Item: Oracle Marketing
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Eloqua to manage our internal and external communications, across the full life cycle of our student body (from recruitment through to Alumni engagement). The use of the platform was centralized in our Marketing department, with support from our Partners in IT. Prior to purchasing Eloqua, we used multiple decentralized systems and processes to execute our electronic communications which presented challenges in terms of consistent branding and messaging strategy.

Prior to Eloqua, we also did not have a mechanism that allowed us to score and prioritize leads for follow-up, which we were able to do after implementation to a good deal of success.

Pros and Cons

Execution of email campaigns.
Lead management and scoring.
Landing page management.
Customizable levels of access to the platform.
Security.
Template management.

Unintuitive interface.
Requires a good level of technical knowledge to leverage fully.
3rd party implementations.
Expensive.
Lengthy onboarding process.

Scalability

The platform is powerful and has the potential to scale well, but be forewarned that this is not a simple undertaking. Eloqua is an enterprise-grade marketing automation platform, and with the power and scalability comes the inevitable complexity that's required to manage that scale. We found that we could segment data and user groups well given the native options, and have a roadmap plan to scale its use out to other groups within the organization.

Return on Investment

More consistent brand voice and creative execution
Enablement of uses to manage their own workflows
Increased level of marketing nurture complexity, driving better results
Better lifecycle management, allowing for tailored communications

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Campaign

We ultimately selected the Oracle product due to its native web capabilities which, at the time, were not offered by Adobe, which required the download and installation of a desktop application for users to be able to leverage the full capabilities of their solution. We deployed in a Mac + PC environment, and required support across both device ecosystems, which Oracle delivered via their web client.

Likelihood to Recommend

Eloqua is well-suited to large organizations that are able to dedicate multiple marketing resources towards the management of the platform. This is not a turn-key solution that one person can effectively manage and execute - we found that we required a technical marketing specialist to help with the data and workflows, which was complemented by a campaign specialist who ran the actual campaigns and execution.

Great tool for large orgs with the resources to support it effectively

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Oracle CX Marketing (formerly Oracle Marketing Cloud)