Good capabilities, functionality is there, time consuming to set up, but there is a value opportunity depending on your org.
March 22, 2019
Good capabilities, functionality is there, time consuming to set up, but there is a value opportunity depending on your org.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with PathFactory (formerly LookBookHQ)
PathFactory is being used to serve multiple content pieces at one time to a prospective customer. You can upload content pieces including but not limited to: website URLs, whitepapers, eBooks, eCourses (using .PDFs), videos, and case studies. We use the platform to create "paths" for different marketing channels like email, syndicated, paid social ads, etc. to serve multiple content pieces in one track and then lead score them to drive MQLs to sales for prospecting.
- Does really well to allow multiple types of content pieces in one track. It is nice to be able to upload, embed, and use multiple assets to lead prospects down the marketing funnel and score engagement/interest.
- Easy to use interface. The platform is pretty intuitive and their Knowledge Base how-to guides make PathFactory even easier to use. We bought the platform and within the next week were able to stand up paths and start implementation into our marketing programs.
- Customization. There is a good amount of customization with PathFactory from custom coded buttons in the "external code" section, custom forms, custom URLs, almost everything can be customized to fit your company's branding.
- Customization. This is a pro and a con for us, there is so much to customize with PathFactory that it took us 7 months to fully customize the platform to our branding. Additionally, there are some things that lack, like the analytics and being able to pull custom reporting (we currently have to go through our account manager to get customized reporting) as well as being able to change some things like referring sources based on internal custom coding isn't there. Also, due to how much that can be custom it can take a while to get everything coded and flowing through data warehouses properly, which is time-consuming.
- Initial recommendation on best practices and how to use the platform. When we first bought the platform we were under the impression that we should just run with it, implement and change later. This is somewhat of an issue for large organizations like ours. We have 15+ people using PathFactory, uploading multiple content pieces, using the platform for different products and reasons. It would have been more helpful to have a big meeting with our Account Manager to set up some guidelines on best practices, tags, things to watch and be careful of, etc. This came later and became a huge time suck to go back and update things from when we first implemented to now, having added over 500 content pieces.
- PathFactory has given our company an additional reason to implement lead scoring with our marketing org. Our marketing org has wanted to do some type of lead scoring for a while now and PathFactory gave us the push to be able to use the data for implementation of scoring.
- Implementing PathFactory did take a considerable amount of time to implement. It was easy to get started but we were really missing the strategy that included bringing in Brand to make sure look and feel was aligned with the company, coding of forms to make sure they aligned with Web Dev initiatives, all of the capabilities, etc.
I think PathFactory has helped us generate better marketing results by using lead scoring. This has helped us understand, especially in our nurture campaigns, when prospects are ready to pass off into the sales motion. This has helped us generate more leads for sales to call on which has helped in proving the value of PathFactory. We are able to classify what kind of assets we have (TOF, MOF, and BOF), score them appropriately, and know how ready a prospect is to speak with sales.
Setting up and launching PathFactory was more work than we expected. We had to work with our brand and creative org to make sure everything was in alignment with our website and brand look and feel. We also had to work with our Web Dev team to make sure form coding on the back end didn't clash with Web operating procedures and data flow. Overall, it took us a good 6-7 months to get in a place where we felt good and aligned with all of our teams for full and proper implementation.
PathFactory has allowed us to give a prospect more than one content piece at a time. This really gives them the capability to binge on certain assets and topics to find out more about our solutions rather than having to search our web page for what they are looking for or wait for ads to be served to them. Overall, it has really helped our eCourses as well, which use to be served daily in one lesson bites. Now, they have all 7 lessons in one track and are able to binge as they have the time or can save the track for later use.
We only evaluated PathFactory due to leadership having used PF at a previous organization.