Better than others that's all i can say!!!
Updated August 21, 2019

Better than others that's all i can say!!!

Ravi Ansal | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Standard

Modules Used

  • Marketo Lead Management
  • Marketo Sales Insight
  • Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics

Overall Satisfaction with Marketo

Being a Digital Marketer, I use Marketo on daily bases to run digital campaigns such as Email, Events, Webinar etc.
Best features are as follows:
  • We can track leads in Marketo easily and also track their activities in detail.
  • The nurture and Lead scoring programs help me in demand generation.
  • Its sync with Salesforce helps our CRM as well.
  • I implemented Marketo in my old company. The support you get from the Marketo team is really good.
  • Lead Nurture : I does it exceptionally well as you can create multiple rules for multiple scenarios.
  • Revenue Cycle Analyzer: When it comes to track ROI; the details you get from Marketo is significant.
  • Lead Database : They should create something where we can change the lead details easily.
  • Analytics : There are multiple reports but their should be few options to edit them according our need as we might want to compare 2-3 different reports so instead of doing that manually we should be able to do that automatically.
  • Product Launches
  • Upsell
  • Cross-Sell
  • Customer Service
  • Lead Management
  • Prospecting / New Business
I have used ExactTarget, Pardot and Eloqua but I would prefer Marketo over them any day It could be because now I am really comfortable using this product. But it was really easy for me to move from those MA systems to Marketo. The UI is really good and the DOCs they provide are really detailed and you hardly need any tech support. Marketo de some email deliverability issues but it is better than others any day.
Well suited for Email marketing. Subscriptions options are really good. Best for Event registrations as well but it would be great to have their own event support system for Webcast/Webinars then to integrate it other platforms.

Data sync issues with On24 event support system.

Lead detailing is really good and detailed but complex for a new user as well.

Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG email editor
6
Dynamic content
9
Ability to test dynamic content
10
Landing pages
10
A/B testing
10
Mobile optimization
8
Email deliverability reporting
7
List management
10
Triggered drip sequences
10
Lead nurturing automation
10
Lead scoring and grading
10
Data quality management
8
Automated sales alerts and tasks
10
Calendaring
10
Event/webinar marketing
10
Social sharing and campaigns
8
Dashboards
7
Standard reports
9
Custom reports
8
API
4
Role-based workflow & approvals
10
Customizability
7
Integration with Salesforce.com
10

Learnings & Advice

Marketing automation is not simple and easy. Also every company need it to help the sales.
Without it you cannot put any values next to your marketing efforts.
The success that we have is to show our sales the importance of Marketing and efforts that we do on the daily bases which leads to help them close the deal.
Also the misinterpretation of Marketing just create junk to Marketing creates leads and also help in closing the opps as we funnel of Marketo now help us get the insights of CRM and we can treat the leads accordingly till they are WON
Now our sales send every email using Sales Insights so that they can track if the user is interested at all or not. They have asked us to create certain triggers, which are quite easy to setup in Marketo, to make sure that they got to know what their customers are interested in and they can talk about in the meeting with them.

Smart Campaigns are just perfect in Marketo compared to any other MA tool.
Well, Hire a small consulting agency at start. Marketo support is good but not perfect and expensive. You might need a developer and alot of meetings to finalize it.
Donot sync with your CRM till you are sure about everything. It is a one way road.
Rest use Marketo on the daily bases. it needs time.
Well, One stop shop to meet people like me.
We have a lot of experienced people there. They are really helpful and you get the answer really quickly.
But the best thing is that you can have a discussions there and find out what opinion of others and find out what other companies are using.
You can use it without Marketo login as well.
1. Go to Marketo University at start.
2. Hire a consultant which will be cheaper than Marketo, and more useful as they dont help with development.
3. You will need a developer at start.
4. Learn from the Marketo community.
5. Take care of database and uploads.



Using Marketo's core features

  • Channels
  • Programs
  • Email Templates
  • Forms
  • Landing Pages
  • Smart Campaigns
  • Lead Scoring
  • Lead Sourcing
  • Segmentation
  • Lead Nurture
  • Reporting/Analytics
  • Analtics
  • Email programs
  • CRM connection
A lot of it. I asked my questions and post my suggestion constantly over there.
Database Managemnet and CRM connection

Benefits of using some of Marketo's core features

We use different ways to track the Lead sources, such as UTM parameters in forms captured via cookies, or use smart campaigns as they come from different API's. The Lead source is really important for not only Marketing attribution but also utilized by the sales as to measure the last transactions.

Well just as an FYI there are still few lags in capturing the exact data, and donot o for every touch as that make the things more complicated rather than defining any answers.

There are few basic channels but also some internal one where we promote our products. But I wont be able to add them here.
But the channel tracking is good only if you don't have multiple work spaces. with multiple work spaces these tracking doesn't make sense anymore.
We are not using them as a measure any more as we only use them to measure the lead capture and conversion reports.
We are looking for a attribution model and soon we will be able to find every touch and allocate the percentage to the sources.
Well the segmentation is quite important to us and it is a really powerful option as well.
you can use them to dynamically personalize the content on the landing pages and email but not the external sources. we recently started using the Web personalisation and looks like these segmentation will also be helpful there. Rest one issue you can only have 20 segmentations.
Because of GDPR we recently create a new segmentation between Opt-in vs double Opt-in and then we dynamically present the forms based on there segmentation.
We use smart campaign for everything from sending an email to adding something to a list even to sync leads to CRM.
They are the best. the most easy and convenient.
I have not seen this or similar approach in pardot
They are easy to setup but still less customizable when it comes to design. they dont have any AJax and some time the CSS is quite difficult to align with the existing web page.
I am not a designer but the email template term seems quite old to me. People like to have the email plain and straight. We do have some templates but they look really old fashioned.
Not much but the operational tasks are easy when you have templates.

Using Marketo

20 - Campaign Managemnet
10 - Operational campaign Managemnet
  • Product Promotion
  • Tradeshow Promotion
  • Surveys
  • sending ivitaion by sales
  • sales looking for activity data of leads
  • modification of sales cycle
  • Web Personalisation
  • IP address
  • AI content
  • Its integration with Salesforce helps alot. Lead tracking and revenue per lead creation details are really helpful.
  • It is not a cheap tool to use but such good functionality and so less manual work it is worth it.

Evaluating Marketo and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Analyst Reports



Everything went perfectly but will look out to have a personal
support engineer with the architecture knowledge





Marketo Training

  • Online training
  • In-person training
If you are first time user then the training is perfect, but the advance training is not that effective.
After working in Marketo for 5 years there is nothing new to learn.
The new tools that Marketo have are expensive and too difficult to use. +
I would recommend to learn the basic and use Marketo on the daily bases as you will forget everything in a month if you don't use it.
I never really had online one one one training.

I attended the university sessions which were shared and they were quite good, The only issue is the practice. On One on One you can ask the company specific questions but in the online training it was not that specific.

Marketo Support



Recent experience as most of the time support is not able to
answer the question.





ProsCons
Good followup
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Less knowledgeable
Problems left unsolved
Slow Initial Response
No - 

We mostly need architecture support most of the time



There have been time mostly, but they never consult when it comes to intergation processes.

Using Marketo

based on my experince
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Requires technical support
Lots to learn
  • Email Program
  • Analytics
  • CRM connection
  • Database update
  • DeDuplication
  • Multiple approvals processes

Integrating Marketo

Well Marketo doesnot support with the integrations. But it is inevitable, there are some functionalities that Marketo does not have.

For those you need the intergartions such as Webinars, Event check in etc etc.

Many integrations are simple using launchpoint solutions but rest are quite difficult and you need a developer for everything.

  • Survey Monkey
  • Wistia
  • Salesforce
  • CVENT
  • On24
The native integrations are quite easy and powerful.
For rest there are Zapier connections
  • WeChat
  • Inevent
  • SAP CRM
Do with the Vendor, specially who have already done something.
Marketo doesn't help with this at all, specially like WECHAT interrogation is manual approach and a lot of effort.

I wish Marketo could make the All integrations such as Salesforce and support us.

  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
  • Javascript widgets
  • ETL tools
  • AppExchange or similar marketplace
Webhooks
Look for the launch point for easy integrations. CVENT and Survey monkey is not well integrated with Marketo.
Also Zapier is really good tool when it comes to setup the webhooks.
Marketo integrations with BI tools is really bad. Everything need a developer so extra costs for new integrations.
Test the integrations with Sandbox before implementing it.