Apollo vs Salesloft: Best Cold Outreach Tool 2024

Apollo's Sequences feature provides a straightforward way to create and automate outreach campaigns. While it may not offer the same level of complexity as some other tools, it covers the essentials for effective sales engagement.

Key features of Apollo Sequences:

• Automatic email delivery: Set up email sequences that are delivered automatically to prospects.
• Manual email tasks: Create tasks to manually edit and send emails for a more personalized touch.
• LinkedIn integration: Connect with prospects on LinkedIn by sending connection requests and messages directly from Apollo.
• Phone and custom tasks: Add phone calls and other custom actions to your sequences.

Reddit users share mostly positive experiences with Apollo's Sequences feature:

👍 "Apollo has its own email sequence function and they've recently added email warm up too. So really, all you need is Apollo, and nothing else." - r/Emailmarketing

😐 "Set up Apollo.io sequence to automate the flow" - r/Emailmarketing

Salesloft's Sequences feature provides a powerful platform for creating and managing multichannel campaigns to engage with leads and close deals more effectively. The intuitive interface allows sales teams to build complex sequences that incorporate emails, phone calls, and social interactions, all supported by a robust scheduling system.

Key features of Salesloft Sequences:

• Multichannel campaigns: Combine emails, calls, and social touches in a single sequence
• Detailed scheduling: Set specific times and intervals for each step in the sequence
• Campaign overview: Easily view campaign members, upcoming activities, and past interactions
• Email composition: Create personalized emails directly within the Sequences interface

Reddit users praise Salesloft for its ease of use and effectiveness in sales automation compared to alternatives like Hubspot and Outreach.

👍 "Get Salesloft. I have all 3 and Hubspot is not even close on sales automation. Salesloft is… Much easier to use and adopt" - r/sales

Apollo allows users to connect and manage multiple mailboxes for email campaigns, providing flexibility in managing deliverability. However, it lacks some key features that are important for optimizing email deliverability:

• No built-in email warming: Apollo does not offer an email warming service to gradually build up sending reputation for new mailboxes.
• Limited deliverability insights: While Apollo shows basic deliverability metrics like setup progress and hourly sending limits, it lacks detailed data on factors impacting deliverability.
• Reliance on external tools: To effectively manage deliverability, users may need to use additional tools alongside Apollo for warming up mailboxes and monitoring key metrics.

Reddit users share mixed experiences with Apollo's impact on deliverability:

😐 "Allowing link tracking adds some inherent risk when sending emails" - r/Emailmarketing

😐 "Beyond bugs and data quality I've read that it can screw up your domain reputation" - r/sales

Tips shared for improving deliverability with Apollo include limiting daily email volume, crafting personalized content, and investing in additional tools for email warming and reputation monitoring.

While Salesloft does not offer a dedicated email warmup feature, the platform employs best practices to maintain high deliverability rates for its users. By utilizing reputable IP addresses and gradually increasing email volume, Salesloft helps users avoid spam filters and maintain a positive sender reputation.

Key aspects of Salesloft's deliverability management:

• Reputable IP addresses: Salesloft sends emails from well-maintained IP addresses to minimize the risk of being flagged as spam.
• Gradual volume increase: The platform encourages users to gradually increase their email volume over time, allowing recipient servers to recognize the sender as legitimate.
• AI-powered optimization: Salesloft's AI capabilities can help users craft effective follow-up emails that are less likely to be marked as spam.

👍 "Salesloft is easier to use and adopt" - r/sales

Apollo offers powerful email personalization capabilities within its Sequences feature, enabling users to create highly targeted and relevant messages for their sales outreach.

• Dynamic variables: Easily insert any field from Apollo's extensive enrichment database directly into email templates using {{double curly brackets}}. This allows for natural-sounding personalization based on lead data.
• Preview and test: Select an existing contact to preview how the personalized email will render, or send a test email to yourself to ensure the dynamic fields populate correctly.
• Conditional logic: Set up conditional statements to show different message variations based on whether a specific dynamic variable exists for a given contact.
• Additional customization: Beyond dynamic text replacement, users can also personalize emails with meeting invites, Vidyard video recordings, images, and more.

With Apollo's robust contact enrichment as a foundation, the Sequences personalization options give sales reps the tools to craft compelling, individualized emails at scale, increasing the chances of positive engagement and response from prospects.

Salesloft provides robust personalization options within its Sequences feature to help tailor your outreach to each individual lead. By leveraging custom columns and behavioral data, you can create highly targeted and relevant messaging that resonates with your prospects.

• Custom columns: Salesloft allows you to add custom fields for each lead, enabling you to incorporate personalized details like company size, industry, or specific pain points into your email templates.
• Behavioral personalization: The platform tracks each lead's behavior and engagement, such as email opens, clicks, and replies. This data can be used to trigger automated actions or inform your manual outreach, ensuring your messaging aligns with the lead's level of interest and interactions.
• Stakeholder suggestions: Salesloft's AI-powered insights recommend additional stakeholders to engage with based on the lead's role and company, helping you navigate the decision-making process and secure buy-in from key individuals.

Apollo's AI assistant empowers users to generate highly personalized emails at scale, making outreach more effective and efficient. By providing key information about your company, product, and target persona, the AI can craft tailored content that resonates with each lead.

• Customizable content: Users can leverage the AI to generate one-liners, openers, subject lines, or entire emails, ensuring that each touchpoint is optimized for engagement.
• Persona-driven personalization: By inputting details about your ideal customer profile, the AI can adapt its language and messaging to better connect with your target audience.
• Improved efficiency: With the ability to generate personalized content at scale, sales teams can save time while still delivering high-quality, targeted outreach.
• Video call analysis: Apollo also offers the option to automatically record, transcribe, and analyze video call meetings, providing valuable insights to refine your sales approach.

Salesloft leverages AI to help sales reps personalize their outreach and prioritize actions for each lead. The platform's AI capabilities enable users to generate tailored email drafts and receive suggestions on the next best steps to engage prospects effectively.

Key AI features in Salesloft:

• AI-generated email drafts: Salesloft's AI can create personalized email drafts based on relevant information about the recipient, such as their role, company, and previous interactions.
• Personalized action recommendations: The AI analyzes data points for each lead and suggests the most impactful actions to take, helping reps focus on high-value activities.
• Efficient workflow prioritization: By using AI to prioritize actions, Salesloft streamlines the sales process and enables reps to prospect more efficiently.

Apollo's native data enrichment capabilities provide sales teams with valuable insights into their leads, enabling more personalized and effective outreach. By leveraging data from various sources, Apollo offers a comprehensive view of each contact, including their job title, work history, and contact information.

• Comprehensive contact profiles: Apollo enriches lead data with details such as job title, work history, location, and contact information, providing a holistic view of each prospect.
• Personalization opportunities: With access to enriched data, sales reps can craft highly targeted and personalized email campaigns that resonate with their audience.
• Data health insights: Apollo's data health center provides an overview of the accuracy and completeness of contact data, helping users identify areas for improvement.
• Seamless integration: Enriched data can be easily incorporated into email sequences, allowing for dynamic personalization based on specific lead attributes.

By leveraging Apollo's native data enrichment features, sales teams can gain a competitive edge in their outreach efforts, delivering more relevant and engaging communications to their prospects.

Salesloft's Sequences feature does not offer native lead enrichment capabilities. However, it supports integrations with third-party services that can provide additional data and insights about your leads, helping you make more informed decisions and tailor your outreach accordingly.

Key aspects of Salesloft's lead enrichment:

• Third-party integrations: Salesloft relies on integrations with external data providers to enrich lead information.
• Buyer signals: Enrichment data from other sources can provide valuable insights into your leads' interests, behavior, and potential fit for your product or service.

Apollo's Sequences feature allows users to create tasks that go beyond standard email and phone calls, incorporating social media interactions on platforms like LinkedIn. This social automation enables users to engage prospects across multiple channels without having to perform each action manually.

• LinkedIn connection requests: Send personalized invitations to connect with contacts, making a positive first impression.
• LinkedIn messages: Deliver direct messages to contacts you're connected with to build relationships.
• LinkedIn profile views: View a contact's LinkedIn profile to gather key information for more effective engagement.
• LinkedIn post interactions: View a contact's recent posts and interact with them to foster engagement and boost visibility.

These LinkedIn tasks can be prioritized and scheduled alongside other sequence steps, streamlining social selling efforts within Apollo's platform.

Salesloft does not currently offer the ability to send LinkedIn messages as part of email campaigns within its Sequences feature. While Salesloft Sequences provide a range of tools for creating and managing email campaigns, social media automation, specifically for LinkedIn, is not supported.

This means that users looking to incorporate LinkedIn outreach as part of their sales engagement strategy would need to rely on other tools or manually manage their LinkedIn messaging outside of the Salesloft platform.

Apollo offers a range of pricing options to suit different needs and budgets. The pricing model is based on credits per year, with different prices for monthly and annual billing.

• Free plan: Includes unlimited email credits (10,000/month limit per account), 60 mobile credits/year, and 120 export credits/year. Free plan has a 100 credit/month limit for non-corporate email domains.
• Paid plans: Basic ($49/user/month), Professional ($79/user/month), and Organization ($119/user/month, min 3 users). Higher tiers include more mobile and export credits per year.
• 14-day trial: Available for Basic and Professional plans, limited to 50 lead credits per user.
• Enterprise features: Organization plan includes additional features like AI-assisted email writing, advanced security configurations, and a dedicated Account Manager.
• Billing: Monthly and annual billing available, with annual billing offering savings.

To get started with Apollo, users can sign up for the Free plan or start a 14-day trial of the Basic or Professional plans. The Organization plan requires contacting the Apollo sales team.

Salesloft offers three pricing packages designed to fit the needs of different sales teams. However, specific pricing details are not publicly available, and interested customers must contact the Salesloft sales team for a personalized quote.

Key aspects of Salesloft's pricing model:

• No free trial: Salesloft does not offer a free trial period for any of its plans.
• Contact sales for pricing: To get specific pricing information, you must speak with a Salesloft sales representative, who will provide a custom quote based on your team's needs.
• Three pricing tiers: Essentials, Advanced, and Premier, each with an increasing set of features and capabilities.
• Per-user pricing: While not explicitly stated, Salesloft likely charges on a per-user basis, with costs scaling based on the number of users and the chosen package.