WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – perhaps the 2 most popular webinar software out there.
But which one is better?
In this honest and detailed webinar software review, we’ll compare WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar head-to-head according to these 10 criteria:
- What kind of events can you host? How easy is it to set up?
- What customization options do you have on the webinar funnel pages?
- What kind of email reminder tools are available to maximize the attendance rate?
- Which tools are available to interact with your audience during the live webinar?
- How good is the webcam video engine? What about the customer support?
- Do the webinar presentation tools help you? Or do they get in the way?
- Can attendees join on mobile devices? Is it easy? Or barely usable?
- Where is the webinar recording? Can attendees engage during the replay?
- How well does the webinar analytics dashboard help you to learn and improve?
- Is the pricing fair and justified? Is there a trial period?
Pros
- Stable connection
- Supports the most attendees (up to 3,000)
- Automated webinars & webcasts
- GoToMeeting software included
- Attentiveness tracking
- Trim & edit webinar recordings
Cons
- Requires downloading & installing
- No landing page customization options
- Clunky user interface in the live room
- No call-to-action offers
- Expensive
Best or unique feature
- Very stable connection and allows for thousands of simultaneous attendees
Webinar Types & Setup
Audience Interactions
Presentation Tools
Pricing & Trial
Webinar Funnel Pages
Video Engine & Support
Webinar Replay
Email Reminders
Mobile Devices
Analytics & Exports
Pros
- Many registration page layouts & templates
- Built-in registration page A/B testing
- Rich email editor & attendee segmenting
- Live offers with images & urgency timer
- Attendee questions during webinar replay
- Integrated slideshow & preview next slide
Cons
- Only live webinars
- No custom questions on registration page
- No monthly pricing packages
Best or unique feature
- Widest variety of webinar landing pages + flexible landing page editor
Webinar Types & Setup
Audience Interactions
Presentation Tools
Pricing & Trial
Webinar Funnel Pages
Video Engine & Support
Webinar Replay
Email Reminders
Mobile Devices
Analytics & Exports
Webinar Types & Ease of Setup
Both software – WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar are mainly built for live webinars.
However, on GoToWebinar, you can also host automated pre-recorded webinars. That’s a major advantage, because WebinarJam doesn’t have that functionality. WebinarJam only has live webinars.
Also, on GoToWebinar you can host webcasts, which is very similar to webinars, but it allows more participants. However, there aren’t so many audience interaction tools on webcasts.
With GoToWebinar you’ll also get the GoToMeeting software as a bonus to host video conferences or team meetings.
A major downside for GoToWebinar is that the host and all the attendees have to download the GoToOpener desktop installer. That’s right, it’s required even to join a webinar.
The webinar setup is more straight-forward and streamlined on WebinarJam.
Winner for Webinar Types & Ease of Setup: GoToWebinar
The webinar setup flow is seamless on WebinarJam.
However, GoToWebinar throws in the automated webinars, webcasts and GoToMeeting video conferencing software.
WebinarJam: Webinar Types & Setup
GoToWebinar: Webinar Types & Setup
Webinar Funnel Pages
On WebinarJam there are tons of landing pages to choose from. There is literally a whole library of webinar landing page templates with different layouts, color schemas and designs.
On WebinarJam you can have a video, an attractive product image or clearly formatted bullet list to make clear selling points why people should sign up for your webinar.
You can even have 2 landing pages and A/B test them and measure which one converts sign-ups better.
On GoToWebinar, there’s no such thing.
There are literally no landing page template options. You can only choose the colors, but not the layout. That’s why all the GoToWebinar landing pages look the same everywhere.
Want to showcase attractive product images? Forget about it. You can only add a small 200×200 image to your landing page. And videos? Nope.
Bonus points for both: You can add custom question to the registration form.
Winner for Webinar Funnel Pages: WebinarJam
The clear winner here is WebinarJam because of its wildly different landing page and thank you page theme options.
On GoToWebinar, it’s just non-existent.
WebinarJam: Webinar Funnel Pages
GoToWebinar: Webinar Funnel Pages
Webinar Email Reminders & Email Editors
There are 3 purposes for the webinar emails:
- To confirm the registration (and make the registrant add it to their calendar, so they won’t miss it)
- To remind the registrant about the webinar (again, to make sure they show up when its live)
- After the webinar, to push them to take action (sign up to a course or buy a product)
In short, to maximize the show-up rate and the purchase conversion rate.
How well do WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar perform head-to-head?
On WebinarJam, there’s a lot of customizability in terms of email body text and scheduling.
The webinar follow-up emails enable tons of customizability. You can segment attendees based on attendance and behavior during the live webinar.
On GoToWebinar you can also send email reminders. On the follow-up emails you can separate attendees and no-shows.
Furthermore, you can only add a small body text snippet to these emails. Most of it is automatically generated instructions to join the webinar (joining requires download, remember).
As a result, the webinar reminder emails look pretty spammy and lack personality.
Winner for Email Tools: WebinarJam
WebinarJam has solved the webinar reminder emails and the follow-up emails in a smarter way, since it allows for more specific messaging and because of the segmentation options.
WebinarJam: Email Tools
GoToWebinar: Email Tools
Audience Interaction Tools
GoToWebinar has perhaps the worst audience interaction tools that I’ve ever seen on a webinar software.
Let me give you a few reasons why:
- There’s no public chat between attendees (attendees can only message the host privately)
- The Q&A is private, only the host can see the questions (attendees can’t see each others questions)
- There’s no “Featured offers” to make your product/offering prominent in an attractive way
- The voting on polls is sometimes not working for the attendee
What’s the kicker? WebinarJam has all these features. And, they’ve done it with excellent quality.
The user interface is easier on the eyes, the polls are in the focus when launched. And the Featured offer is prominently displayed to immediately draw attention.
There’s even urgency and scarcity features to encourage attendees to take action.
Perhaps the only good thing about the GoToWebinar interaction tools is that you can set up a survey at the end of the webinar.
Winner for Audience Interaction Tools: WebinarJam
Clearly, WebinarJam has superior tools when it comes to interacting with your webinar audience. They have more features and the quality of each feature is way better than on GoToWebinar.
WebinarJam: Audience Interaction Tools
GoToWebinar: Audience Interaction Tools
Video Engine & Tech Support
The video quality is decent on both software. It might be slightly more stable on GoToWebinar because their software is installed on the computer. Installed software has the potential to be more stable and reliable.
However, WebinarJam has solved the “potential problems” issue with their “Panic! Button”.
What it does is this – whenever there’s a problem with your webinar, you can press the Panic! Button and it will generate a new webinar room and automatically import all the attendees there.
This takes about 10 seconds and solves all potential problems.
What about the support? You know, when you have some technical questions and you need help.
To be honest, neither WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar have a fast customer support chat.
It’s probably because they’re the 2 biggest webinar behemoths and don’t have the HR capacity to handle all the customer questions immediately.
How have they solved this instead?
GoToWebinar has a quite rich knowledge base.
WebinarJam has an active and helpful Facebook community with 40 000+ members.
Winner for Video Engine & Tech Support: WebinarJam
Since both have good enough video quality, the “Panic! Button” gives peace of mind.
Also, the WebinarJam Facebook group is great for sharing webinar marketing tips in general. It makes the users feel a lot more connected.
WebinarJam: Video Engine & Support
GoToWebinar: Video Engine & Support
Presentation Tools
WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – both have useful presentation tools:
- The whiteboard & pen tools, so you can emphasize and draw on the slides
- Video injections either from a file or YouTube
- Handout files that your attendees can download during the webinar
- Sharing your screen and webcam
But when speaking of presentation tools, we can’t ignore a keystone component – your slideshow.
On WebinarJam, you can pre-upload your slideshow to the platform. In this way, your slideshow has the maximum quality for all the attendees, because its launched straight from the platform.
There’s even built-in slide transitions.
On GoToWebinar, there’s no such feature. You’d have to screen share and show your slides, which is dependent on the video streaming quality.
Also, handling the webcam is super annoying on GoToWebinar. There’s no clear way of seeing how the attendee is experiencing the webinar. Does he see the webcam? Where are the slides?
On WebinarJam, the host controls what the attendees see and it’s clear to the host. As a host, you want to be in control of the webinar experience as you’re presenting your webinar content.
To end on a positive note, there is one unique feature on GoToWebinar – the attentiveness rating.
This shows you real-time data about when you’re losing the attention of your attendees.
Winner for Presentation Tools: WebinarJam
Despite the useful attentiveness rating, GoToWebinar presentation tools are clearly inferior. Mainly because of the inconvenient slideshow and webcam tools. These are a very integral part of your webinar and enable you to control the webinar session much more. WebinarJam has superior features in that area.
WebinarJam: Presentation Tools
GoToWebinar: Presentation Tools
Mobile Devices & Browsers
This is an uneven comparison here. That’s because when attendee wants to join a webinar on GoToWebinar, they must download the mobile app.
Perhaps an upside for the GoToWebinar app is that it directs attendee attention better.
For example, when the polls are launched, they go full screen for the attendee. This ensures higher participation rate.
A unique feature for GoToWebinar is that the host can simultaneously join the webinar with the app as well. This opens more options to engage with the audience. Also, to share their mobile screen during the webinar. This could be useful when you’re presenting slides on PC, but want to demo an app during the webinar.
WebinarJam allows for joining on the browser. And it’s fluently mobile responsive.
On WebinarJam Android, the chat, the polls, the offers, the speaker requests – all these features are available on mobile too.
A unique feature for WebinarJam is the integration with Twilio. This enables to send SMS text messages as webinar reminders 15 minutes before the webinar. Another way to boost your attendance rate.
Winner for Mobile Devices & Browsers: WebinarJam
WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – both have a clean and beautiful mobile experience for the attendee.
WebinarJam’s unique feature is the SMS text message reminders.
GoToWebinar’s unique feature is the multi-device joining for the host.
However, when we’re talking about friction to join the webinar, then the requirement for downloading an app is definitely a way to lose attendees (GoToWebinar).
WebinarJam enables joining straight from the mobile browser and that’s why the mobile experience is better for the attendee.
WebinarJam: Mobile Devices & Browsers
GoToWebinar: Mobile Devices & Browsers
Webinar Recording Video & Replay
As the webinar starts, it automatically hits the “Record” button on both software.
Everything is recorded and will be used as a webinar replay.
Depending on your audience, many people can’t join your webinar, but they’re still interested in your webinar contents. That’s why they want to watch the webinar replay.
So, the webinar replay is also a great way to capture sales and engage with the audience asynchronously.
On WebinarJam, there’s the Replica Replay, which mimics the live webinar exactly like it happened. This way the replay attendee will feel more like it’s interactive. And if they have questions, they can easily ask using the question box.
On GoToWebinar replay, some engagement is captured, like the polls.
But there’s a huge missed opportunity for GoToWebinar – there is no question box. Meaning, the replay attendee can’t engage in any way.
One unique feature for GoToWebinar is trimming replay recording. You can cut out some pieces from your replay recording.
Winner for Webinar Replay: WebinarJam
Bottom line is – webinar replay attendees are just as valuable as your live attendees.
They need to be captured, nurtured and ultimately closed.
WebinarJam enables you to capture their questions and start a conversation with them. That’s the main reason it’s better for webinar replay recordings.
WebinarJam: Webinar Replay
GoToWebinar: Webinar Replay
Webinar Analytics & Data Exports
If you’re the curious kind, you’ll have plenty of data to dig through with both – WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar.
On both webinar platforms you’ll have this data:
- Webinar attendance rate
- Poll attendance rate
- Q&A questions log
- Private chat questions log
- Average time in the webinar room
- Registration page custom question answers
Additional data only on WebinarJam:
- Registration page conversion rate
- Registration page A/B testing results
- Email open rates and click-through-rates
- Public chat logs
- Attendee statistics during webinar replay
Additional data only on GoToWebinar:
- Attentiveness rate
- Interest rate
It must be confessed that GoToWebinar has a quite laconic analytics dashboard.
Most of the data is available through the downloadable webinar spreadsheets.
Winner for Analytics & Exports: WebinarJam
If you’re the kind of person enjoying a concise and clear dashboard to analyze your webinars, the WebinarJam is for you.
If you’re old skool and like to mess around with spreadsheets, create pivot tables and create your own data visualizations, then GoToWebinar is more suitable for you.
WebinarJam: Analytics & Exports
GoToWebinar: Analytics & Exports
Pricing & Trial
A definite downside for WebinarJam is that it doesn’t have a monthly subscription plan. Only annual.
However, when you start comparing the WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar pricing, you’ll see that the latter is grossly overpriced.
Winner for Pricing & Trial: WebinarJam
Clearly, with WebinarJam you’d be getting a bigger webinar room, more features and better features. And with a 2x cheaper price.
WebinarJam: Pricing
GoToWebinar: Pricing
WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar Conclusion
If you’re serious about hosting webinars and stepping your webinar game to the next level, I recommend going with a modern webinar software with quality features.
Some final reasons why WebinarJam is the better choice:
- The entire webinar funnel has better user interface and feels more professional to the attendee
- Attendees can join straight into the webinar with their browser
- More detailed webinar funnel tracking with built-in marketing tools like A/B testing
- Webinar presentation tools that make it easier to present your content
- Marketing-focused audience interaction tools
- A lot cheaper price
