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Marketo - the best of the bunch when it comes to Marketing Automation
Updated September 03, 2019

Marketo - the best of the bunch when it comes to Marketing Automation

Tim Madel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Global Enterprise

Modules Used

  • Marketo Lead Management
  • Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics

Overall Satisfaction with Marketo

We use Marketo to better connect with our customers and prospects. It is our primary email campaign tool as well as the vehicle for all of our paid advertising (PPC) landing pages. We primarily are sending campaigns segmented by verticals that we serve, though we are moving more intro trigger campaigns based upon user behavior and demographics. We have some very basic nurture campaigns set up.
  • Integration with Salesforce.
  • Numerous third party tools (Vidyard, Sitefinity, Lookbook) over native integrations.
  • Creating targeted list (Marketo calls them Smart Lists).
  • Support for responsive landing pages and emails.
  • Reporting - unless you have Revenue Cycle Explorer (RCE), an add-on, reporting is very basic. And RCE is not easy to work with.
  • Technical support is spotty - we've had numerous assigned techs of varying degrees of skill.
We want to increase awareness with our customers, prospect and suspects. We want to build deeper richer profiles of each one of these segments and target each of them with more personalized marketing information that is relevant to them and the challenges they face. Ultimately we want to generate more leads and close more sales.
We have recently evaluated HubSpot, Eloqua and Pardot as alternatives to Marketo. While these other products have similar strengths to Marketo none had any additional features that would prompt us to undertake a migration. Specifically, Marketo's targeting via Smartlists is far stronger than ANY of the alternatives. Also, the number of 3rd party integrations that Marketo supports is far more than any others. Finally Marketo's community is larger and more active than any of the other alternatives we looked at.
250,000 to 1 million
B2B
It's very well suited if you have Salesforce, want to run global email campaigns and institute lead tracking. Also if you want to integrate with third party systems such as video platforms and other marketing technologies most support Marketo (even more so than other marketing automation tools). Marketo also has a very strong user community where answers can usually be found.

Marketo needs to get better in supporting management of assets within their partitions. Right now it is REALLY difficult to clone an asset from one to another.

Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings

6.3
WYSIWYG email editor
5
Dynamic content
6
Ability to test dynamic content
7
Landing pages
6
A/B testing
6
Mobile optimization
3
Email deliverability reporting
8
List management
8
Triggered drip sequences
8
7.0
Lead nurturing automation
8
Lead scoring and grading
8
Data quality management
4
Automated sales alerts and tasks
8
6.0
Calendaring
7
Event/webinar marketing
5
4.0
Social sharing and campaigns
5
Social profile integration
3
3.0
Dashboards
3
Standard reports
3
Custom reports
3
9.0
API
10
Role-based workflow & approvals
10
Customizability
7
Integration with Salesforce.com
9
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Not Rated
Integration with SugarCRM
Not Rated

Learnings & Advice

Marketo has been instrumental in our demand generation efforts - from hosting our landing pages to allowing us to develop effective nurture campaigns. Some key leadings from my experience:

1. Take the time to plan and structure your account properly - they can get extremely complicated/messy in a short time.
2. You will only be successful when your data is clean. Establish rigorous data hygiene protocols!
3. Don't be afraid to experiment
It may not be advanced to some folks but it was advanced for us - using the advertising targeting capability to build an audience and share it with ad networks, Linkedin and Facebook, etc. While we didn't always have critical mass in some audience - when it did work, it allowed us laser-like targeting to get our ads in front of the right people based on the behaviors we were teaching via Marketo.
Take the time to do some planning up front - it is so tempting to dive right in. But having a well structured account will help you in the long run. Get your team professionally trained - Marketo is a very complex piece of software and learning from an expert is extremely beneficial
There have been countless times when we have had an issue with Marketo and the solution did not come from the official technical support channels - instead some extremely generous and knowledgeable folks in the communities came to the rescue. It also useful to be able to share your challenges and know that you are not alone - even if there isn't a solution right away
I don't really know any tips or tricks that others haven't already shared. Keep your instance well organized, set up standard procedures for creating new campaigns and landing pages, establish rigorous data hygiene protocols and keep learning about as new features are introduced in the different releases. Above all work with the tool as much as you can - the more you do the better you understand its capabilities and limitations.