Adobe Marketo Engage (acquired by Adobe in 2018) is a marketing automation platform whose basic features include email marketing, drip nurturing, landing pages, and lead scoring, but other editions offer additional advanced features. Typical customers are B2B firms with complex sales cycles.
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Microsoft Dynamics 365
Score 7.8 out of 10
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Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.
I inherited this instance of Marketo so I wasn't involved in the selection process. However, we chose Marketo as our major partner, Microsoft is also a user. Due to our partner status and involvement with Microsoft's marketing team, we became a reseller of Marketo. Marketo is …
We liked the fact that Dynamics CRM had out of box integrations with O365 applications like Outlook, Power BI, etc. They also are a little more flexible when it came to the implementation. They offered sales and service in a fully cloud based edition while other options in the …
I did not select MS-CRM at my current job, but it is good for entry-level CRM. Very easy to use and adopt. SalesForce has jumped way ahead and looks to be more advanced with more add-ons. I would recommend looking at CRM for companies with under $250M annual sales. Larer …
We are a Microsoft shop with a lot of Microsoft products. The key stakeholder in the business also had experience in working with Dynamics CRM in a prior job.
Adobe Marketo Engage is great for lead gen because of the out of box solutions. We import leads from Google, LinkedIn, Meta, Tradeshows, and web forms. It allows me to track leads from the moment they enter the system to the point where they become customers. I use it to score leads, segment them, and nurture them with targeted content. It's especially useful as a B2B organization.
All told, if it hadn't been for the fact that we were testing it with both employees who knew CRM lingo and those who were new, we wouldn't have found such an issue. The program itself can be very useful for people who already manage CRMs, who know how to use them, who know how to run and manage employees on them, namely because of the "one-stop-shop" concept in data visibility. When it came down to it though, if you have high-turnover, then this product will devolve into only being used for it's base components. Down the middle, we found that the people who'd been in marketing for 4-5 years fell into the product easily because of the way it was written. Everyone before that, with novice experience, thought it was written like a textbook for a graduate class - little to no leeway if you don't happen to know one specific term
Like I have said Marketo has been very helpful by helping us to connect us with our customers and keeps them coming back, hence saving time, effort and resources.
Let AI build predictive audience and segments easily.
Personalize experience with active listening and triggered content.
Some useful out-of-the-box features, like mass uploads of Leads from trade shows or when qualifying a Lead, CRM automatically creates the Opportunity, Contact, and Account for you, etc.
Really powerful customizations through the user interface to improve user experience. Things like Business Rules, for example, if Field A = 1, then Field B = 2 and Field C = 2, if Field A = 2, then Field B and Field C don't apply, so automatically hide them.
Or other functionality that improves user experience, like Business Process Flows. These walk users step by step through our business process, helping them know when certain actions should take place, and at what point other data is now required. We've used this extensively with our Lead to Opportunity to Quote to Order process, helping users understand the business process each step of the way.
Customizations built on top of the platform now called model-driven PowerApps. You can have connections to "typical" data, like Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities, for example, but then connect that data to custom entities, records that only apply to your specific business. This is all done through the user interface and allows you to customize and automate specific line-of-business applications for your specific needs.
Behind the scenes, D365 CE is built on SQL. So the data conforms to industry standards and makes it much easier to interact with. Your developers and IT team will thank you.
Marketo's email editor is basic in comparison to other cheaper alternatives out there.
Marketo doesn't work as well in B2C scenarios as it does in B2B. One of the painpoints of this is it's difficult to showcase a selection of product recommendations based on purchase behaviour without a very time consuming workaround. It's manageable if you're only selling a handful of products, but it's inefficient when dealing with a large catalogue.
Marketo's form and landing page builder are also behind the times. Perhaps not as bad as the Salesforce Marketing Cloud platform, but for an enterprise company the product should be much better.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 storage & license cost can prohibit some large deployments or even cost-sensitive small projects from using the platform (although I'm certain most deployments would realize a positive ROI if implemented correctly with process automation).
The cost and licensing document for Dynamics 365 is 61 pages and will take a rocket scientist to understand it. It's better to just have your Microsoft help estimate the cost if they are willing to help you that.
The documentation on how to first fully understand the Out of the Box default solution and settings is lacking or even non-existing. This has the potential to derail Dynamic 365 launches and implementations from the gitgo. Want to use an out of the box entity?.. well it's probably related to 5 other entities that require configuration and full understanding of it to successful implement. And you ask where is the laymen guide or instructions?... User groups and forums. In Summary, Microsoft can up its game in deployment training and supporting documentation.
Microsoft needs to incentivize more external platforms to build app connectors for easy integration, such as ZenDesk, Slack, Tableau, etc. Even the current connector apps such as Salesforce, MailChimp, Docusign are useless or don't work at all.
Several limitations inhibit successful Dynamics 365 deployments such as: limited number of Rollup field calculations (summarizing fields on child/related records), limited number rows that can exported to Excel via advanced find, Dynamics 365 files, log and database storage size limit is extremely small and will always require purchasing additional storage (for Online deployments).
New user buy-in or acceptance or system platform changes can be difficult if a solid change management plan isn't enacted.
Don't expect much help from Microsoft on implementation or solutions unless it's a technical flaw with the platform. Microsoft relies on their MVP partner network to consult for implementations at a hefty cost. Hiring a knowledgeable and savvy Dynamics 365 System Administrator can reduce the need for consultant support; of course, this is dependant upon many many variables.
CRM has allowed us to keep all of our data in one place that is easy for all users within the company to view. I came into the company after they had been using CRM for about 4 years. They have all said that since we have used this it has helped us control work processes better, it has allowed us to be able to track things so much better, and has been something that has helped unite many processes that used to be all over the place. We are currently using CRM 4.0 and are planning on upgrading in the next 18 months to the 2011 version. Support for 4.0 is almost all but dried up. Understandably so. Some of the customization we have done, and a plugins we use, are now contained within the 2011 version so we are looking forward to that upgrade. We use an email marketing company as well, and they primarily support the 2011 version, but their product connects and is integrated within CRM. This is a great benefit as well so that all of our marketing information can be contained in one location.
In some aspects, the tool can feel quite clunky in parts. But with the rich feature set it has, it's understandable. There is a lot of room for improvement for the user interface. The system itself doesn't have a slick or modern feel, so the usability could feel nicer to use with these areas considered.
My review can help others to choose the correct CRM like Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. I see lots of great things in Microsoft Dynamics 365 that make your business easy and smooth also MS allows users to customize the software according to their needs. So Thought I should share my experience with others.
Marketo provides different way and abilities to connect. If you are having product support or unexplained errors you can get someone on Marketo support 24 hours a day. One of Marketo's greatest assets in my opinion however would be the community. Often times our company is just looking for case success stories from someone else. In the community you can search for problems you are currently facing and see others having the same issue and solutions for those issues. If not, you can pose a question to the whole community and champions of the product and others can chime in to provide suggestions to fix your needs. The community is truly a 24/7 place to get your answers quickly.
There are times when it is slightly slow for us, where we sit on a screen waiting for it to load. This could be our internet since we have had the same issue occasionally with other systems, but it is enough to make you crazy.
On multiple occasions we've had Marketo support (technical and license based) issues. Technical issues were minor and resolved within a day. License based issues (even things encouraged by Marketo for partners, like provisioning another license) took WEEKS. They actually took so long to respond that the client we were working with withdrew from the contract because they were no longer convinced Marketo was capable of supporting their business. As an agency trying to sell the software, you can only explain away so much before they just made us look silly.
Our partner, Ledgeview Partners has been FANTASTIC to work with. They are always timely in their response and have taken time to understand our business and our specific needs. We've made a lot of advanced customizations and they have been a great help in making those updates.
Our account rep stopped out in Lincoln, NE to ensure we were properly set up and running. This was very much appreciated. I was very, very new at this point, so I can't comment very much on the extent of what was taught because I was still brand new to the company and the system
I had never used Marketo prior to taking this job so online training was my starting point. I was able to follow along, it was interesting and quickly and efficiently taught me what I needed to know without a lot of fluff. It was far from boring and really helped me get my hands dirty with Marketo.
1. Have a content marketing plan to run in parallel with the marketing automation installation--you'll need a lot of content to make full use of Marketo's capabilities. 2. Work with sales (and ISRs) to define and document a workflow--build your Marketo installation around how you do business--not figure out how to apply your business to the tools 3. Spend time of data cleaning--both an initial project as well as a strategy for ongoing data management. We found some change manaement issues (no more appending ZZZ to the first name to identify contacts who have left the company, for example, or prohibiting the entry of "info@company.com" email addresses). 4. Find some champions in the sales and ISR teams. You'll have both fans and detractors--work with the fans to build some success stories
We used a data warehouse to house our data, and our IT team and implementation vendor worked diligently ahead of time to construct idea implementation plans. Out of millions of records- we had less than a dozen errors, which is remarkable. My major insight is simply having a group of completely devoted individuals working towards your goal who fully understand the desired outcome. Focused resources for implementation season are critical to success.
Prior to Marketo, we used SharpSpring. I will say that SharpSpring is more intuitive to use than Marketo, but it has much less functionality. If you have the time to really learn Marketo, it has much more to offer as well as many more options to customize the solution to your exact needs.
Salesforce has more desirable functions than Microsoft Dynamics 365, at a competitive price. Its user interface is far more superior, it has more customization, easier customization, and out of the box it is more pleasing to the eye and to the end user. If the client doesn't have a deep-rooted connection with Microsoft I wouldn't leap to Dynamics 365.
On our purchase, I'd been interrogated about our usage. Our needs are met by Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is simple to use. With so much data and information available, we must ensure that it is presented correctly to managers. Due to a lack of use, we don't have to spend as much money on Salesforce.
We look at scaleability in a few different ways. First, the speed while using Marketo has remained relatively the same as our database has grown. Though I would say Marketo is slow at times, it has not gotten slower over the last few years. If anything, it has improved, and they are working to improve it. Second, the amount of programs we have developed in Marketo has exponentially grown as well. Marketo has allowed us to drastically increase our output without having to drastically increase our headcount.
My company's preferred program right now is Microsoft Dynamics 365. We use it to keep track of customers and important sales metrics in a streamlined manner. Anyone familiar with CRMs will find the tool extremely useful. Considering that we have a good turnover, this product will be used for its basic segments. As a result, there are few chances of error with Microsoft dynamics because it is so easy to use. Many options for recording data on these leads are available. It meets our needs and pays off.
