Tips
One question we get asked every now and again is how Inntopia Marketing Cloud compares to Ascent360. Both of these platforms are CRMs, both are CDPs, and both serve the resort and hotel space. On the surface they seem similar, but what are the differences? Before I jump in I want to say right up front that Ascent360 is a solid team doing some good work.
They have, however, taken a very different approach during the last few years that comes with some significant tradeoffs. In order to understand those tradeoffs and differences we first need to talk about what it takes to build a modern CRM or CDP.
In order to build an effective CRM and CDP in the resort and hotel industry you need three key things.
The primary difference between Inntopia Marketing Cloud and Ascept360 all stems from the approaches we both take to solving these three problems.
Inntopia Marketing Cloud and Ascent360 have a similar number of hospitality-specific integrations, the difference is in the depth, quality, and accessibility of the data. One thing we’ve heard consistently over the years as marketing teams have switched to Inntopia is how good our data quality is relative to other platforms. Households are more accurate, we’re able to better visualize the migration of guests between products, resorts have more control over ways to target specific guest types, and we are more experienced at working with layers of data when a resort or hotel is part of a larger portfolio.
This is also true of the accessibility of their data once it’s aggregated. I was speaking with an Ascent360 user recently who wanted to use other AI tools to analyze data and build campaigns, but expressed frustration that they simply didn’t have enough access to their data to do so.
One of the most common, consistent reasons resorts and hotels leave Ascent360 and come to Inntopia Marketing Cloud is the level of support they receive. As we’ll talk about in a moment, Ascent360 invests more heavily in engineering than support. That does open up some opportunities, but it also comes at a cost.
A resort that recently switched told us that they had tough deliverability issues, never got a single automation running, and support was poor when they tried to get help. They said they always felt like they were on their own.
Inntopia Marketing Cloud has assembled an account management team with over 75 years of combined resort marketing and CRM experience at brands like Wyndham, Vail Resorts, and Telluride. Our account managers aren’t just a support team, they are strategic partners for each resort they work with. Most of our clients also describe their account managers as an extension of their team.For example, a beach resort client recently said:
“I’d share a concept with our account manager and her reply would always be, ‘That sounds great, I can do that for you.’ I wasn’t used to that and would clarify that I was happy to do it, but her proactive attitude and willingness to jump in and help has been priceless.”
And it’s not just us saying this. As Vantage Point put it in a recent research article about why CRM initiatives fail:
“Most CRM implementations don’t fail because of the software. They fail because of predictable, repeatable mistakes in scope, adoption planning, and post-launch support.”
Support has always been a huge priority for us. And it’s why, in almost every customer story we write, the resort or hotel mentions how amazing their account manager is and how integral they were in their success.
Perhaps the biggest difference when considering Inntopia as an alternative to Ascent360, however, is the marketing technology resorts on each platform use to turn their data into revenue. In a sentence:
There are certainly tradeoffs to both. Ascent360 has more control over their UX/UI, but with that control comes the responsibility to build and maintain it. That’s a much harder task that it appears on the surface and it’s why modern marketing platforms like ActiveCampaign have product and engineering teams in the range of 400-500 people. Even Klaviyo, who is building a UX/UI on top of the Twilio APIs just like Ascent360 is, has an engineering team of over 550 people.
In other words, Ascent360 is trying to build a modern marketing technology platform with roughly 2% of the resources that other companies require to do the same thing.
This is a big reason why we’ve chosen to integrate with ActiveCampaign. Not only is their platform an incredible blend of being both easy to use and extremely powerful to a level that would be virtually impossible for a team our size to build, it will continue to evolve and keep up with trends regardless of how busy our team gets. For example, in the last 12 months ActiveCampaign has shipped nearly 40 major, AI-related updates to their platform.
Even better, ActiveCampaign has branding and SSO tools that are allowing Inntopia Marketing Cloud to blur the lines between the platforms and give users that all-in-one experience that doesn’t require multiple logins without having to build the entire marketing platform in-house to do so.
One important thing to point out is that Ascent360’s more basic marketing technology and data layer isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’re at a small hotel or ski area, that simplicity might be perfect for you and might make Ascent360 a better alternative to Inntopia Marketing Cloud. It’s why their pricing starts at just $500 because their clients do tend to skew toward smaller brands with basic needs.
If you need something more powerful, with more accurate data, better marketing automations, and deeper reporting? Then Inntopia Marketing Cloud is probably the better alternative. It’s why our pricing starts at $750 because you’re getting a much more powerful product with a support team behind the scenes ready to help you take full advantage.
Inntopia Marketing Cloud and Ascent360 are both CRM and CDP platforms designed for resorts and hotels, but they take different approaches to data, support, and marketing technology. Inntopia Marketing Cloud focuses on deep, high-quality hospitality data, resort-industry expertise, and powerful marketing technology through its partnership with ActiveCampaign, while Ascent360 takes an all-in-one, in-house approach, with more basic data and marketing technology. The result is two platforms suited to different needs: Ascent360 may be a good fit for smaller properties seeking a simpler, more affordable solution, while Inntopia Marketing Cloud is designed for resorts and hotels that need more effective marketing automation, deeper reporting, accessible data, and experienced support.
