MARKETING AUTOMATION:DIS UPTING THE STATUS QUO

Research from 1396 B2B

marketers in 2013 reveals

what marketers should

demand from the next

generation of marketing

automation technologies.

2

Contents

Introduction………….................................................................................................................. 3

Chapter 1: New Class Disruptors in Marketing Automation..................................................5

Chapter 2: Top 10 Considerations for Maximizing the ROI on Marketing Automation....14

Chapter 3: Key Recommendations……………………………….............................................36

Research Methodology………..................................................................................................41

This eBook was made available compliments of:

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Introduction

Marketing automation technology was designed to

empower marketers with the tools they need to execute

multi-channel communications, centralize customer data,

and promote relevant and meaningful customer

engagement across the entire customer lifecycle. As

such, most marketing automation tools offer a standard

set of core capabilities and features, such as the ability to

execute email campaigns, capture web behavior, and

prioritize leads to route them to sales when they are truly

qualified – so much so that these capabilities provide little

differentiation between providers. But research shows that

organizations achieve varying degrees of success with

marketing automation. Some of the challenges can

certainly be credited to a lack of alignment between

marketing and sales, or failure to re-think process and role

responsibilities during the implementation. But how much

of this is because of the tools themselves? Research

suggests that marketers are still struggling to embrace

some of the core value propositions from marketing

automation tools. Are there tradeoffs between the

robustness of features/functions and the rate of return on

marketing automation investments? Are some solutions so

robust that they really only meet the advanced needs of

a tiny subset of the B2B market? And if so, what are the

most innovative solution providers doing to address

emerging market needs?

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Today, marketing automation solutions continue to

evolve to meet the unique needs of customers both large

and small, B2B and B2C. That means some providers are

better than others at addressing the needs of your

organization. This report will explore the challenges and

successes with marketing automation according to

feedback from senior marketing leaders across a half

dozen Gleanster surveys in 2013. The findings leverage

insights from 1396 organizations to ascertain how

marketers are actually using marketing automation and

what they should demand from next-generation solutions

to future proof investments in marketing automation.

Successful implementations are as much an exercise in

change management as they are about choosing the

right technology for your organization.

We will define an emerging class of innovative new

offerings in marketing automation which Gleanster

classifies the “New Class Disruptors (NCR).” Marketing

automation should be used as a marketing system of

record for marketing. As such, they need to be

accessible and intuitive for marketers to log in and use

every day of the week; especially marketers who may not

have a deep technical background. The future is about

extending marketing automation platforms as the nerve

center of marketing. Therefore, marketers should adjust

their expectations accordingly and hold solution

providers accountable for solving the real challenges

they face.

Anatomy of a Top Performer

Gleanster uses 2-3 key performance indicators (KPIs) to distinguish “Top Performers” from all other companies (“Everyone Else”) within a given data set, thereby establishing a basis for benchmarking best practices. By definition, Top Performers are comprised of the top quartile of qualified survey respondents (QSRs).

The KPIs used for distinguishing Top Performers focus on performance metrics that speak to year-over-year improvement in relevant, measurable areas. Not all KPIs are weighted equally.

The KPIs used for this Gleansight are:

•Growth in annual revenue•Email Click-Through Rates•Growth in Lead-to-Sales Revenue•Bid-to-Win Ratio•Reduction in Sales Cycle Time

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CHAPTER 1

New Class Disruptors in Marketing Automation

6

Marketing automation isn’t really about automating

marketing. It’s about empowering better relationships

with prospects and customers. And it’s about delivering

just the right engagement with a prospect at just the right

time to build a trusted relationship that results in profitable

sales. These days, share of wallet is earned through great

customer experiences. Unfortunately for marketers, great

customer experiences demand more content, more

communications, and more focus on any and all

channels customers prefer to engage with a brand. That

means marketers are under ever-increasing pressure to

do more with the same or fewer resources. As such, the

wrong marketing automation solution can sometimes be

perceived as more work to overworked marketers.

While marketing automation was designed to mitigate

marketing challenges, many organizations are finding the

technology doesn’t always reduce the burden on

marketing; it can be difficult to learn, it demands new

content, and it makes the successes (and failures) of

marketing more visible. Furthermore, it’s difficult for

marketers to embrace new technologies, especially

when some of them demand dedicated and skilled

resources or consultants. For this reason, many

organizations make investments that never fully

materialize into the expected return. The best intentions

fall short from a lack of training, headcount turnover, and

emerging best practices.

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Ultimately, marketing automation is very powerful, and

the real story is far less bleak than the picture we painted

above. Gleanster estimates that marketing automation

tools are used by approximately 20,000 organizations

across the globe, and there are millions of companies

that will likely end up using these tools over the next 5-10

years. Research from the last decade has consistently

shown that organizations that achieve superior growth in

revenue are 7-8 times more likely to be early adopters of

marketing automation solutions. Therefore, it’s sufficiently

safe to assume that marketing automation has moved

beyond the early adopter stage of growth. It’s certainly

not a passing fad; it’s the future of B2B marketing. After

all, the tools allow marketers to take control of customer

data and make it actionable (a top 3 marketing priority

for B2B CMOs in 2013).

Figure 1

Marketing automation adoption trends. Depending on the data used, marketing automation adoption has seen compound annual growth of between 10% and 20% since 2011. 78% of Top Performers report using a marketing automation tool.

38% 46% 55%

45%48%

40%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

2011 2012 1H 2013

B2B Respondents Using Marketing

Automation

Currently Use Plan to Use

13% CAGR over 3 years

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One of the top 5 challenges with maximizing the use of

marketing automation is training and “lack of skilled

staff.” Depending on the solution, it’s sometimes

necessary to hire someone with a technical skill set to

operate the marketing automation solution. But it’s also

becoming increasingly difficult to retain and pay these

resources. Retention is low among skilled marketing

automation technologists, and rightfully so, because

growth in adoption means increasing demand for a finite

number of skilled resources. When demand goes up for

finite resources so does the salary, and this is driving

significant turnover with marketing technologists. As soon

as they are trained and experienced, greener pastures

are on the horizon. Marketers also need to reduce

dependency on system administration and IT; they need

a way to create simplified campaign sites, microsites,

landing pages, lead nurturing campaigns, and A/B tests

without having to involve a system administrator or IT

person.

It turns out, marketers struggle to adopt some of the

traditional features in marketing automation like lead

scoring and trigger marketing. Figure 2 shows that, even

among Top Performers, companies are struggling to use

some of the most basic features in marketing automation.

Naturally this manifests itself in the types of campaigns

that are being executed after marketing automation is

implemented. It’s not uncommon for users to rely on

legacy marketing tactics such as batch-and-blast

campaigns, long after marketing automation has been

deployed.

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Figure 2

Marketing automation adoption trends. Surprisingly, few organizations actually use the full breadth of features available in marketing automation. This trend manifests itself as continued dependence on large volume campaigns. Ironically, many companies invest in marketing automation to move away from batch-and-blast tactics.

0% 50% 100%

Mobile Campaigns

Social Media Marketing

Lead Scoring

Landing Page Hosting

Email Campaings (one off)

Web Tracking

Use of Marketing Automation Features

Top Performers Everyone Else

98%Large volume

email campaigns

62% Lead prioritization

55%

Nurture marketing

based on

behavior

21%Track & measure

attribution

Running campaigns on a periodic basis

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Figure 3 shows the top three ways Top Performing

organizations maximize return on investment in marketing

automation. 2013 was the first time ease of use showed

up on the list of top three critical success factors for

maximizing the return on investment in marketing

automation. This was a challenging finding to

contextualize because ease of use is a subjective

concept. Demand for robust features (mainly by large

enterprise organizations) is now being countered by

demand for simple to use interfaces. Keep it simple. Many

organizations are looking for solutions that the average

person could learn in a few hours and get up and running

in minutes, not days.

Figure 3

Top three ways Top Performers indicate they maximized the return on investment in marketing automation. Ease of use topped the list in 2013, prompting further analysis about how organizations measure such objective criteria. 77%

87%

92%

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Cooperation with sales

Re-usable camapign templates

Easy to use system

Top 3 Ways to Maximize ROI in

Marketing Automation

Top Performers

* Q3 2013 Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220

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Below we contrast two distinct approaches to marketing

automation: the current status quo (CSQ) and new class

disruptors (NCD) that are solving some of the challenges

traditional marketing automation solutions continue to

face. When it comes to selecting a marketing automation

platform, making a buying decision based on specific

features is a mistake. It’s far more appropriate to look for

platforms that fit the broad needs of the organization. As

a result, what is emerging across the marketing

automation space is a demand for sustainable

innovation. Marketers should be demanding more from

marketing automation technologies. While the

technology can’t be blamed for poor process or a lack of

internal alignment, it can generally do more to ensure

that core value propositions like lead scoring and

revenue attribution tracking are accessible to marketers

who are not technical.

Figure 4

Defining CSQ & NCD. New Class Disruption is characterized by innovation that enhances traditional marketing automation features to mitigate challenges and better serve the needs of the “average” marketing automation user.

Ma

rke

tin

g A

uto

ma

tio

n

So

lutio

ns

Current Status Quo

Campaign Centric

Feature Rich

Require Skilled Resources

Customizable

Templated Approach

New Class Disruptors

Drag & Drop

Built in Data Quality Processes

Deep Social Integration

Built-in Attribution Modeling

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2013 is an important year in marketing automation, thanks

to over $3B in acquisitions (Eloqua, Exact Target) and new

initial public offerings. But as an industry, marketing

automation has started to segment. Established players

are finding it increasingly difficult to innovate, and the

platforms themselves have become very robust tools with

a core client base that is capable of truly extracting all of

the benefits of the platform. But what about organizations

that are new to marketing automation? Do these robust

tools offer too much for the average marketer? Top

Performers suggest this might be the case given the

overwhelming focus on ease of use.

In the next chapter we will explore a variety of key

elements that marketers should be demanding from

marketing automation solutions. For the purposes of this

eBook we will segmenting the market for marketing

automation into two classifications: Current Status Quo

(CSQ) and New Class Disruptors (NCD).

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Current Status Quo (CSQ): Over the years, traditional

marketing automation capabilities have developed into

a standard set of features such as lead scoring, email

marketing, web analytics, landing page hosting, and

CRM integration. When marketing automation was new,

early entrants established market dominance using many

of these “traditional” features. As the market matured,

continuous innovation driven by demand from existing

clients led to more robust offerings, and many solution

providers quickly moved up market to the enterprise,

where the full breadth of the solution could be

appreciated. As a result, solutions, while robust, also got

more expensive and often required dedicated

administrators with knowledge of CSS, HTML, and API

experience.

New Class Disruptors (NCD): New class disruptors

represent marketing automation providers that are

focused on mitigating some of the challenges that first

generation marketing automation platforms have faced.

These include things like usability, scalability, platform

integrity, and computing capacity. Any provider can be

a new class disruptor, and the core of this classification is

a continuous focus on innovation, even if it means re-

thinking core marketing automation capabilities.

Chapter 2 will explore the top 10 things marketers should

look out for when investing in marketing automation.

Every organization has unique needs, but it’s generally a

good idea to understand if your solution provider of

choice is mitigating existing challenges through

innovation and the product roadmap.

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CHAPTER 2

Top 10 Considerations for Maximizing the ROI on Marketing Automation

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So if marketing automation solutions are evolving and

innovating, what should marketers expect from next-

generation technologies? For one thing, new marketing

automation solution providers need to re-think what has

been working and not working in marketing automation

over the last 10 years. That means the tools should be

mitigating top challenges, even from Top Performers who

often achieve industry leading performance through

early adoption of marketing automation.

The following is a list of the top ten things marketers should

look for in the new class disruptor (NCD) marketing

automation tools (in no particular order). Naturally, every

provider is unique and for the most part can check the

boxes across all of these criteria (with nuanced

exceptions), so it ultimately comes down to how well the

tool meets the unique needs of your organization across

primary channels, features, and usability.

TOP 10 CONSIDERATIONS

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1. Focus on good data.

Effective marketing automation for B2B demand

generation requires accurate and up-to-date business

data. Data that can be used to transform customer

communications into personalized and relevant dialogs.

But, according to Top Performers, data quality is a top

challenge with marketing automation.

Figure 5

Data quality tops the list of challenges for Top Performers. Marketing automation should have pre-configured tools for managing and augmenting customer data.

73%

75%

84%

85%

97%

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Lack of skilled staff

Rethinking legacy processes

Poor marketing processes

Data quality and integration

Creating enough content at a

reasonable cost

Top 5 Challenges with Marketing Automation

Top Performers* Q3 2013 Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220

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That’s because the average organization manages 3-5

marketing technologies, and much of the time customer

data is fragmented and siloed across these tools.

Marketing automation solutions must be capable of

centralizing existing and future customer data. Current

status quo (CSQ) marketing automation solutions often

rely on third-party data cleansing and enhancement

tools to link disparate sources of data and tie them to

customer records using a unique identifier such as an

email address.

But the new velocity of business change means that the

very best source of data about the customer comes from

the customers themselves. That means marketers need to

capture explicit information on forms and landing pages,

but more importantly connect via social media. The best

source of information actually resides on social media,

and marketers need a systematic way to harvest these

sources for data cleansing and accuracy. New class

disruptor (NCD) solutions need to connect with social

networks, especially LinkedIn and Twitter. This shifts the

data cleansing challenge from “how do I make sure this

data is up-to-date” to “how do I add more value to the

data.” That transforms what marketers know about a

prospect into active and ongoing intelligence that can

be used to optimize marketing communications.

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Questions to Ask About Data

• How does the system guard against duplicate

records? The current status quo uses email addresses

as the unique identifier on customer records. But

customers often have multiple email addresses, so you

need a system with fuzzy logic to identify similar

records as the same or duplicate. The bigger your

customer database, the more challenging

implementing this kind of fuzzy logic engine will be for

your marketing automation provider. That’s why next-

generation solutions will have to be capable of rapidly

scaling large databases (which can just as easily exist

in small-to-midsize organizations as they do in

enterprises).

• How does the system enhance the data provided by

the prospect? Look for solutions that append data in

real time using social networking profiles as their

primary source. Static data sources, for example

Hoovers, Jigsaw, and the like, are great when it comes

to data about a particular company but ridiculously

out of date when it comes to data about specific

prospects.

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2. Ease of use is not a ‘nice to have.’ It’s everything.

8 out of 10 Top Performers rank ease of use as a top three

value driver for maximizing the ROI on investments. All

vendors will claim their systems are easy to use, but you

need to validate that yourself. Depending on the needs

of the organization, and largely on the size of the

implementation, some systems will require IT support

during the initial implementation. Some systems also

require dedicated administrators for customizations and

more advanced campaigns, so knowledge of HTML, CSS,

and Javascript will be a plus. As previously mentioned,

about one-third of Top Performers involve consultants

when implementing a current status quo solution. This is

obviously an added expense to the implementation.

Figure 6

How do companies measure ease of use in marketing automation? Here are a few of the most common answers from respondents to a Q1 2013 marketing survey.

46%

56%

62%

72%

79%

83%

0% 50% 100%

Confident training others

Minimal customization required

Templates

Desire to use the system daily

Intuitive interface

No knowledge of coding required

Top 2 Ways Your Organization

Measures Ease of Use

* All Respondents, Q1 2013 Revenue Performance Management Survey, n= 219

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Questions to Ask About Ease of Use

• Are our current users experienced at using marketing

automation technology? If so, do we need to hire a

new resource?

• Do I need a system that is feature rich? What is the

business case justification for these features?

• How long does it take to author a landing page? A

thank you page? Set up a simple lead nurturing

campaign? Get hands on, and don’t settle for

screenshots during the selling phase.

• Envision yourself and your team using the marketing

automation platform day in and day out. How will

they feel about using the platform on a regular basis?

New class disruptors (NCD), on the other hand, need to

embrace the fact that even the biggest company has

limited headcount and a limited budget. There will always

be a need for two distinct classes of technologies, those

that are more robust and therefore slightly harder to learn,

and those that are intuitive and easy to use. Next-

generation marketing automation solutions are

embracing drag-and-drop capabilities through HTML5,

which provides a slick interface that deploys with all the

ease of use of a consumer class product.

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Questions to Ask About Ease of Use Cont’d

• Does the UI focus on features you will use day in and day out

versus the “advanced features” that you will use less

frequently? Too many advanced features can make it

impossible for beginning users to understand how to get

started with a product. So the best practice is to keep

advanced options lower down in the UI hierarchy.

• How long will it take to get onboard my company? What’s

the average for companies like mine?

• What is the training process like? Do I have to pay for

training?

• How long before I can create and execute my first

campaign?

• How can I make changes to assets like landing pages, calls-

to-action, campaign work flows? Must I involve IT or a

specialized administrator with knowledge of your product or

will I be able to “do it myself”?

• Can I create landing pages in a simple, drag-and-drop

manner?

• What about graphical calls-to-action? Are tools available

that make it easy for me to create graphical calls-to-actions

and buttons and re-use them throughout the system?

• Do I need skills in Javascript or HTML just to change the color

and look and feel of a simple button? (Warning: two very

large CSQ marketing automation vendors fall down here for

reasons we cannot fathom.)

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3. Flexible pricing and contracts.

Today, virtually all marketing automation solutions are

bought and sold as a SaaS (software-as-a-service). That’s

funny, because the promise of SaaS is that you don’t

have to make any long-term commitment. But the reality

is that long-term contracts somehow worked their way

into the industry, and they are quite common among

providers. On the one hand, long-term contracts force

organizations to really invest in the longevity of the

solution, but on the other hand they can lock marketers

into the wrong solution for the wrong reasons. In order for

marketing automation to continue growing, providers will

need to embrace flexible pricing and place greater

emphasis on service, ease of use, and customer

satisfaction to keep customers coming back.

At the same time, many providers will price the solution

based on tiered numbers of “active” contacts in a

database. This can quickly become very expensive to

support if an organization has large lists or an active

communication strategy. Most of the time, pricing tiers

are based on active users and are designed to protect

against users blatantly sending SPAM with the system and

negatively impacting email deliverability. Just make sure

the volume of communications you plan to send is

realistic based on the price plan. Also ask if there are

overage charges and automated alerts when email send

thresholds are reached.

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Questions to Ask About Pricing

• What’s the shortest period I can license your software

for?

• Does the licensing cost start immediately or only after

I’ve gone through onboarding?

• If I’m dissatisfied after 30-60-90 days, can I get my

money back?

• What’s your renewal rate? How does this compare

with your competition?

• What happens to my data if I ever want to move to

another marketing automation platform?

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4. Look for pre-packaged integration with CRM.

Marketing automation is largely designed for marketers to

use on a regular basis. But the ultimate goal of marketing

automation is to convert prospects into customers. As

such, it’s critical that marketing automation aligns with

CRM so salespeople are notified of just the right time to

contact qualified leads. According to respondents,

response rates are on average 287% higher when a lead

is contacted within a minute of an inquiry and 58% higher

when a lead is contacted within an hour. Inevitably,

about 20% of the prospects marketing generates will be

immediate opportunities that should be routed to sales.

The lag between when marketing automation runs lead

scoring algorithms and the update in CRM can make all

the difference.

Questions to Ask About Pricing

• Are lead scores calculated in real time?

• How frequently can we update our CRM solution with

marketing automation data? Are there daily

maximums or costs associated with the frequency of

the update?

• Can sales enter leads into lead nurturing programs

from within CRM?

• Can prospect information move bi-directionally from

CRM and Marketing Automation?

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5. Look for modern design patterns, not templates.

Your brand is important to you. Some marketing

automation solutions use a template approach to

minimize the need to customize and configure layouts.

On the one hand, this removes the burden on marketers

to ensure campaigns are configured correctly and will

render across different ISPs. On the other hand, pre-

configured templates mean landing pages, emails, and

other assets all tend to look the same. Today, content

and digital channels form the basis for engaging new

prospects with value-added content. It’s not uncommon

to see very similar design layouts across campaigns

because marketers default to a handful of templates. The

question is, does that work for your brand? The current

status quo uses templates and standardized layouts for

executing campaigns, which simplifies execution and

can give marketers a leg up in getting new campaigns

configured. New class disruptors must support the

publishing of landing pages, thank you pages, and lead

nurturing campaigns that are flexible and easily

customizable by marketers. These campaigns must be

built to look good, persuade audiences, and perform on

smart phones and tablets.

Questions to Ask About Layout & Templates

Hint: Ask these same questions for landing pages, call-to-

action graphics, and email campaigns.

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Questions to Ask About Layout & Templates

• Can I see 5-7 samples of landing pages created on

your platform? Match the landing pages to the brand.

What do you see? A giveaway that the system will not

deliver the production values you need is if every

landing page looks the same and not like the

corresponding brand.

• How much work was involved in building and

customizing landing pages, ones that look significantly

different than the templates that ship with the

product?

• What templates come standard with your system?

(Many popular marketing automation solutions come

with standard templates. A dead giveaway that the

marketing automation platform is hard to use is when

you see the standard templates in use everywhere.)

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6. Responsive design is a must for mobile engagement.

Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in the B2B buying

process. Research suggests that on average between 60% and

70% of B2B buyers will engage in fact-finding and research on

mobile devices before making a purchase decision. At a

minimum, marketers should embrace responsive design (where

the viewing experience is optimized for the device screen size) in

campaigns, landing pages, and the website. New class disruptors

(NCD) should come pre-configured with responsive design

elements, which ensure communications are viewable on any

platform: traditional (PC, Mac), smart phone, or tablet.

Questions to Ask About Pricing

• What assets does the system create that are ready to be

viewed on mobile?

• Can I see what a landing page, email newsletter, and thank

you page looks like on mobile from within your system?

• Have your mobile styles been updated for the iPad mini and

other smaller-format tablets? Tablets or the bigger format

Android phones?

• Is mobile transformation handled on the server side in the

browser or via some hybrid process? Server-side transformation

– sometimes called adaptive design – does not give you

control over look and feel in the same manner as responsive

design. To future-proof your marketing automation solution,

responsive design should be a preference.

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7. A/B Testing should be wicked easy.

Most marketers will say they value testing and optimization –

as they should. But the reality is, testing and optimization is still

a challenge for marketers. There are two main reasons for

this:

1. Marketers don’t always know how to translate testing

results into action.

2. Marketers struggle with the usability of A/B and multivariate

testing in marketing technologies. (See Figure 7.)

When asked to prioritize features and functions inside of

marketing based on the areas marketers perceive to be the

highest value, 78% of marketers indicated easier A/B testing

was a top three desired feature inside of marketing

automation. Most solution providers can do basic A/B testing,

but it really comes down to how the technology closes the

loop on the results.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Multivariate testing

A/B testing

Web analytics integration

Creative design/templates

Level of satisfaction with marketing

automation tools

Not Satisfied Satisfied

Figure 7

Marketers struggle with testing and optimization features in marketing automation tools.

* Q2 2013 Digital Marketing Survey, n=321

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Questions to Ask About A/B Testing & Optimization

• After I run a test, what happens with the results? Will

the system automatically adjust campaigns, landing

pages, or email based on the test results, or does that

need to be done manually?

• Show me how to run an A/B test in your system.

• Do I need developer knowledge to make adjustments

to the messages?

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8. Targeting and dynamic personalization.

Businesses don’t make purchase decisions, people do. In

the complex B2B sale it’s common for multiple influencers

and decision makers to be involved in the buying cycle.

For this reason, it is imperative for marketers to shift from a

“one size fits all” approach to marketing to a personalized

one-to-one communication strategy; business-to-business

is shifting to person-to-person. Of course, that’s easier said

than done. The need to personalize communications

more effectively is a top three reason to implement

marketing automation according to Top Performers.

Every marketing automation solution comes equipped

with the ability to configure business rules that help

marketers personalize more effectively. The biggest

impediment to personalization is actually data quality. If

you don’t trust the data, you can’t trust the personalized

communications. New class disruptors should come

equipped with smart lists (also known as dynamic lists)

whereby prospects are added to campaigns

automatically based on profile data and the stage in the

buying cycle. This allows marketers to focus on

developing the right messages instead of wasting time

managing lists for those communications.

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Questions to Ask About Targeting & Personalization

• Do you support persona-based targeting?

• How easy or hard is it to pull segments out of the

database?

• Can prospects exist in multiple segments

simultaneously?

• Can I customize landing pages and the offers they

deliver based on segment membership? How easy or

hard is this to do? Show me.

• What about thank you pages? Can they be

personalized based on the stage (lifecycle) of the

lead?

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9. Multi-channel campaigns.

Do you have teenager at home? If you do, you may

have discovered that email is – in the words of Gen Z –

“how old people communicate.” Old or young, it is true

that some prospects and customers do not want to be

contacted via email and will opt out of this channel. But

email isn’t the only channel to worry about any longer. It’s

imperative that marketing automation platforms support

multi-channel campaigns. Many current status quo

companies crafted their products pre-social media. As a

result, social media tends to be bolted on versus

integrated in a seamless manner within their campaign-

planning tools.

New class disruptors look at social as another channel of

communication, one that can add frequency to a

campaign and/or reach prospects that have opted out

of email communications with your company. Social

media has also become a source of insight about

prospect purchase behavior and an indication that

contact history may be out of date. In order for marketing

automation to effectively engage prospects and

customers during the buying cycle, the systems really

need to start managing the accuracy of customer data

and be a conduit for collecting additional insights on

prospects.

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Questions to Ask About Multi-Channel Capabilities

• How easy or hard is it to create a lead nurturing

campaign that utilizes Twitter? Many CSQ automation

systems are centered around email.

• Can I track and measure offline activity using the

same campaign tracking tools I use for online

marketing? This turns out to be very helpful when it

comes time to report on ROI or lifetime value across

the marketing mix.

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10. Built in Revenue Attribution.

Revenue optimization/marketing attribution should be

built-in and part of list pricing. This is an area where

current status quo companies are walking a fine line. One

would think that measuring the success of campaigns

and communications would be a natural out-of-the-box

capability in marketing automation. But over the years,

revenue optimization/marketing attribution has been

added to marketing automation solutions and largely

sold to large enterprise users. In some cases these

capabilities are a separate product that must be

licensed, for big bucks. But the idea that only the biggest

companies “need” revenue optimization or attribution

analysis is flawed.

New class disruptors need to simplify revenue

optimization/attribution analysis and bake it into the

platform as a core capability at no additional cost. While

these reports will never be 100% accurate, this has always

been a challenge for marketers. Basic weighted

attribution modeling can deliver some very compelling

directional insights for marketers. New class disruptors rely

on a combination of server-side and in-browser

technologies to simplify the creation of new campaigns

and tracking them through to conversion. The new class

disruptors understand revenue attribution requires a

nuanced approach. Most are committed to making

revenue optimization/attribution analysis a core part of

their platforms at no additional cost.

35

Questions to Ask About Revenue Attribution

• Where does revenue optimization/attribution analysis fit in

your product roadmap? Is this something you will be

building into the platform or handling via a connector to

someone else’s application?

• What kinds of tools and reports are available for my

organization to understand the relationship between

marketing activity and revenue?

• Can I calculate ROI on a particular marketing campaign?

• Are tools available to understand the lifetime value of

different segments of customers?

• How is attribution modeling handled? There are at least 4

different ways marketers are looking at attribution models:

first touch, last touch, multi-touch weighted model,

statistical models. Look for a system that does not lock you

into any one method. Different models can be useful for

different types of marketing decisions. For example, last

touch attribution modeling can tell you what campaigns

to send to a prospect last, to accelerate the close and/or

maximize revenue.

• Will revenue optimization be handled as an additional

product or will it be built into the core product? Look for

companies that take a platform approach and build

individual applications out with consistency particularly

around the UI. This enables leveraged learning, the ability

for you and your team to learn one function and see that

learning apply when it comes time to pick up and learn

new functionality.

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CHAPTER 3

Future Proof Your Marketing Automation Investment

37

Research suggests that the number of organizations that

have tried more than one marketing automation

technology is on the rise. In fact, 65% of Top Performing

organizations divested of one solution in favor of another

marketing automation technology over the last 10 years.

That’s not necessarily a surprise, since it’s fairly easy to

justify an investment and get the technology up and

running. But a willingness to switch providers means

organizations, for whatever reason, are unhappy. The

simple fact that organizations continue to look for new

providers is actually an indication that the technology

works, but perhaps they experienced issues with service,

pricing, or the user experience.

61%

35%

4%

57%

38%

5%

53%

40%

7%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

1 Solution 2 Solutions 3 or More

"How many marketing automation

solutions has your organization tried?"

2011 2012 1H 2013

Figure 8

Trends showing organizations are increasingly likely to try more than one marketing automation solution. This is an indication that they see value, but struggle with some aspect of the solution: usability, price, customer service, etc.

* Q1 2013 Nurture Marketing Survey, n= 268, Q1 2013 Revenue Performance

Management Survey, n= 219, Q2 2013 Digital Marketing Survey, n=321, Q3 2013

Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220

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The question is, how do you future proof your investment?

While marketing automation tools consistently play a

powerful role in Top Performing success, the return on

investment demands a holistic approach. Marketing

automation is an enabler of people and process, which

means the success of an investment hinges on the ability

to re-think marketing and sales processes, success metrics,

and the overall customer experience. There are two

critical aspects to future proofing an investment.

1. Don’t limit decisions based on features and functions.

The decisions should be based on the entire platform. If

your organization is new to marketing automation, you

may not need a laundry list of robust features and

capabilities. Be sure to conduct a demo and have actual

end-users of the system participate. Ask solution providers

to expose the platform in a trial or hands-on user

experience so users can get a feel for how things work.

39

•Technical ability

•Marketing & Sales alignment

•Motivation

•Common goals

•Resource budget

People

•Shared definition of qualified lead

•Nurture marketing

•Lead stages defined

•Linkage to CRM

Process•Multi-channel

•Intuitive

•Training & support

•Customization

•Executive reporting

•Data integrity

Technology

2. Commit to investing in the components of change:

people, process, and technology. Marketing automation

will require you to re-think your marketing and sales

strategy, processes, and measures of success. It’s very

common for organizations to invest in marketing

automation, fail to make necessary internal changes, and

then blame the systems for failure. Sixty-three percent

(63%) of Top Performers rank process re-engineering as a

top priority for maximizing the return on investment.

Figure 9

Managing the components of change. Successful marketing automation investments require systematic attention to all three areas.

40

Conclusion

The good news is marketing automation solutions are

evolving to meet the unique needs of organizations of all

shapes and sizes. There will always be growing pains as

new disruptive industries form, and marketing automation

was definitely a disruptive force in the marketing

technology stack. Bottom line, marketers should be

holding solution providers accountable for solving their

biggest challenges. In a highly competitive market,

buyers have many choices, and perhaps that is the main

driver behind continuous innovation in marketing

automation. Your solution provider should be earning your

business, not locking you into contracts. Your solution

provider should be making it easy ascertain revenue

attribution insights from no-cost built-in models. Your

solution provider should ultimately address your needs as

B2B marketers.

Marketing automation will eventually replace legacy

disparate marketing technologies, so it’s generally a

good idea to start thinking about how your organization

can simplify the marketing technology stack and extract

more value from a core system of record for customer

data. As much as we love to say success is not about

flipping the switch on the technology, that doesn’t make

finding the right technology any less critical.

41

Research Methodology

• In 2013, Gleanster conducted 6 different surveys on B2B marketing strategy, inbound marketing, lead nurturing, marketing automation, and revenue performance management. This eBook leverages data from each of these surveys and represents the collective feedback of 1396 B2B marketers.

• Q1 2013 Inbound Marketing Survey, n= 203

• Q1 2013 Nurture Marketing Survey, n= 268

• Q1 2013 Revenue Performance Management Survey, n= 219

• Q2 2013 Digital Marketing Survey, n=321

• Q3 2013 Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220

• Q3 2013 Omni-Channel Marketing Survey, n= 170

• Gleanster used a weighted methodology using key performance indicators based on self reported performance from anonymous survey participants to distinguish Top Performers (defined as the top 25% of qualified survey respondents) from Everyone Else (the bottom 75%).

41

42

Lead Author

Ian Michiels, Principal & Managing Director

About Gleanster

Gleanster is a new breed of market research and advisory services firm. Its larger, more comprehensive “Gleansight” benchmark research reports and concise, more bite-sized “Deep Dive” analyst reports highlight the experiences of top performing organizations: why they invest in technology, how they overcome challenges, and how they maximize the value of their investments. Gleanster also aggregates outside thought leadership in the form of vetted white papers and research reports from third-party sources, including

those from technology solution providers – who, for their part, can create and maintain their own Vendor and Solution Showcases on Gleanster.com to help further educate the marketplace.

For more information, visit www.gleanster.com.

This eBook was made available compliments of: