MARKETING AUTOMATION / MARKETO + SALESFORCE INTEGRATIONS
MARKETING
Traditional marketing is characterized by product, price, placement, and promotion (the four Ps). Promotion includes public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, and advertising. Philadelphia retail pioneer John Wanamaker is attributed with the quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” This traditional view of promotion has been up-ended with 21st-century digital transformation and a proliferation of devices. 538 reports that marketers are moving beyond cookies on a prospective customer’s browser, enabling them to capture information about the browser for the purpose of identifying a user’s presence. In the article, Princeton researcher noted, “fingerprinting is so effective is that even if you have a device that you think is identical to the device of the person sitting next to you, there are going to be a number of differences in the behavior of your browser.”
WEB ANALYTICS
With the modern web, it is possible to measure where dollars are wasted and when a marketer realizes a return-on-investment (ROI). This enables spend optimization. Google advises analysts to look at various website metrics: Audience session on a weekly basis, comparing new visitors to returning visitors each week, demographics (including age and gender), sources of web traffic (channel grouping), page tracking, average session duration, tracking conversions (from prospects to paying customers), event tracking (to see if some trigger matters more than others for certain prospects), and cost analysis. These KPIs were required to open the door to marketing automation, both technically and philosophically. Having detailed information about each user as well as aggregated results is what makes marketing automation possible. Real world data informs the use of triggers, which are based on business rules (if/then scenarios).
AUTOMATION OF MARKETING PROCESSES
Many organizations already have customer relationship management (CRM) software to aid in personal selling. A growing number are using more software and fewer people to mass-customize lead nurturing. Gartner defines Marketing Automation (MA) as “a system that helps marketers execute multichannel marketing campaigns by providing a scripting environment for authoring business rules and interfaces to a variety of third-party applications.” MA software features include sales integration, data management, website enablement, inbound capture, external campaigns, content management, lead scoring, as well as measurement reporting & analytics. Some MA vendors also have email marketing, landing page creation, and social media management. HubSpot warns that automation has led many marketers with limited budgets to buy email lists rather than generate leads online with content relevant to web surfing buyers.
BEYOND THE TRANSACTION
Enterprise Value Integration (EVI) adds value to Marketing Automation tools by going beyond marketing and sales. It is not enough to generate a transaction and then upsell. Total lifetime value (TLV) requires brand loyalty. EVI focuses on building brand loyalty by more consistently executing business processes that support brand promise(s). EVI also introduces methods and systems that allow marketers to track the total lifetime profitability (TLP) of each customer based on their consumption of resources through each business process. EVI represents a significant breakthrough for teams in finance, marketing, IT and PBM. EVI’s approach to integration involves enabling software algorithms to work in concert; data to be normalized and shared across the enterprise; for user interfaces to be designed with simplicity and elegance; and financial metrics to be assigned to each prospect/customer from the point where they are first entered into the CRM.
“MARKETING AUTOMATION HELPS WITH LEAD GENERATION, NURTURING, AND SCORING, AS WELL AS WITH MEASURING OVERALL ROI ON CAMPAIGNS.” SALESFORCE DEFINES MARKETING AUTOMATION AS “TECHNOLOGY THAT MANAGES MARKETING PROCESSES AND MULTIFUNCTIONAL CAMPAIGNS, ACROSS MULTIPLE CHANNELS, AUTOMATICALLY.”
MASS PERSONALIZATION + PREDICTIVE INTELLIGENCE
In 2004, Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) pioneered the concept of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to aide marketers in moving beyond generic sales pitches and focus on the essential needs of their highest-priority clients. ABM consists of four principles: 1. It starts with a focus on solving client problems; 2. Next, marketing and sales collaborate in order to take an integrated approach; 3. ABM is based on long-term thinking and growth based on trusted relationships; 4. Personalization is realized through tailored programs, content, and campaigns to drive interest and engagement.
In many ways, ABM was a vision that is still being realized as the capabilities of technologies are expanded and marketers earn the budgets and authorities to move beyond traditional marketing. Marketo offers ABM through the application of rudimentary artificial intelligence (AI). Marketo’s ContentAI crawls a client’s website and automatically identifies their media assets, such as videos, white papers, case studies, and blog posts. Based on the initial results, the client can select which content gets recommended. Use machine learning and predictive analytics to automatically put the most relevant content in front of each person across multiple channels, particularly the web, mobile, and email platforms. Marketo promises to get more ROI from client’s existing content. Clients can leverage content consumption, profiles, and behavioral patterns to learn which content works best for each person, moving them through their journey from prospect to customer more rapidly. Enterprise Value Integration focuses on building a sustainable path from a customer to a loyal and profitable customer.
BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING (RULES + WORKFLOW)
Business Analysts use the acronym BPM to describe the discipline of creating business rules and modeling workflows that can be executed online and offline. Marketo is part of the proliferation of acronyms with the term Revenue Cycle Model (RCM), which is a subset of BPM applied to marketing and sales. It is part of the Marketo Lead Management (MLM) application and sibling to Revenue Cycle Explorer (RCE) and Revenue Cycle Analytics (RCA). RCE is an add-on (incurring additional fees) Business Intelligence (BI) tool that is helpful in “running certain large pivot tables and especially analyzing the Funnel, which is where RCM comes in,” according to Josh Hill. Then there is the Success Path Analyzer, which functions when Lifecycle and RCM are both enabled. Hill notes “this is what the sales team uses to sell you on Marketo. They forget to tell you the amount of work required to use it.”
RCM is built on additional acronyms, such as MAL, MQL, SAL, and SQL. A Marketing Accepted Lead (MAL) has been qualified based on demographic scoring, both as a good fit and interested on some level. A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is likely to have a positive conversation with Sales and have been qualified based on behavioral scoring. A Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) have moved beyond the realm of marketing and machines to a salesperson or lead qualifier. They have been contacted or are at the stage in the process in which they are about to be contacted, so they are “suspects,” in the traditional parlance of sales. A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) show real opportunity with an estimated dollar amount and a closing timeframe. These would be otherwise known as “prospects.”
Each sales organization needs a brand buying model that is supported by a lead scoring model. EVI works with clients to customize and integrate these efforts. Lead fit, lead interest, lead behavior, as well as buying stage and timing are vital to scoring each lead. For example, marketers can assign higher lead scoring values to actions like registering for a webinar or downloading gated content, while assigning lower values to introductory behaviors like clicking through blog posts. Lead behavior requires little in the way of special data on leads.
LEAD MANAGEMENT (SCORING + NURTURING)
Organizations with a mandate to scale revenue are using automated lead nurturing as a way to more accurately predict the quantity and quality of leads in the sales pipeline. Our research shows that many companies over-invest in hiring sales staff when there are not enough qualified leads to give them. According to Marketo, on average, 50 percent of the leads in any system are not yet ready to buy. EVI has found that it is essential to keep leads actively engaged, but they will make purchasing decisions on their own timeline. Marketo defines lead nurturing as “the process of developing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel, and through every step of the buyer’s journey. It focuses marketing and communication efforts on listening to the needs of prospects, and providing the information and answers they need.” Marketo asserts that companies that apply best practices of lead nurturing generate 50 percent more sales-ready leads at a 33 percent lower cost. The Annuitas Group research found that nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
Top performing sales executives pay close attention to the timing of the buyer. Marketo notes “scoring for buying stage helps determine where a buyer is within the brand’s sales model. One way to score buying stage is to align behaviors with the top, middle, or bottom of your sales funnel. Attach higher scores to clicks on pricing sheets and product demos.”
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
Marketo does not offer a free trial directly to prospective clients on its website. It does have a network of partners who can configure a free trial, but the consultants charge for their services. Marketo has “bundles” for different pre-configured modules for companies with narrow or specific needs. The Lead Management bundle may be a good bundle for a small or medium-size business (SMB) to start the down the path toward scalability because it nurtures buyers who meet the ideal profile of brand users. Marketo’s PRO bundle includes fifteen (15) modules: Digital Ads, Content AI, Program (Campaign) Analysis, API / Integrations, Additional Marketing & Sales Users, Customer Engagement Engine, Lead Scoring, Segmenting & Nurturing, Search Engine Optimization, Email, Landing Pages & Forms, Social Marketing, Events, and Webinars, A/B Testing, Sales Intelligence, CRM Integration, Campaign Dashboards and Reports, and Marketing Calendar. Its ELITE bundle adds Anonymous Retargeting, Opportunity Influence Modeler, Revenue Modeler, Success Path Analyzer, and Advanced Report Builder, which are helpful for medium-sized businesses that aspire to scale to the enterprise level.
In addition to the Lead Management bundle, Marketo sells four other bundles, including various Email Marketing bundles, enabling companies to build long-term customer relationships with meaningful conversations at scale. Mobile Marketing is engineered to weave mobile experiences into campaigns. Consumer Marketing is designed to grow lifetime value by engaging consumers across channels. Customer Base Marketing enables revenue generation teams to engage existing clients across channels to deepen relationships over time. Enterprise Value Integration (EVI) focuses on long-term profitability of each customer, not just from the revenue side, but from re-engineering and optimizing internal business processes and IT systems to deliver what customer need. Prospective clients may use the EVI Value Calculator to measure the likely impact of these initiatives.
Integration is a common method to leverage the capabilities and strengths of different software vendors to realize the vision and strategy of a client’s brand. Marketing Automation needs to be integrated with CRM software to get the most out of both. Integration of Salesforce and Marketo are requested by many of our clients.
INTEGRATING CRM WITH MARKETING AUTOMATION
Salesforce has made a number of acquisitions in recent years, attempting to offer a suite of marketing automation features. Pardot is one example. Although Pardot’s base price is 12% more than Marketo, it is pre-integrated with Salesforce. Oliver Sholder is with Idealist Consulting and feels that kiosk mode for events makes Pardot better. He describes this as “any event where your organization is using one device (like a tablet) to enter prospect information through a Pardot form. This allows for event attendees to sign up without the device being tracked.”Rebecca Graves with SpotOn feels Marketo is better for sophisticated email users. She notes, “Marketo’s email tool allows for a little more depth, providing templates and a WYSIWYG editor. That can be a bonus or a curse, depending on your comfort zone with basic coding.” Graves also feels Marketo reports are more useful, which are built into Marketo. Pardot taps into third-party reporting functions, so there can be glitches. Given that Marketo is not part of a CRM, it requires integration. In addition to native integrations for Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Marketo also has non-native integrations for SugarCRM, SAP Cloud for Sales, Netsuite (part of Oracle), and Oracle Marketing Cloud.
To integrated Marketo with Salesforce, enter your CRM credentials and all your custom objects and fields are synced automatically. A user can add a lead in either system and Marketo ensures both systems are updated. Modify fields or objects to your CRM framework and they are automatically updated in Marketo.
NATIVE INTEGRATION
Native integrations are simpler because custom engineering is not required and are often free, compared to non-native, which often entails more time and money. According to Bedrock Data, “native integrations are highly contextual to its native system. If you don’t have complicated sales and marketing operations processes or a great deal of custom objects, the native integration will likely meet your immediate point-to-point integration needs.” Marketo has native sync connector to Salesforce. It syncs to your custom objects in Salesforce, which produce these sense of relational database capabilities. Inga Romanoff explained, “connection is via SOAP API and provides flexibility to establish data schema sync, select levels of access, and required field-level security.” These include standard configuration syncs read/write access four key objects. One example of an object is ‘Opportunity.’ Workato’s Hannah Herman noted, “the bigger challenge is cases where the out-of-the-box connector does not work— usually, these are use cases that involve automating processes around those integrations or expanding those workflows to include other apps, or if you have multiple instances of Salesforce or Marketo.”
Data Schema Mapping establishes clarity on how data is translated between the structures or semantics of an external data source (Salesforce) and the application (Marketo) [stored by the cache]. The schema mapping converts tables and columns in the relational database into classes and attributes in the session schema. Grégoire Michel has written that “the• feeling here is that Marketo is charging here for product weaknesses:
[-] Field mapping for Contacts is automated, so users would expect the lead/account field mapping should be as well. automated as it is for contacts: SFDC sync: Account/Lead mapping should be automatic when fields are named the same.
[-] Admins are not able unmap/remap fields from the admin interface.
[-] There is no option to add some fields in Salesforce that will automatically map with Marketo system fields, which is called “automap.”
[-] Many Salesforce account, contact and lead fields are not mapped by Marketo because they are “standard.”
[-] Users have also noted that syncing a Marketo instance with Salesforce after a period of use is laborious and anything but automated, due to the apparition of duplicate fields all over the instance.
[-] Field mapping section does not refresh when new fields are created in Salesforce.
[-] The absence of account opportunities is limiting the accuracy of attribution models and the capabilities of opportunity triggers and filters.
[-] User Christopher Boucquet asked to have the option to use Salesforce Lightning URLs in the tasks generated as automated.
Data Synchronization (sync) is a process of establishing consistency among systems and subsequent continuous updates to maintain consistency. Data sync is not a one-time task. It a process which needs to be planned, owned, managed, scheduled and controlled between Salesforce and Marketo:
[-] Marketo is aware they need to have sync logs to trouble-shoot sync errors or even a sync error tab for the Salesforce connector.
[-] David Desrosiers pointed out that Marketo does not have a time stamp on the last Salesforce sync, which makes investigations much more difficult.
[-] In some cases, users do not want a particular record to sync, but Marketo does not enable them to mark a lead “Do Not Sync to CRM.”
[-] Microsoft Dynamics CRM has a sync status summary UI feature to show how long the sync is lasting; Marketo is aware of this and has not announced weather it will be addressed after the Adobe acquisition is complete.
[-] There are times when Marketo sync just stops on a single lead, but Marketo does not notify the user that it stopped or which record was the cause. With that information, a user could delete or modify the record in question.
[-] When looking into an instance, users want to be able to know whether a sync filter is set. They want to set this without calling support.
[-] There is a bug that breaks lead merge under certain conditions. Marketo is working on sync filter & merge failures bug.
Different companies have varying definitions of what is a lead and when a suspect becomes a prospect. There are also different ways to assign account executives or sales professionals to each lead. There are a number of issues related to the assignment of leads, especially when updates to records are required as a new salesperson is assigned the lead:
[-] Marketo sync perfectly with Salesforce when a lead has an owner in Marketo. However, without a lead owner, Salesforce automatically triggers lead assignment rules and auto-response emails. Rachael Walrath recommends lead assignment rule #1 in the Marketo workflow to filter out the leads without owners.Walrath is with Salesforce.
[-] Assigning leads can be tricky. Right now, just lead owner or account owner can be linked to a related object through a lookup field. Marketo is working on enabling users to access Lookup(user) fields on leads, contacts or accounts to assign leads to assign leads on a “change owner” or “sync lead” flow steps.
[-] In large organizations, there are multiple people who may work for a lead owner. Namesakes may do cold-calling or account management work. Presently, there is no formal way to differentiate each assistant. Using different user IDs for one named account holder is one workaround.
[-] Inactive lead owners are not managed well in Marketo in certain use cases. However, there is a filter called “owner is inactive.” It fails to does help users want to run reassignment and specific campaigns.
[-] Enterprises using Salesforce for a long period before implementing Marketo experience a disruption with lead assignment rules. Salesforce has two rules/functions: lead creation or lead update. Marketo only has lead creation. This has not been addressed by Marketo.
A sustained and coherent series of messages sent to prospects is central to marketing automation. Salesforce Campaigns and Marketo Programs are closely associated with one another, but are not the same and require sync:
[-] People want to see campaign automatically mapped as programs tokens as soon as the campaign is sync’ed with a program. It is not happening.
[-] Marketo users can’t leverage campaign member standard and custom fields easily and sync them with program member fields. This has resulted users not easily sync’ing programs with campaigns.
[-] When member status is edited in Salesforce, the sync is not triggered. Many users think the admin should be able to repair it and force the re-creation of campaign member statuses from the program member statuses.
[-] Users cannot currently identify if a campaign is sync’ed with a program. Many users have asked to be able to use a filter within Marketo to see which are sync’ed and which are not.
[-] The acquired by program information is not sync’ed to appear in the campaign. As a result, users cannot access and present the information in reports.
[-] Recovery of campaign members is not automated when the status of a lead is changed.
[-] As for tracking leads, it is not possible to set source campaign flow step for Salesforce, so account executives cannot see where the lead came from when sync failed.
[-] Marketo users cannot access a complete campaign page layout, including record types. Many users are also frustrated that they cannot see program/campaign costs, so they cannot provide much needed detail in Salesforce campaigns.
Marketo’s user interface (UI) is relatively simple, but not necessarily intuitive. This is compounded when it is integrated with Salesforce CRM. UserInteraction.org defines UI as “the process of making interfaces in software or computerized devices with a focus on looks or style. Designers aim to create designs users will find easy to use and pleasurable. UI design typically refers to graphical user interfaces but also includes others, such as voice-controlled ones.” Enterprise Value Integration (EVI) incorporates Design Thinking into UI design in the process of integrating cloud-based applications.
Business Process Management (BPM) encompasses most if not all of the operations of an entire enterprise – both online and offline. Marketo’s UI has a workflow modeling function that is relatively simple but is sufficient for most marketers whose goals are limited to the progression of a suspect to prospect, and prospect to paying customer. EVI takes Marketo to the next level by integrating initial Marketing Automation BPM with the remainder of operations. This is essential to keep Brand Promises and improve Brand Loyalty.
ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMS vs. SMART CAMPAIGNS
As a reminder, “Programs” in Marketo are similar to “Campaigns” in Salesforce but quite different than Smart Campaigns in Marketo. Engagement Programs (EP) are more of a library of assets, so they have no automation. They are containers that can include related assets, such as emails, landing pages, forms, lists, smart lists, and smart campaigns. This container usually corresponds to a Marketing campaign. Admins or marketers should never create a smart campaign outside of a program. Smart campaigns are each distinct, so reporting can be a problem if a single manager has to generate reports for each. Admins and marketers can take advantage of the EP Stream Performance Report to see the performance analytics of all of the email assets within your engagement program in one centralized place. Marketo’s Campaign REST APIs provide basic capabilities to manage Smart Campaign execution. This includes scheduling batch campaigns and requesting / activating / deactivating trigger campaigns.
Dan Stevens explained, “the only time we will use an Email Program is when we want to do automated A/B testing (and we have a large enough audience) or for some of our [company’s] internal campaigns that we know will only be sent once on a regular cadence.” Balkar Singh has more extensive use of email. Singh notes, “while we can set up the campaigns to send the emails, engagement programs have the ability to drag-drop content, and provide quick insights on engagement scores, leads who are in particular casts, next scheduled casts etc. You can keep on adding content to streams as drag and drop but can’t customize it with as much flexibility as with standard smart campaigns.”
EMAIL AS PART OF A CONTENT MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Found in the AppExchange, Sales Insights is an on-demand sales management and sales professional empowerment toolset that allows you get more revenue from existing resources. Emails sent from Sales Insight in Salesforce make an API call to Marketo which then sends separate emails out to each lead through the Marketo servers. An Admin or Marketer can send an email to multiple leads using Salesforce Sales Insight and the open and click activities will be tracked for each lead separately. Enterprise Value Integration goes beyond the technical dimension of integration by focusing on content and results.
Jupiter Research advises that effective email marketing consists of five points: Relevant, Conversational, Coordinated, Strategic, and Trusted. A smart opt-in process sets up accurate expectations, which means your content will be well-received in a prospect’s inbox — making it Trusted. The days of email “blasts” are over. Segment your audience as much as possible, and send small, highly-relevant campaigns — making them Relevant. It the email is written as a normal person would write one, it is more likely that the recipient will respond. A Conversational email asks questions and encourages a dialogue. It should be tied into other communication platforms, such as social media. Coordination is vital to stay on message and stay relevant with each user’s needs. Strategic email must be measurable, going beyond opens and click-through-rates. Measuring and reporting on return-on-investment (ROI) is essential.