Cision
Cision is a comprehensive public relations and media intelligence software that helps you identify influencers, distribute press releases, and measure the impact of your communications campaigns across global channels.
Northbeam
Northbeam is an e-commerce marketing intelligence platform that uses proprietary first-party data and machine learning to provide brands with accurate multi-touch attribution and actionable growth insights across all channels.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Cision | Northbeam |
|---|---|---|
| Website | cision.com | northbeam.io |
| Pricing Model | Custom | Custom |
| Starting Price | Custom Pricing | Custom Pricing |
| FREE Trial | ✘ No free trial | ✘ No free trial |
| Free Plan | ✘ No free plan | ✘ No free plan |
| Product Demo | ✓ Request demo here | ✓ Request demo here |
| Deployment | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Target Users | ||
| Target Industries | ||
| Customer Count | 0 | 0 |
| Founded Year | 1867 | 2019 |
| Headquarters | Chicago, USA | San Francisco, USA |
Overview
Cision
Cision provides you with a centralized platform to manage your entire earned media lifecycle. You can discover relevant journalists and influencers from a massive global database, then reach them directly with targeted pitches or broad wire distributions via PR Newswire. The platform simplifies the process of building media lists and managing relationships so you can secure more high-quality coverage for your brand.
Beyond distribution, you can monitor brand mentions across millions of online, social, print, and broadcast sources in real-time. The software translates these mentions into actionable data, allowing you to track your share of voice and prove the bottom-line impact of your PR efforts to stakeholders. It is designed primarily for mid-to-large communications teams and agencies who need to scale their outreach and reporting capabilities.
Northbeam
Northbeam is a marketing intelligence platform designed to give you a single, accurate view of your entire customer journey. By using a proprietary first-party pixel, it bypasses the limitations of browser cookies and platform-specific tracking to show you exactly which ads are driving sales. You can see how your customers interact with your brand across social media, search, and email before they finally make a purchase.
The platform helps you understand the true return on ad spend (ROAS) by cleaning up messy data and attributing revenue to the correct touchpoints. You can stop guessing which campaigns to scale and start making decisions based on real-time performance metrics. It is built specifically for fast-growing e-commerce brands and agencies that need to optimize high-volume ad spend across multiple digital platforms.
Overview
Cision Features
- Media Database Access a global database of over 1.1 million journalists and influencers to build highly targeted media lists for your campaigns.
- Press Release Distribution Send your news across the PR Newswire network to reach thousands of websites, newsrooms, and social media feeds instantly.
- Media Monitoring Track brand mentions across online news, social media, print publications, and broadcast channels to stay ahead of every story.
- Impact Analytics Connect your PR efforts to actual business results by tracking website conversions and audience reach from earned media coverage.
- Social Listening Monitor social conversations to understand sentiment and identify emerging trends before they impact your brand reputation.
- Automated Reporting Create professional, data-rich reports for your executives that visualize your share of voice and campaign performance automatically.
Northbeam Features
- First-Party Tracking. Capture every customer touchpoint using a proprietary pixel that stays accurate even after privacy updates like iOS 14.
- Multi-Touch Attribution. View your performance through different lenses like first-click, last-click, or even-click to understand how every ad contributes to sales.
- Cross-Channel Mapping. See the complete path to purchase by connecting data from Facebook, Google, TikTok, and your Shopify store in one place.
- Creative Analytics. Identify your winning ad visuals and copy by tracking specific creative performance across all your active marketing channels.
- Media Buying Models. Use specialized models to see how your top-of-funnel awareness campaigns eventually turn into bottom-of-funnel conversions over time.
- Real-Time Dashboards. Access up-to-the-minute data so you can kill underperforming ads and scale winners the moment you see a trend.
Pricing Comparison
Cision Pricing
Northbeam Pricing
Pros & Cons
Cision
Pros
- Extensive and accurate global media contact database
- Industry-standard wire distribution through PR Newswire integration
- Comprehensive monitoring across print, web, and broadcast
- Robust reporting tools for measuring campaign ROI
Cons
- Significant learning curve for the advanced analytics
- Premium pricing makes it inaccessible for small startups
- Occasional delays in updating specific journalist contact info
Northbeam
Pros
- Provides much more accurate ROAS data than Facebook or Google
- First-party pixel effectively bypasses most tracking and privacy limitations
- Intuitive dashboard makes complex attribution data easy to understand
- Excellent customer success team helps with data interpretation
- Helps identify profitable scaling opportunities that platforms often miss
Cons
- Premium pricing makes it expensive for very small brands
- Initial setup requires technical attention to ensure data accuracy
- Learning curve exists for understanding different attribution models