Cerkl Broadcast Reviews

Ease of use, templates and dynamic segments

editor window small and formatting can be clunky

dymanic segments allowed us to save significant time weekly building distribution lists

- We only use the Broadcast email build-and-deliver tool, so tool specific comments are only in reference to that.

- This is a small, high-touch organization. You WILL be important to them. They WILL be responsive to your suggestions and requests. Not all of them will be put into practice - customers have different needs, and recommendations have to be globally applicable - but they listen and give them fair consideration. That's rare, and really welcome.

- Being SaaS, they are updating all the time. With fixes, improvements, added functionality.

- Various users have contacted support now and again (via online chat) and have reported being very happy with the responsiveness. And the person responding *never* gives in to the temptation to tell them that they could have found their answer in the online help documents. That must take an immense amount of self-control.

- All software tools make trade offs between simplicity and flexibility. The more flexible, the more complex (Look at Paint vs Photoshop, or Windows Movie Maker vs Premiere Pro). Cerkl has found a good balance. We have more than 100 users of the tool, with the expected range of technical ability, comfort with new tools, design sense, and so on. Many were intimidated at the prospect of moving from the tool they knew - as unreliable and lacking as it was - to something new. Unprompted, several have subsequently contacted me to say that indeed, as promised, this was better. And it was really no contest. The learning curve is not steep.

- The Metrics (aka "Insights"). We never had them before. I'm like a kid in a candy store.

- The balance between flexibility and complexity is, as noted above, quite good...but never perfect. One example: a lack of ability to word wrap around an inserted image. It's a design decision, made for valid reasons having to do with that balance, but it can be frustrating for people looking to design more complex newsletters, for example.

- The Metrics (aka "Insights"). We know the drill - because someone opened an email does not mean they read it, or understood it, or took action as a result. That's not an issue with the tool of course, but metrics require context. Some of the metrics provided are not useful, and potentially misleading (things like preview panes, and "return to last email opened" settings can badly mess with the (non-unique) open rates). I'd recommend that be removed until it's validated or corrected.

It took us a while to find a solution to replace our existing, homegrown tool, the key aspect of which was integration with our HR database. Cerkl fit the bill, but it took the involvement of dedicated IT resources and lots of testing to ensure it was working reliably and accurately. This is not a reflection on Cerkl at all - rather, its a warning that you'll likely require the comms team partnering closely with IT during rollout.

- This solved two enormous gaps that were present in our prior tool - the aforementioned metrics/insights, and the ability to schedule a send - to "set it and forget it." No longer am I up at 2am to manually approve a broadcast email going to Europe.

- This also forced - in a good way - senders to rethink complex, heavily formatted HTML emails.

I like the ease of compiling newsletters and sending out blasts.

The breaking of RSS feeds and figuring out what happened.

This is an excellent product.

It is the perfect way to compile our faculty/staff newsletter and it's been helpful for different departments to send out their internal newsletters, as well as our internal email blasts.

Within an organization of 10,000 different people with different roles, personalities and communication styles, I see my role as the person who keeps everyone on the same page. To accomplish this, we need an integrated approach. Cerkl gives us tools that allow us to reach each person in the way they prefer to be reached. I also appreciate how their team works with us. They're a true partner.

I can't say there has been much I have disliked. If we have an issue, they work to fix it immediately.

We are a healthcare system that includes 6 facilities and 165 provider offices. Our roles vary from physicians, nurses and other patient-facing positions to IT and other behind-the-scenes support positions. Cerkl allows us to easily segment so that each individual only receives news that applies to him/her.

Cerkl Broadcast brought silo'ed internal communications teams together on one platform so that we can see cumulative analytics, have a consistent branding/look, and target employees with the content that is most meaningful to them. Also, I love the Cerkl team -- Maddy, Robbie, Maria -- with them I feel like we can move mountains together. Their patience, thoughtfulness, and expertise is incredible. For a while there, I felt like I was sitting on the wrong side of the client/platform relationship. ;-)

Sometimes the copy/paste tool in email blasts can be broken (line spacing, etc.), but Maria is always quick to make note of bugs and put them in the queue to fix them. On the client-side, it's confusing to create target segments-- but that's because our data isn't clean (not Cerkl's fault).

Everything I mentioned in what I like best -- before Cerkl we had a clunky email platform that had zero analytics and pointed people to static PDFs to "read more" (gasp!). On my side, I couldn't live with that so I used a demo account of Campaign Monitor to create the emails and send via Outlook. Lots of manual work, which was all solved for with Cerkl.

Getting the right information to the right person is a constant struggle in communications. Before Cerkl, we had various employees spending countless hours manually curating information for specific audiences and creating a push newsletter. Cerkl not only automates this process but allows the end-user to pick the frequency of the newsletter, day/time, and preferred layout.

On top of that, Cerkl uses AI so the materials get more individualized based on the end-users interaction. It learns what they're reading, not reading, and provides the relevant materials in the future. The communications teams still have the back-end ability to ensure any materials we require to be seen by specific audiences still are.

We also use Cerkl Broadcast for certain emails to track open rates, click-throughs, etc.

It's also very cost-effective.

There's not much that we dislike. Our current intranet platform doesn't allow us to maximize the tool. I'd love not to have stories remain on the homepage for individuals that have already read it.

I am getting the right content to the right audience.

Measurement.

We automated a previously laborious process.

The most helpful thing about using Cerkl for corporate comms is the very easy user interface that can be as easy as drag and drop, anyone who isn't super design savvy can easily pick up the tool and maximize its usage. Using templates and dynamic audience segments are great as well.

Wish the analytics (insights as its called in the tool) were a little more dynamic and easy to consume, instead of having to download spreadhseets and processing outside of the tool. It would be awesome to be able to do more with the metrics in tool

Work with the team to optimize for the usage you need

Sending corporate comms across orgs with a similar look and feel has been great, sending easy samples, having people that are not design savvy sending great comms, impersonation for sending comms on behalf of leadership

The automatic content selection based on user/employee.

Cerkl has not limited content based personalation to only OTT platforms.

Infact it has made the power available to business development.

With this a company can track, analyse, operate on the data they are getting for each of their employees.

The mobile view is not that much comfortable.

Layout sometimes can be putting off, which can be adjusted so that we can have the use on the go.

It does not only make the application mobile, but also easy to use remotely.

Rather than using a laptop, the same power can be used in a much smaller size that too at your fingertips.

The only one to get better communication to employees.

What i like the most is its distribution technology it helps me to save lot's of my time and do so cool stuffs in that spare time i really love this software.

Nothing bad in this software all things are too Good!

Use this powerfull tool it is really a great tool it helps you a lot and simplify your job.

Previously i have to manage all the mail personally now when i satart using this software it helps me lot to do so it saves my lots of time.

Cerkl is great product created, it made my work simple

Nothing to dislike cerkl, it's best what i saw

Recommended to everyone to implement this product.

Emails. And all integration