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Versatile Selection Process: Users have found the selection process in the software to be versatile, allowing for both simple merge/purge …
Overview
What is HCL Unica?
HCL Unica (acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018) is a suite of enterprise marketing management tools including marketing automation with cross-channel campaign management, budgeting and forecasting, project workflow management, asset management, brand management and spend management.
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What is HCL Unica?
HCL Unica (acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018) is a suite of enterprise marketing management tools including marketing automation with cross-channel campaign management, budgeting and forecasting, project workflow management, asset management, brand management and spend management.
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- Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.ibm.com/us…
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HCL Unica Discover - B2C Cart Abandonment Demo Pack
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What is HCL Unica?
HCL Unica (acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018) is a suite of enterprise marketing management (EMM) software that include marketing automation with cross-channel campaign management, along with budgeting and forecasting, project workflow management, asset management, brand management and spend management. Unica Campaign, Unica Marketing Operations, and Unica Interact are the foremost products in the suite.
The product is geared towards large B2C customers, and is available as either a Saas or an on-premise offering.
HCL Unica Features
- Supported: End-to-end campaign management
- Supported: Campaign measurement and reporting
- Supported: Deeper customer relationships
HCL Unica Screenshots
HCL Unica Video
Learn more about UNICA: https://hclsw.co/unica-page
Personalization, customer journeys and delivering messages in any channel are top of mind for CMOs today. In this video, we show how Unica is tackling CMO's biggest marketing challenges.
#UNICA #UNICAIsBack
HCL Unica Integrations
- Aprimo
- Oracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
HCL Unica Competitors
- Adobe Marketing Cloud
- Aprimo
- Uptempo
- Orbis
- SAS 360 Plan
- Alterian Real-Time CX Platform (Chameleon)
HCL Unica Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
HCL Unica (acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018) is a suite of enterprise marketing management tools including marketing automation with cross-channel campaign management, budgeting and forecasting, project workflow management, asset management, brand management and spend management.
The most common users of HCL Unica are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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(54)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Versatile Selection Process: Users have found the selection process in the software to be versatile, allowing for both simple merge/purge processes and the use of raw SQL queries. This flexibility has been appreciated by multiple reviewers.
Efficient Campaign Flowchart: The campaign flowchart feature has been highly praised by users for its efficiency in managing multiple channels and campaigns within a single flowchart. This capability has been mentioned by several reviewers as a standout feature of the software.
Contact History Management: The Contact History feature has received positive feedback from users as it facilitates effective management of contact points with customers or prospects. It also allows for providing compliance information or responding to complaints. Multiple reviewers have expressed appreciation for this valuable functionality.
Lack of Data Visualization: Some users have mentioned that IBM Campaign lacks data visualization within its module, making it difficult to interpret and analyze campaign data efficiently. This limitation can hinder their ability to make informed decisions based on the data.
Limited Integration with Outbound Channels: Several reviewers have expressed the need for greater integration of real-time capabilities with outbound channels like email, SMS, Facebook Fanpage, and Twitter DM broadcasts. They feel that this lack of integration limits their ability to effectively engage with customers across multiple channels in a timely manner.
Complexity in Transporting Projects: Users have reported difficulties in transporting projects between development, test, and production environments. This can lead to inconsistencies and errors during the campaign management process. Simplifying the process of transferring projects between environments would greatly improve efficiency and reduce potential issues.
Based on user reviews, the following recommendations are commonly given for using Unica:
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Seek help from IBM or an approved consultant for training and migration to ensure a smoother transition.
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Ensure proper data gathering and training before moving into UAT and go-live to maximize the potential of Unica.
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Prepare for growing pains with training and implementation by investing in appropriate resources and consultants if needed.
These recommendations highlight the importance of seeking professional assistance, data accuracy, thorough training, and being prepared for challenges when using Unica as a marketing automation tool.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-4 of 4)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
We are Using Unica to find the right contacts from the huge database based on the requirements. It is being used to support company business and the media departments in the organization. Whenever the marketing team decides to contact their users based on necessity, they are able to generate the right contacts list by using different filters. That’s how they can filter the unnecessary contacts from the targeted list and the company can save on budget and can hold valuable customers. Indirectly it will increase the company revenue.
- IBM Unica offers more than one module as we can start from market planning and can end with analysis of post campaign results. Not required to work with different tools and can skip having the difficulties while integrating them for automation.
- Can design multi wave, multi touch, multi-channel automated campaigns in one place and incredible automation while setting up triggers and schedules to avoid more manual work in order to save resource time. Having valuable user guide to answer whenever we had questions while setup /design phase.
- Able to get output list without writing huge lines of SQL when there are multiple number of table joins as you can join as many tables as you want to the table catalogs to fetch the output data in seconds..
- Not suitable to small industries even if they really want to use. It would be great to have a lighter version to let any company use in order to make more customers.
- It would really great to have support team available whenever having the issues / difficulties with in the tool itself. At least able to respond asap.
- Positive impact on ROI as able to target right people at right time.
- Ideal case is when using the campaign management, e-message and cognos under one roof, able to do the analyze the results in shorter time.
- When using Cognos integration with Unica, capturing the results and analyzation done pretty quick and appropriate steps has been taken before next communication.
April 11, 2015
Unica compared to SAS CM, Alterian and Teradata
The implementations I supported were primarily used by my clients' Marketing departments. IBM EMM (aka Unica) for these clients is primarily used for the very granular segmentation of customers for multi-channel marketing such as Direct Mail, eMail and Social. The solution (the application and underlying datarmart) allows the client to efficiently create segments and campaigns; capture promotion history and assign responses.
- The application has very robust and flexible functionality while maintaining a relatively high ease of use. Relatively complicated segmentation logic can be created for a campaign by a knowledgeable user and the application design supports efficient execution.
- The application supports the logical "storage" of campaigns in support of a multi-faceted marketing organization: multiple divisions; field marketing; different channels etc.
- The application allows SQL to be hand coded and inserted into the segmentation process.
- The application supports exit points for custom code to be executed instream.
- I don't see a lot of areas for improvement in the actual application software - I see a lot of areas where you need to have someone that really knows what they are doing do the implementaton; configuration and tuning.
- Different datamart mappings should be created for different groups of users or types of campaigns. I see a lot of implementations where the team was pretty lazy and just mapped everything and left it up to the user to sort it out. This slows down the creation and execution (running) of the campaigns as well as causing a longer learning curve for new users.
- It would be nice to have more tracking on the components that are added to the templates section so that users know when it was last updated and by whom. I see a lot of companies set up templates and then either never use them (instead just copy/paste last months campaign) or worse - not maintain them and therefore potentially introduce errors.
- I think that the primary impact on ROI is by being able to very quickly build and execute new campaigns therefore allowing faster response to market trends
- another primary impact is on user efficiency - being able to copy last month's or last year's campaign to this month (ie. the Valentine's Day camaign) edit and execute quickly.
- another strong point is in being able to review the campaign and see what was really done in all components - auditing.
Unica compares very well against other tools such as SAS CM and Teradata. It is easier to use. However, SAS CM has more built in value added components and Teradata supports highly complex segmentation and campaigns rapid execution a little better. Alterian does not support near the complexity of queries/segments that the others do but it does run them very quickly (the advantage of an index based solution).
- Implemented in-house
At Purple Square Consulting Ltd, we implement IBM EMM (also known by it's legacy name Unica) suite for many clients across Europe. We provide design services, aswell as implementation, configuration, training & troubleshooting.
- Marketing Automation - the scheduling capabilities are incredibly sophisticated.
- Multi-wave, multi-channel capabilities within single Marketing Campaigns.
- Highly advanced reusability. Every aspect of the users experience can be templates, allowing workflows & objects of every kind to be used again and again.
- Greater integration of real time (Interact) capabilities with outbound channels, in particular IBM eMessage Email & SMS delivery.
- Additional outbound channels to be integrated into eMessage, including Facebook Fanpage & Twitter DM broadcasts. At the moment these are possible only through custom additional integration.
- Support for additional marketing database technology, e.g. MySQL, Exasol, ParAccel, WX2.
- Provision of database technology with software purchase, as Web technology (IBM WebSphere Express) is supplied for free, but no database is supplied - since IBM also market DB2, which is a supported technology it seems a shame.
- Marketing automation & reusable functionality allows for extremely sophisticated & reactive marketing campaigns to cover every aspect of consumer journeys with a minimal headcount.
- Improved ROI. Better targeted campaigns reduce broadcast costs while increasing uptake, especially if you can link a web analytics datasource into Campaign, e.g. for abandoned basket campaigns.
- Through realtime capabilities, highly personalised versions of the web site for each individual customer, based on their marketing data (what we know), and information from the website (what they are doing right now).
- Faststats,Alterian Engagement Management and Analytics,quickcounts,Adobe Neolane,SAS Analytics
Against all the other applications, IBM EMM stands head and shoulders above the others, in terms of sophistication & diverse capabilities - with Neolane being the closest.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
IBM Unica Campaign (IBM Campaign) is hosted on behalf of clients, to provide access a customer and prospect data for the purpose of marketing and service campaigns. Generally the tool is used by either analytics team who have a core understanding of data OR marketers who are using pre-built pre-defined campaign segments. IBM Campaign can be used for very simple data selections or complex data selections that require numerous requirements to be met, this includes splitting 'contacts' by channel based on customer preferences (opt outs) or data that is available (presence of data or not, based on a requirement for a contact channel - telephone contact obviously requires a telephone number).
- Allows for complex selection to be made using both simple process of 'merge/purge' processes and also the ability to use raw SQL within a selection process.
- One campaign flowchart can cover off multiple channels for an individual campaign, along with multiple campaigns within one flowchart (can defeat the purpose but it is an option)
- Contact History - Allows good management of contact points with a individual be it a customer or a prospective customer, allows you to provide compliance information when required to appropriate authorities or respond to a customer/prospect complaint.
- Automation using scripts outside of the actual application environment to call an IBM Campaign object (such as a flowchart), to trigger a campaign post another process such as a data load into a table within the defined application schema.
- A user can schedule a flowchart to run on a set schedule and an output file delivered to a specific location on an going basis (set and forget).
- IBM Campaign is a tool for enterprise organisations with large and complex data content, with the introduction of IBM Marketing Cloud (dubbed Unica Lite) this will allow access to the power of this tool to smaller organisations. To use a previous reviewers comment "It's VERY involved. Hire a an integrator and educator!" - this is an involved integration process and the right training can make it very easy to use.
- IBM Campaign by itself lacks data visualisation within it's module, additional modules within IBM's EMM suite does allow data visualisation but as within any additional module it does come with the IBM price tag.
- Automation - allows employees to be more productive and allow better analysis on the data, opposed to time spent building campaigns that run a on regular schedule.
- Minimal downtime - pushing through the regular patches and updates from IBM is key to maintaining the environment but it is a very simple process.
- Improves processes and removes risk by the use of templates for campaigns, allowing a predefined set of inclusions and exclusions based on campaign type (acquisition or retention) and channel (OTM, DM, eDM, SMS).
- Alterian Engagement Management and Analytics,SDL,SAS Marketing Operations Management,Adobe Neolane
It's been a market leader within this space for over 10 years, it has a high ability to execute time and time again. Against it's competitors it has been tried and proven to been robust but flexible within reason to allow adaptations that will not break the system. Can be simply managed by an experienced DB Administrator and/or DB Developer, along with the appropriate system administration for the maintenance of the actual server environments.
It is fair to say that it is generally more expensive that its competitors, but it has been proven that costs on implementation of the base of the IBM EMM suite IBM Campaign is a lot more cost effective when done right but a reputable service provider.
100
It is used widely across the client delivery functions, from analytics teams through to consultants and account managers. Dependant on their roles does increase of decrease there use of the tool. Our clients also use this tool as a self service tool to create there own campaigns, whilst at the same time we manage a number of automated campaigns that are scheduled to run on a regular basis.
100
There are three key resources to maintaining a solution:
1) An expert in the IBM Campaign software, itself
2) An experienced DB Administrator or DB Developer with Administration abilities.
3) System Administration to ensure the servers are functioning an up to date with latest patches based on the operating system.
- Marketing automation, set and forget - only remember when there is an issue and you are alerted by failure triggers
- Resource management, allowing resources to focus on other items whilst repetitive campaigns can be managed by a schedule (be it within Unica or managed outside)
- Can handle complex data sets, and large amounts of data
- Using external Cron-tab scripts to manage automated campaigns where it requires pre-work to be completed on the database side prior to the campaign running.
- Using the Scheduler tool to run tasks or campaigns in an automated fashion that only have a short lead time or run time.
- Pre-building segmentations and using data flags to create pre-built selection criteria's which will then speed up campaign flowcharts. Opposed to querying the whole database each time you create a new campaign.
- Building out the stack of IBM EMM, and using such modules as Contact Optimisation to provide the right message at the right time OR eMessage to bring the campaign selection and execution into one environment.
- Implemented in-house
- Professional services company
We partnered with RiverPoint (www.riverpoint.com), we brought across 3 of there best consultants (from USA to Australia) to complete not only the implementation but a complex upgrade and jumping up numerous versions in one go. I cannot speak highly enough of the team from RiverPoint.
Yes
There where several phases of the implementation:
1) Reviewing the environments and ensuring they where specified as needed
2) Implementation of the development/test/uat environment
3) Migration of Campaign objects from the old environment to the new, within the development/test/uat environment
4) UAT testing of the development/test/uat environment
5) Implementation of the Production environment
6) Migration of Campaign objects from the old environment to the new, within the Production environment
7) Side by Side testing of the old production environment to the new production environment
8) Sign off on the new implementation
9) Shut down of the old environments
Depending on if you are upgrading or not then all of the above are not necessary, but I strongly suggest ensuring you have a secondary environment for testing/uat and even training.
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled
Use an experienced implementation and training partner to ensure that it is done to the required specifications. Whilst it is a wizard install, there are multitudes of complexities that can cause issues from the application, to web server to the database. Having experienced people on hand to deal with whatever came up in front of them, helped ensure we progressed even when we did hit road blocks.
- Lack of understanding of what was required for the installation/implementation prior to bringing on an experienced implementation partner.
- Upgrading multiple versions at the same time - never do this. Keep up to date with fix packs and feature packs as they are released and where possible keep moving along with versions as soon as practical. NOTE: the move from 8.x versions to 9.x version will require some additional testing due to the changes in the flowcharts (design and code)