Overall Satisfaction with Marketo
We currently use Marketo for our lead nurturing streams and conference engagement. Our Marketing and Sales departments are the only departments at the company who are currently impacted by the product. Our main goal in implementing Marketo was to increase streamline cohesiveness between the two departments. We also hope to get further acquainted with the analytic's of Marketo to provide a more robust pipeline and ROI.
- End User Communication and Training - Marketo is always reaching out to the end user about new products or different ways to use the tool. The Community offers great feature support and a positive environment to ask questions.
- Nurture Streams & Transition Steps - The various nurture stream options are great tools and provide easy layouts to manage a spectrum of different streams at once.
- Seamless integration with Salesforce - the time it takes to integrate and continue communication between the two systems is fabulous.
- Analytic Reporting - Trying to create a simple report based on a few features is hard to do.
- Reporting results - Currently the reports are very granular with only data. I would love to see heat maps, graphics and other illustrations to help tell the reporting story.
- Template builds - It would be great if the template builder was more intuitive and could allow drag and drop features instead of just relying on HTML coding of a new template. Not all of us are coders...
- Question is not applicable to our instance or industry
- Engage and grow customers over time
- Measure marketing investment
We have officially entered into our second year with Marketo. While in the beginning it was slow to get started (solely on our company not on Marketo) we are starting to see results in each of our goals. Regarding Engaging and growing customers, we previously would only send out random emails to our database sporadically and would not track the engagement of new leads. As a result of the nurture streams we are seeing more individuals enter in from various sources and continue to learn about us on a week by week basis. As this happens, naturally our second goal of measurement followed suit. Now with all the data we receive, its easy to build a business case for why Marketing and why Marketo.
- Pardot and Oracle Eloqua
Prior to joining our company, I had previous experience in multiple marketing automation systems, the exception - Marketo. Since joining I have been pleasantly surprised with the Similarities Marketo has to say Pardot and ExactTarget. The deciding factor for us was that the price was right and we are heavily wanting to increase the nurture streams for lead generation. Both were a check in our evaluation.
10,000 to 25,000
Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings
Using Marketo
3 - Our organization is smaller in number totaling less than 100. The three individuals that utilize Marketo are in the marketing department. One individual represents the complete digital space for our company. Another individual represents the communications aspect of our company, and the last individual represents the graphic design element for our company. As we move forward we are hoping to get more sales involved in the instance.
3 - This answer will not be relevant going forward with the spring release from Marketo. However, on the current instance of Marketo you need individuals that have basic HTML or CSS skill to update and make changes to basic landing pages and email templates. Also you need analytical thinking skill sets in order to review reporting and map out strategy for nurture streams.
- Streamline lead nurturing
- Provide analytical insight into Marketing and Sales enablement
- Learning the voice of our customers through Munkin Coding our website
- Addition of Marketo Calendar for event management and ease of leads entering into the system
- The snippet functionality of grabbing images off websites without downloading is great!
- Integration within multiple technology systems we currently used but didn't know matched with Marketo
- Web Personalization
- RCA
- Social Selling
- In the beginning lead hand off to sales were slower due to a properly vetted system - however the leads we are sending over are 47% more qualified than when we began
- We are still new in the process to really start seeing ROI
Evaluating Marketo and Competitors
Yes - We used MailChimp prior to switching to Marketo. MailChimp is a great platform to begin marketing automation if you are a smaller company and just getting started in the space. However, the lack of nurture streams and lead engagement was the biggest draw to switching systems. Once we implemented we realized the lead database and segmentation that Marketo offers was far more superior than MailChimps. Also the number of email addresses that you can send to at one launch is vastly larger than our previous automation system. Reporting analytics are more robust and allow you to pull more information out of the system - especially if your instance is synced with Salesforce.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Analyst Reports
- Third-party Reviews
There were many factors that helped during the decision making process However two of the list stand out to me. Product features and product usability could arguably fit one in the same for the most important factor in our decision. the existing functionality of Marketo and the promise of smoother interaction to come was the biggest plus in our decision to leave our other vendor. Marketo is to automation like Salesforce to the sales cycle - a foundation software that allows each business the opportunity to turn it into what meets your needs. Once you get past the start up phase, it is amazing the different ways you can go about building your content automation.
I believe that our company made the right decision in picking Marketo to be our marketing automation platform. Looking back and reviewing the way we made our decision I find little I would change about it. One thing that could have made the evaluation experience even better would be to look more on the social presence. Everyone has an opinion and checking out reviews such as this one in greater detail would be beneficial. Other than that I believe we took the right time to do our extensive research between all automation providers and landing on Marketo. The price, functionality, and ease of use outweighed the competition.
Marketo Implementation
- Vendor implemented
- Professional services company
During our implementation we partnered with a Marketo suggested third party company LeadMD. This company set up an initial call to see what we wanted out of our Marketo platform to help us customize our integration to fit our needs. We had 4 different phases that needed to be accomplished within a 3 month time frame. Working with a third party company that already had knowledge of the system helped us not make mistakes on the front end when set up is crucial for new users. If I ever have to go through implementation with Marketo again at another company I will not hesitate to use a professional service for the install.
Yes - During implementation we had 4 phases to complete our process. The first phase was more on the technical aspect. we needed to review and integrate Salesforce with the approved fields and apply the munchin code to our website for tracking. The second phase was physically integrating the systems together and mapping out our lead database. The third phase consisted of building out our lead scoring based on behavior and demographic information we wanted to capture. Also we set up channels and tokens during this phase. Our last phase dealt with more of the customization of our Marketo instance. Helping us determine which email and form templates to choose from and creating basic emails to get us started with the system.
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - With the Marketo implementation came a paradigm shift in our company. Prior to using Marketo we sent one off emails to individuals in our database and as soon as they responded were directed immediately to Sales for conversion. Our team knew with this implementation a nurture stream would take the place of initial pass to sales. This can be a very sensitive subject of taking potential revenue away from the sales team. Initially it took the buy end of our ELT leading the way for this change. Now our sales team are finding the leads coming to them are MQL instead of random and are seeing a close rate higher than before.
- Difficulties with the Munchkin code at first integrating with our Drupal site
- Future thinking all the initial lead scoring rule without ever having that before
Marketo Training
- Online training
- Self-taught
After the basic foundations class and the implementation time frame I was left to finish learning and creating items in Marketo on my own. I cannot stress enough how helpful the community is! The community provides you access to individuals right at your fingertips that will help provide answers to questions you are looking for, or documentation of problems you are currently facing that someone else has already figured out. Everyone is friendly and wants to make sure you have the best experience with the program and each other. Also their are groups called MUG (Marketo User Groups) that allow you to meet individuals either in your same region or like minded people that will help you accomplish your goals - join one or five!
Configuring Marketo
My recommendation would be less is more in the beginning. Depending on what your understanding is with marketing automation platforms you may be more knowledgeable then others. Use your own knowledge as the measuring stick of how complex you want to configure Marketo. You can always add more complexity and automation rules as you learn and grow with the system. Some times it is best to keep things simple in the beginning which will allow you time to understand the ends and outs of the system. Once you do that you can truly make Marketo work the best for you and your company.
Some - we have done small customizations to the interface - Customization to the user interface is very easy to do. This should be preferenced with depending on your role within Marketo. If you are an administrator in the system you have access to more customization options than other users. I would say to familiarize yourself with the instance prior to making any large customization changes. Sometimes the smallest change might make a big impact on the back end. Know before you do!
Yes - we have added extensive custom code - Specifically where customer facing assets are focused. The out of the box implementation of Marketo provides you with templates for email, landing pages, and forms. All of them are fine and can work well for you. However we have a very specific digital look and feel to our company and in order to have marketo be consistent we had to work in code. My suggestion for this would be to either pay for a litmus subscription or open a basic free account. This software will allow you to look at the finished product at the same time making changes in the code. This was a huge life saver for us when working in code because you would have to save what you were working on to view changes on the emails and then go back into the code to make more changes.
Marketo Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No - At this moment we are just over 1 year of partnership with Marketo. Currently all support related issues have been resolved in the time frame that meets our needs. Also we have a smaller team using Marketo within our organization so the need for premium support is smaller than the larger companies out there. However, if our company grows in numbers by our marketing department and we begin to implement in an international space we will definitely consider paying for premium support. Overall Marketo does a fantastic job supporting its customers regardless of your paid status.
Yes - In the beginning of our integration with Marketo and Salesforce we had a bug happen in our lead library. Marketo was duplicating the Salesforce leads and contacts into two different lists. I was actually unaware of the issue and my Marketo representative reached out to me. We immediately took the issue to support and our situation was resolved in a matter of two days. The end result found that we accidentally uploaded the list twice into Marketo which created our own bug. Thanks to Marketo we were able to find the solution quickly and ensure our database was clean prior to implementing nurture streams.
In the beginning of our integration with Marketo and Salesforce we had a bug happen in our lead library. Marketo was duplicating the Salesforce leads and contacts into two different lists. I was actually unaware of the issue and my Marketo representative reached out to me. We immediately took the issue to support and our situation was resolved in a matter of two days. The end result found that we accidentally uploaded the list twice into Marketo which created our own bug. Thanks to Marketo we were able to find the solution quickly and ensure our database was clean prior to implementing nurture streams.
Using Marketo
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using | None |
- Lead Library
- Analytic Reporting
- Email Testing
- New Email template creations - if you are not using Marketo's templates
- Understanding Tokens at first and how to use them
- Creating new stylized forms - Again if you are not using the templates provided for you in Marketo
Yes, but I don't use it
Marketo Reliability
Integrating Marketo
- Company Website
- Webinars
in 2016 we are looking to integrate at least two more products into our Marketo instance. Each of the 5 will be deeply integrated into Marketo, Salesforce, and our website. The integration process was fairly smooth and easy to achieve.
- LookBook
- Vidyard
Yes the vendors support integration with Marketo and are actually some of their suggested partners
- Single Signon
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
- AppExchange or similar marketplace
None that I see
I would echo my previous statement. At our company, all vendors that we currently work with or are researching in the future have to have one rule - they integrate with Marketo. Marketo is the backbone to our nurturing and demand gen initiative and it is important for our company to only work with vendors who support Marketo. If you have previous relationships with vendors that are not currently supporting Marketo I would encourage you to encourage them to research how to support Marketo. When everything talks to each other and syncs smoothly together it is so much easier to accomplish your tasks.
Relationship with Marketo
Without going into too much detail we were able to negotiate a decent discounted rate for consecutive years of using Marketo. Database size and scalability were a factor in the discounted structure. Also the more add on features that are purchased also helped the discount structure in our conversations. You have the flexibility to sign a one year contract if you desire as well.
My advice to anyone looking to enter into a partnership with the vendor would be to do your research. The purchasing process can get so confusing if you are not properly informed. Know all the different tier breakdowns and implications that happen if you go over your allotted size. Know the different features that are available and see if you can get a discount by purchase two together.
Upgrading Marketo
Yes - We recently just went through a new release of Marketo. This release happened over the weekend and had minimal down time due to the strategic day of updates. When you have a large system of partners one thing to keep in mind is you might not see the updates the very next day you walk in the door. Normal updates take two weeks to be fully implemented. If you are not in the highest tier you can expect a few days delay of updated product release. This does not hinder normal productivity unless you are expecting to roll out the changes immediately.
- Email Editor
- Email Insights
- Better Analytics
- Project Orion
- ACB
Yes - Currently we have the highest level edition of Marketo. If there is a time when a new edition comes out and it meets our business case we will absolutely look to move and upgrade to the new edition. Keeping up with each edition and the features of each are very important for decision making.