite this, Ontraport’s support infrastructure helps users navigate and effectively utilize the platform​​.
11. Customization and Flexibility: Ontraport stands out for its high degree of customization, allowing businesses to tailor the platform according to their unique needs. This adaptability extends to its CRM, email marketing, automation, and e-commerce features​​.

Overall Assessment

Ontraport is often likened to a “Swiss Army knife of CRMs,” offering a versatile and integrated solution for business automation. It’s a powerful tool for businesses looking for an all-in-one system to manage customer relationships, automate marketing processes, and support sales and e-commerce operations. However, its complexity and steep learning curve may present challenges for smaller businesses or those with limited technical expertise. The platform is particularly beneficial for businesses in the coaching, consulting, or online business sectors, offering unique features like membership site and affiliate management​​​​.

In conclusion, Ontraport is a feature-rich CRM and marketing automation platform suitable for businesses seeking a comprehensive solution for managing customer relationships and automating marketing and sales processes. Its advanced features, combined with robust support and reporting capabilities, make it a valuable tool for businesses aiming to enhance their customer engagement and operational efficiency.

FAQs