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

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
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.
Best question to ask: are you ready to change everything your organization thought or thinks about marketing? This may sound simple, but it takes a lot! Be ready for questions, push back, misunderstandings, and a huge learning curve. Marketo is the most robust marketing automation platform to date, hands down. Therefore, you will need to hire power users with specific technical skills. Great power users, like the ones at my organization, represent highly skilled individuals with technical, creative, content, marketing and communication backgrounds. So brush up on your interviewing skills because you’ll need a rock star user (or more than one)!

Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG email editor
6
Dynamic content
8
Ability to test dynamic content
8
Landing pages
8
A/B testing
9
Mobile optimization
9
Email deliverability reporting
9
List management
10
Triggered drip sequences
8
Lead nurturing automation
10
Lead scoring and grading
8
Data quality management
8
Automated sales alerts and tasks
7
Calendaring
1
Event/webinar marketing
9
Social sharing and campaigns
4
Social profile integration
4
Dashboards
7
Standard reports
7
Custom reports
9
API
10
Role-based workflow & approvals
8
Customizability
10
Integration with Salesforce.com
10
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
8
Integration with SugarCRM
8

Using Marketo

Not to be a total raving fan, but once you start using it, you’ll be hooked! Our organization made huge leaps and bounds in ROI in the first year up almost 300 million dollars. It has brought more creativity and engagement to our campaigns. We ask better questions now; before we may have asked, “How do we get more people to notice us?” Now we ask, “How do we get specific companies and people to buy from us.” It has changed the conversation to be less about our company (what we are doing and why we’re so great) to instead be more customer focused and talk to people about things they care about.
  • 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