Yes, it's true, marketing automation can make you a Rock Star/Hero/Epic
Updated August 07, 2019
Yes, it's true, marketing automation can make you a Rock Star/Hero/Epic
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Global Enterprise
Modules Used
- Marketo Lead Management
- Marketo Sales Insight
- Marketo Social Marketing
- Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics
- Marketo Real-Time Analytics
Overall Satisfaction with Marketo
The way we use Marketo has transformed over the years. We used to use the reporting tools as a bridge between what we thought was happening the Marketo to what was actually happening with our clients. Now we use Marketo for AB testing, predictive content, personalization on the web, full integration with our ads, and many vendors and Launchpoint partners. Marketo is primarily used, in our organization, as a revenue marketing automation platform—driving further our revenue goals through marketing automation. Before Marketo, our organization was in the ‘lead generation’ stage (just trying to fill the pipeline). But now, with Marketo, we can see how each marketing dollar is spent and the impact of it. We are also engaging and qualifying leads more efficiently. The best outcome is Marketo has brought more consciousness to content development, engagement, and marketing ROI—this has been huge for us!
- Engagement Programs to further nurture people to sales (always staying top of mind)
- Easy to use marketing automated emails and alerts on a drip schedule, which can be set months in advances
- Incredible reporting capabilities making it easy to get as granular (look at the activity of one lead) or as macro (the whole program) as you'd like
- Easy to build forms on landing pages (no coding necessary) allowing marketers to migrate clunky web forms to Marketo fully integrated forms
- Powerful feature: unique URL builder creating promotional URLs for each landing page to help capture organic leads
- Intuitive user interface with drag and drop capabilities
- Innovative smart campaigns to send campaigns on the fly
- Product road-maps every quarter so you know what's coming
- Revenue anlytics reporting, which can get you a seat 'at the big table' to discuss all that marketing automation can do for your orginization
- Easy A/B testing to test subject lines, HTML and whole emails within any campaign
- Power house database management providing a birds eye view of the health of your database
- Sophisticated integration with Salesforce making it simple to use both applications rolled into one powerful platform
- Increase generation of revenue with marketing automation, reporting, and easy to use design features
- One of the most flexible integration capabilities on the Marketo for a automation platform (you can literally integrate anything into Marketo)
- A huge community of users that post "how-tos" all the time
- World class support team
- Being able to move assets from one work-space to the other easily and effectively--huge road block in big organizations!
- Lacking easy responsive templates (landing pages and emails) for programmers and developers
- Filters which are more intuitive and robust, offering simple information next to each about the populated data (like for a list: have the total number of leads in the list)
- More documentation on engagement programmers for users
- Easier webinar features, maybe an entire program dedicated to webinars (not just as an Event channel)
- A multiple select feature, which would easily allow for multiple actions at a time
- Easy way to delete channels and tags without disrupting multiple campaigns
- Better ability to accurately merge lead records (best practices)
- Need more help articles, a lot more
- A user can only integrate one SFDC to one Marketo and it connects for life. For example: you can't point your SFDC to a new Marketo instance
- Migration to another Marketo system is a huge undertaking and you need expert partners and Marketo support
- Migration to another automation platform from Marketo is an BIG challenge and you need expert partners
- Setup of the platform is easy but you might need some hand holding when it comes to your first integartion
- Backlogs are a huge issue for large enterprise customers so they have to do quarterly system checks (audits) to stay ahead
- System lag can happen when an integration is heavy on the system - to fix you need to contact Marketo Support
- Enterprise systems (more than 300 K records) need to have at least one Marketo expert (can't be done without the right people)
- Once you grow out of your database, you have to buy more space (records)
- Marketo instances are sold as blank canvases (stock) without anything in them - you must ask and buy to have a "seeded" instance to start on a good foot - this is HIGHLY recommended for teams that are new in Marketo
- There are hidden features in Enterprise editions
- Product Launches
- Upsell
- Cross-Sell
- Customer Service
- Lead Management
- Prospecting / New Business
Goals are ever-changing for us. One month we may be working on new offerings and want to push that venture and another month, we want to grow our database organically. Outcomes are based on ROI. If we spend money, we want to make money. In our programs, we factor in period costs (a way for Marketo to calculate ROI). We have even added hourly spend for our great team members that build the campaigns. So, we know exactly what the profit it. By far, email marketing has proven to be a great source of revenue for us. It is our least expensive out reach and we love creating great content.
I have used MailChimp, Eloqua, and Constant Contact. They do not offer the same powerful integration and innovation as Marketo. Companies struggle to get everything in one place (records, behaviors, demographic data and marketing communications). Teams then struggle to generate revenue and track it. In our organization, before Marketo, the marketing department was the ‘make it look pretty’ department. Now they're the ‘make the money’ department and have gained much respect by focusing their efforts on revenue marketing automation, specifically.
Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings
Using Marketo
- Powerful reports to show marketing influenced opportunities and the dollar amount attached to each
- Documenting reports for budgeting on programs, marketing activities, and campaigns
- Analyze how each dollar is spent and the total ROI making it easy to ditch programs and projects the next year, which did not work well
- Big negative: reports are not often easy to pull or read leaving many feeling out of the loop
- Immediately dedicate specific resources to reporting--create a standard procesess for reviewing ROI
- Huge increase in profits for companies involved marketing automation and the influence they have globally