November 01, 2013

Review: "Marketo - A solution that meets many day-to-day needs"

Amelia Kleymann

Documentation & Training Specialist

StrongViewMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Software Version
Standard

Modules Used
Marketo Lead Management

Pros and Cons

Engagement Metrics - Allows me to quickly determine how content is engaging subscribers.
Automation - Built for a marketing, allows users to create multi-step campaign workflows and supports conditional logic.
Dynamic content support.

Dynamic Segments - while a feature, could use a bit more UX work. I don't find it as simple to use as it could be.
Landing Pages - pretty much required in order to use the product to its full potential.
Customer Engagement (Advanced) - this is an add-on, but is pretty critical to the day-to-day of a marketer.

Return on Investment

Increased efficiency - the tools work well and have streamlined many marketing processes.
Lead conversion, when done with landing pages, is easy to see and track.
Reporting is real-time and fairly robust.

The cost of Marketo is relatively high, but the features justify the cost. As long as our programs require tracking on lead gen, etc, the product will be renewed. Marketo has had spotty support in the past, but overall, the support is improving. The documentation is also getting better, but is lacking in some areas.

Likelihood to Recommend

Ensure that the cost is justified by how you will use Marketo. There are other products in the space that do more, and more efficiently, but the key is matching your desired marketing results with the features that Marketo provides. Ensure that the SLA meets your expectations and that you have an onbording plan with Marketo that involves your entire team - anyone who will have access to the system and ensure that those in your organization know how to truly use the tool to the best advantage to meet your goals.

Support

Marketo has made improvements in its support - but still is lacking in many areas. Would like to be able to get a faster reply without having to rephrase my question multiple times.

Marketo Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Kept well informed Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	Problems left unsolved Escalation required Difficult to get immediate help Need to explain problems multiple times

Usability

Overall it's good, but not great. It takes time and attention to understand, much like other systems, but once you understand how everything works, it's easy to repeat tasks.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Consistent Convenient	Slow to learn

Easy Tasks

Reporting seems to be very flexible and quick - provided you learn their lingo for the labels.
Email drag-and-drop function is pretty strong.
Segmentation is fairly easy to use.

Difficult Tasks

Getting up to speed takes time - so overall onboarding needs to have focused attention from internal teams.
Custom reporting takes time.
Multi-channel features need more explanation and support to understand how to truly leverage.