Item: Oracle Marketing
Rating: 8
Author: Tom V.W.P. Schreurs

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're a Platinum Partner of Oracle and implement Oracle Eloqua. We work as partners with the biggest, smartest brands in CPG, B2B, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Retail, Travel, Financial Services, and Telecoms. We are enabling our clients to become digital native businesses to create defining digital products, services, and businesses. Eloqua is one of the platforms we have in our portfolio.

Pros and Cons

Campaign Canvas with intuitive UI which let you build campaigns in only minutes.
Level of Insights and Reporting Eloqua offers is great for all departments within organisations.
Workflow setup and decision steps have a large variety of options to build any type of campaign.

Insights in logging of Integrations. More information could be shared. When you integrate with large volumes of data, it would be helpful seeing Batch ID's to identify any failures.
A/B Testing functionality not only for E-mails but included in Campaigns, luckily this is on the roadmap.
Insights on platform use. I would like to see how many interactions were through mobile/tablets/PC.

Scalability

During the Implementations I was a part of, scalability was a discussion point. How will it react when more and more contacts will be added? Will we be able to use one instance for multiple countries where our organisation is located? In the end, Eloqua will perform great as long as you investigate which limitations are in place.

Return on Investment

Some companies underestimate the effort that is required to maintain Marketing Automation. Be aware that it requires time and effort of multiple people.
During all my implementations we've seen an increase on Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing.
In the start the ROI will be low, after fully adapting and using Oracle Eloqua for multiple campaings you will start to see the increase. Only then you'll see what works and what doesn't work for your specific target group.

Alternatives Considered

Marketo, HubSpot and Oracle Responsys

Each product has its specific functionalities it is particularly good at. Marketo and HubSpot have different target groups as clients, they target SME's. Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Responsys have a higher monthly fee but can also offer more than the other competitors and target large companies. It all depends on the functionality you are looking for, size of your company and the amount of contacts you are targeting.

Likelihood to Recommend

For medium to large companies, Oracle Eloqua is well suited. It is easy to learn but complex to master. Don't take marketing automation lightly. Implementation is the first step. But the success all depends on the use of it and the level of adoption within the whole organisation, end-users should be well-trained. Great for B2B, also suitable for B2C. If you're looking for an easy way to quickly send out emails, this is not the tool for you.

Easy to learn but difficult to master

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Oracle Eloqua