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All b-to-b marketers understand the value of lead nurturing, lead scoring/prioritization and SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall® and tactic-level reporting. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a b-to-b marketing department that does not engage in these standard practices. This makes marketing automation platforms (MAPs) an essential component of every b-to-b organization’s marketing infrastructure.

In this SiriusView, we evaluate MAP vendors based on their features and functionality, usability, vendor viability, and service and support. The evaluations are based on vendor briefings and demos (including specific use cases requested by SiriusDecisions), in-depth surveys filled out by the vendors, interviews with select customers, and data and information from SiriusDecisions client inquiries and benchmarks. See the full description of our SiriusView methodology on the SiriusDecisions Web site.

Evaluation CriteriaScoring was based on the demonstration of the eight use case scenarios outlined below, defined by SiriusDecisions, as well as vendor usability, viability, service and support. Vendors were required to state whether the functionality demonstrated is contained within the entry-level basic solution or in an offering at a different level. Vendors may have satisfied the use cases with third-party integration or directly through their offering, and this is stated where applicable in the analysis of each vendor. MAP vendors included in this SiriusView met the following criteria related to product/solution maturity and overall vendor health:

• Role administration and permissions. The ability to support centralized and decentralized marketing automation tasks (e.g. demand center vs. field marketing responsibilities) through user role assignments that govern read/write/access permissions for contact data, content assets and programs.

• Web personalization. The ability to dynamically personalize Web visitors’ online or mobile experiences based on their MAP profiles.

• Lead scoring. The ability to score and prioritize leads for sales engagement.

• Nurture programs for qualifying demand. The ability to qualify demand using nurture programs (e.g. pre-marketing-qualified lead nurture, recycle nurture, trial nurture).

SiriusView: Marketing Automation Platforms 2015

This SiriusView compares leading vendors within the b-to-b marketing automation platform (MAP) space

Although all MAPs offer similar functionality, differences are evident when MAPs are evaluated through various use case scenarios

An organization’s MAP choice should be based on its use cases for marketing automation

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• Multi-channel nurture. The ability to execute MAP programs that rely on delivery mechanisms beyond email (e.g. mobile, search engine optimization/search engine marketing, Web personalization, social, content syndication, webinars, retargeting, chat, text, print advertising, live events, direct mail, telemarketing).

• Testing. The ability to test hypotheses and improve programs and performance though A/B and multivariate testing.

• Sales enablement. The ability to support sales qualification by providing sales reps with insight into buyer behavior and engaging with prospects on their behalf.

• Measurement and reporting. The ability to measure tactic-level performance and provide stakeholders with role-specific dashboards and reports (e.g. marketing ROI, tactic and marketing channel performance, lead stage conversion, velocity, revenue contribution metrics).

Beyond features and functionality, MAP vendors were also scored on the following three criteria:

• Usability. This component evaluates the overall usability and accessibility of the MAP application. In most organizations, marketing automation is managed by an individual or team that must also manage additional and competing responsibilities. Logical process steps and screen layout are important in delivering a positive user experience. Nearly all MAP vendors stress their platforms’ ease of use, but the actual degree of usability differs significantly based on the skill level and experience of the end user. We evaluated the level of effort required by a non-technical marketer to undertake the use cases mentioned above. We also examined the ease of system administration, as well as the skill level required to use the tool to access other integrated applications (e.g. sales force automation [SFA] platforms, business intelligence [BI] tools).

• Viability. The purchase of a MAP is both a financial commitment and a skills investment. There is no way to eliminate the risk of technology vendors going out of business, being acquired or ceasing the support of a solution. This risk makes vendor viability an important selection criterion. When assessing financial viability, we consider how long vendors have been in business; their

revenue size, trending and composition; and if and how they are raising capital to finance their growth (e.g. venture capital, private or public equity). When assessing strategic viability, we consider customer references, number of technology partners, visibility in the marketplace (e.g. press and industry awards) and whether the vendor has recently been acquired or has acquired other companies.

• Service and support. Gaining the maximum value from a MAP is contingent on the time, cost and complexity involved in installing or configuring the solution, training users and obtaining ongoing support. We elicited feedback on the quality and responsiveness of these services for each vendor, as well as the pricing structure related to support. We also evaluated how training and support services are provided (e.g. phone, email, Web, on-site and/or video) and to whom they are provided (e.g. marketing personnel, third-party marketing agencies).

Marketing Automation Key TrendsThe percentage of b-to-b organizations using marketing automation continues to climb, as does the number of marketers who understand how a MAP can be used to drive demand creation performance. In addition, SiriusDecisions has noted five significant shifts: two involving marketing automation marketplace trends and three centering on marketing automation features.

Marketplace TrendsAcquisition growing pains. Over the last three years, the marketing automation market has rapidly consolidated (e.g. Oracle acquired Eloqua, Salesforce.com purchased ExactTarget/Pardot, IBM acquired Silverpop, Adobe bought Neolane, SalesFusion purchased LoopFuse). However, simply acquiring a company doesn’t immediately meld the organizations (and products) together. Product portfolios need to be rationalized, user interfaces streamlined and messaging unified. This has not happened in marketing automation, so customers, prospects and many MAP sales reps lack a clear understanding of the vendor’s future roadmap. Though the level of clarity will improve in 2016, this ambiguity will continue, especially for vendors new to the MAP marketplace.

Predictive lead scoring. Lead scoring is a core capability of MAPs; however, the use of predictive lead scoring providers has grown rapidly. Thus far, marketing automation vendors have opted to partner with predictive lead scoring vendors

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rather than securing predictive scoring capabilities by building or acquiring them. SiriusDecisions believes this will shift in the coming year; MAP vendors will begin incorporating predictive capabilities into their core offerings, driven by customer demand and/or eroding wallet share.

Feature TrendsUsability. Previously, only technically inclined marketers were capable of actively working in a MAP. User interfaces were full of pop-up windows, file structures were complex, and creating a landing page or form required HTML expertise. Most MAP vendors have made significant improvements to their user interface and user experience (UI/UX), so non-technical marketers can now safely design and execute demand creation programs using a MAP. Surprisingly, not all MAP vendors have focused on their UI/UX. As a result, their rate of acquiring new customers and retaining existing clients has plummeted. These vendors will continue to bleed market share until their senior management teams realize that product usability is not a nice-to-have but a must-have in today’s MAP marketplace.

Ad integration. B-to-b marketers are beginning to realize that they require better-targeted communication channels beyond email to relay their messages to the market. To expand reach and improve response rates, they are increasing their investment in digital advertising. In response, MAP vendors have started to integrate, and offer as add-on modules, access to demand

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management, advertising and lead management platforms that augment anonymous visitor data with first-party data. Opening up connectivity and linking these technologies gives b-to-b marketers a more defined audience that can more effectively be targeted with ads and expanded nurture tactics beyond traditional email. SiriusDecisions expects that advertising technology and marketing automation will continue to merge, giving marketers a complete data picture of their digital buyers.

Advanced analytics. Without the ability to measure, an organization cannot report on its results, let alone understand how close it is to reaching its goal. Over the last two years, MAP vendors have focused on funnel reporting, campaign and conversion analysis, as well as automated testing (e.g. A/B, multivariate testing). As the MAP market has matured, so too have MAP vendors’ analytic capabilities and offerings. Look-alike modeling, pattern matching and next-best-offer capabilities have emerged as feature sets in several MAPs, most notably in MAPs that target enterprise-level organizations, making it easier to export data from the MAP to feed other analytic environments. SiriusDecisons anticipates that MAP vendors will package these advanced capabilities in a way that makes them easier to use in demand creation programs.

Vendor Analysis Act-OnFor smaller organizations or agencies that require a cost-effective solution – and place a premium on enabling sales and marketing with flexible reports and in-workflow intelligence – Act-On should be included on the list of vendors to consider. However, since Act-On’s offering is focused on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), it may not meet the needs of global enterprises or organizations that place a premium on lead scoring precision.

DifferentiatorsMarketing funnel reports. While most MAPs provide funnel reports, they are often difficult to create or offer limited flexibility. Act-On allows users to easily configure and manage multiple funnels. Act-On marketing funnels are flexible, allowing marketers to track items like key conversion stages (e.g. unknown-to-known visitors, Demand Waterfall stages). Using data from Act-On and an organization’s SFA system, these reports provide insight into the effectiveness of marketing and sales efforts.

Sales enablement. Within any Web-based environment, Act-On Anywhere provides sales intelligence and marketing automation functionality without requiring users to log in or to leave the application they are working in. For example, sales reps using LinkedIn can use Act-On Anywhere to understand how their network has engaged with their organization’s Web properties and content. Organizations using Gmail can easily access a contact’s activity

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history and engagement. Conversations with potential buyers or customers become more relevant since behavioral and profile context are provided. With a minimized need to do research within multiple systems, sales becomes more productive.

MAP partitioning. Agencies and marketing organizations can partition access to contact data, assets (e.g. emails, forms), programs and specific roles or reporting lines. For example, the organization may elect to create a partition based on geography, preventing non-European marketers from accessing any programs or associated assets maintained by the European team and preventing other regions from accessing European contacts. The solution allows the sharing of best practices, landing pages, email templates and programs across multiple instances. This creates efficiencies necessary for organizations with limited bandwidth and/or skilled resources.

ChallengesDepth of features. Act-On offers many features for inbound and outbound marketing automation. However, the application is not as well rounded as it could be in terms of the flexibility of role creation, testing functionality and linear programs. Many organizations may seek a higher level of security and flexibility than Act-On offers for creating roles and assigning permissions. Although Act-On offers 12 privileges that may be assigned to system users, the administrator cannot modify an entire group or role-based persona (e.g. field marketing, sales).

Lead scoring flexibility. Act-On provides marketers the ability to incorporate frequency and recency elements into their lead scoring models. However, marketers cannot modify or customize the decay rules. The system automatically decays a score after 90 days and completely resets the score after 120 days. By artificially selecting dates, instead of using buyer behavior or typical sales cycle length, this approach does not offer the marketer much flexibility.

Adobe CampaignAdobe Campaign is available as standalone a MAP, but offers considerable value for medium-size and large organizations with existing Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions and the need to manage a distributed, global marketing function. Its on-premise deployment option also affords an added benefit for organizations that need to address strict security or data privacy requirements. Smaller organizations that do not plan to have a dedicated MAP administrator and those without highly standardized marketing processes should consider other solutions.

DifferentiatorsAdobe platform. Organizations with existing Adobe infrastructure can benefit from using Adobe Campaign, as it includes Core Services (e.g. Profiles and Audiences, Shared Assets, Activation, Mobile, Exchange, Collaboration, User Management and Administration) that are shared across all eight solutions

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of the Adobe Marketing Cloud (i.e. Adobe Campaign, Adobe Media Optimizer, Adobe Social, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Primetime, Adobe Audience Manager). Multi-functional groups can share assets as well as audience and profile information – as well as personas – through the cloud vs. needing to manually bring data into the system (e.g. demand marketers can access and share the same assets as product marketing or strategic communications).

Multivariate testing. The ability to test emails on multiple conditions offers marketers greater efficiency in determining which combination performs best. Adobe Campaign goes beyond the traditional A/B test by allowing additional variations of combinations (e.g. A/B/C/D) to be tested. Marketers can configure four segments (e.g. subject lines, names, graphics) against each other and automatically test response levels (e.g. best open rate, best click rate, best conversion rate, lowest opt-out rate) to identify the winning combination.

On-premise. Unlike most other MAP vendors evaluated in this report, Adobe Campaign’s product is also available as an on-premise offering. Organizations with strict security or data privacy requirements, or those in highly regulated industries (e.g. financial services, healthcare, government) may find this to be a suitable choice, since the storage of confidential data on-premise can decrease security risks.

ChallengesUsability. The Adobe Campaign user interface features a legacy Windows-like environment. Pop-up windows for more trivial user actions (e.g. selecting rule conditions, general queries, viewing lead score details) appear instead of more functional split-screen views. While marketers can create emails, forms and landing pages through a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) interface, Adobe Campaign does not offer drag-and-drop functionality.

B-to-c focus. Adobe and Neolane (i.e. the MAP Adobe acquired in 2013) both have heritage in b-to-c marketing, and Adobe Campaign’s campaign management capabilities are optimized for this audience. Much of the terminology used within the platform has a b-to-c orientation (e.g. cross-channel campaign orchestration, shared audiences), as do its training materials. Only about 20 percent of Adobe Campaigns’ customers are in the b-to-b space. In addition, a considerable amount of Adobe Campaign’s partner and consultancy network is composed of advertising-related partners vs. demand creation agencies.

ClickDimensionsDesigned to run natively within Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ClickDimensions is a good choice for SMBs currently using the Microsoft Dynamics platform. Integration is quick and easy, allowing marketers to leverage data within their SFA system for tactic-level reporting, targeting and segmentation. However, large companies seeking advanced functionality or companies not currently using Microsoft Dynamics CRM should assess other options.

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DifferentiatorsEmail design. ClickDimensions offers a variety of enhanced email design features. Users have the option to select from four email design environments, including a wizard-based block, custom HTML, freestyle (WYSIWYG), and a drag-and-drop editor. This flexibility enables marketers with varying preferences and skill sets to create emails within the platform. Once in the environment of their choice, users can use a built-in photo editor, spam filter and inbox previewer, which tests the look and feel of emails in 40 different devices and applications.

Rapid implementation. Since it’s embedded in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ClickDimensions can be directly integrated into the Microsoft environment within 15 minutes. Access to every object within the SFA system (e.g. tasks, rules, workflows, contacts, lead, opportunities) is provided. Similarly, email marketing, Web analytics, survey and social data are seamlessly pushed back into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Quick deployment allows users to operate the solution almost instantaneously with limited technical resources.

Usability. The look and feel of ClickDimensions is consistent with Microsoft Dynamics because of its native integration to the platform. ClickDimensions enables users to create emails, registration forms and nurture streams with drag-and-drop capabilities. Organizations with strong expertise in Microsoft Dynamics CRM will experience a shallower learning curve, helping establish full utilization within a short timeframe and benefitting from existing resources (e.g. the organization’s Dynamics administrator).

ChallengesRequires Microsoft Dynamics. ClickDimensions is built specifically for the Microsoft Dynamics platform and is not a standalone solution. For companies using Microsoft Dynamics for CRM and ClickDimensions for their MAP, the decision to discontinue the use of Microsoft Dynamics would automatically preclude the continued use of ClickDimensions.

Depth of capabilities. As ClickDimensions focuses on small and medium-sized organizations seeking a standard marketing automation product, it doesn’t offer the depth of features and functionality in more advanced MAP systems. For example, it doesn’t offer the capability to dynamically personalize a Web visitor’s online or mobile experience. Its lead scoring capabilities do not consider recency (i.e. buyer behavior within a certain period of time) or frequency (i.e. how often the behavior is exhibited) when scoring a buyer’s activities.

eTrigueFor small and medium-sized organizations, or divisions of larger companies that require a cost-effective solution with advanced functionality to support smaller marketing teams, eTrigue offers considerable value and should be on the short list of vendors to consider. Enterprises looking to standardize on

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one MAP across all divisions, or organizations with a large number of sales resources seeking a MAP for small-net fishing or personalized outreach may want to consider other options.

DifferentiatorsEvaluation and pricing. Eliminating the need for negotiation, eTrigue offers a straightforward, low-entry “pay one price” model. Every feature and function including live support is offered for one price based on the number of contacts in the database. Unlimited features include emails, landing pages, visitors, campaigns/workflows and sales, marketing and administrative users. Additionally, eTrigue offers marketing organizations a free trial that allows users 30-day access, providing the opportunity to quickly learn and get started.

Robust features for small teams. eTrigue specifically focuses on the SMB market and departments within large organizations. However, its features provide small marketing teams advanced functionality to help them achieve their demand creation goals. eTrigue’s reporting capabilities enable real-time insight into lead stage conversion, opportunity data and campaign analysis. Marketers can report on opportunity velocity by time and lead source.

Lead alerts. While most MAP lead alerts are created and configured by the marketing organization, eTrigue takes this one step further. The product enables sales reps to completely customize and configure the format of their own lead alerts, making it less likely that alerts will be ignored. Any data from the SFA system or MAP can be included in the alert to meet the individual needs of multiple sales functions (e.g. tele reps require different lead alerts vs. field sales reps). For example, an alert can be set up within a campaign, which informs sales that a prospect has reached a certain stage and should follow up after a webinar (e.g. by filling out a form). For organizations with small teams and minimal lead volume, this can greatly increase efficiency and productivity, since reps do not having to log into multiple systems to research lead details.

ChallengesAccess control. eTrigue has built several innovative features into its platform (e.g. sales reps can add leads directly into eTrigue using derived data, opt-in/opt-out controls can be turned on and off). However, these capabilities do not have guardrails, so it would be easy for an admin or sales user to disrupt the marketing and/or sales process and risk the enterprise’s data privacy. For this reason, marketing teams with limited technical skills should use caution, as they could easily jeopardize deliverability, program performance and privacy compliance.

Market visibility. Although eTrigue has 450 customers and is a viable option for companies with smaller marketing teams, it is not often included on the short list of small and medium-sized organizations that seek a MAP. Low

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visibility in the market and low product awareness among prospective buyers inhibits eTrigue’s potential for growth and market penetration.

HubSpotFor small and medium-sized organizations focused on inbound demand creation and seeking an all-in-one marketing platform that covers marketing automation, Web site, social media monitoring and publishing, HubSpot should be placed on the short list of vendors to consider. For organizations that seek advanced marketing automation capabilities – or large organizations that require a single, global MAP implementation – other MAPs are likely a stronger fit.

DifferentiatorsSocial selling tools. Many marketers struggle to determine how much lead information it is acceptable to provide to sales. HubSpot’s Social Inbox enables marketers to give sales reps their own set of social monitoring and prospecting tools. Salespeople can create special social monitoring lists of their own opportunities, allowing them to easily prioritize the social interactions that matter most. Furthermore, an email or push notification alert can be set up if a prospect mentions a keyword. HubSpot also provides sales with a simple timeline view of all activities from first through last touch, providing a view of who is engaging and which watering holes they visit most often.

In-product prescriptive coaching. The user has an interactive experience, since dynamic prompts in Hubspot guide the marketer through the application with proactive hints, descriptions and built-in recipes for success. Users can choose from various pre-built templates that include automated workflows, pre-defined reports, emails and lists. HubSpot offers a searchable knowledge base, in addition to direct access to support via email and phone, and a callback feature that allows marketers to provide details online, then receive a phone call with answers.

Advanced personalization. Dynamic content and personalization is native to HubSpot and provides an anonymous visitor with an optimized online or mobile experience with tailored forms, videos, images, and templates. First-time anonymous visitors are served default content based on multiple factors (e.g. country, device type, referral source), and second-time visitors or known visitors are served personalized messages based on list membership or lifecycle stage (e.g. subscriber, lead, opportunity, customer).

ChallengesRoles and permissions. HubSpot offers seven preconfigured user roles (e.g. marketer, content creator, business analyst, sales rep and administrator). Although these default roles cannot be customized across the board or renamed, individual users’ roles can be fine-tuned to allow read-only, read-and-write, or read-write-and-publish access to specific tools within the product (e.g. email, blogs, site pages, landing pages). Teams with unique or complex permission structures may find HubSpot’s options unsuitable.

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Market positioning. Although HubSpot supports divisions of large enterprises, its client base is primarily comprised of organizations of fewer than 200 employees. Therefore, HubSpot is positioned by competitors and in the marketplace as a marketing automation solution that focuses on inbound demand creation to small organizations. This inhibits HubSpot’s growth potential among large b-to-b organizations.

Silverpop, an IBM CompanyFor organizations operating in an existing IBM technology ecosystem that seek to build and expand their relationship with IBM, Silverpop Engage should be at the top of the short list. The platform offers pricing by email volume sent, for those that are conscious of their database size. However, organizations looking for an easy-to-use program builder for multi-channel nurture programs, may want to consider other options.

DifferentiatorsMobile marketing. Silverpop Engage offers strong integration with mobile applications with its Mobile Customer Engagement solution. The solution can push dynamic content to a mobile application and capture in-application activity. For example, companies that create applications for customer events can generate personalized in-application experiences (e.g. promote featured sessions to different user types) and integrate data from the event application back into Silverpop Engage (e.g. automatically route contacts based on their interactions) for enhanced targeting and personalization.

Pricing flexibility. For organizations that are conscious of their database size, Silverpop Engage is the only enterprise MAP vendor that offers pricing based on monthly, quarterly or annual email volume sent, rather than by the number of contacts in the database. Pricing based on primary email sends allows an unlimited number of database contacts, while pricing based on database contacts allows an unlimited number of email sends.

Market presence. IBM has a strong brand and market presence, deep IT experience, a robust partner ecosystem, and global support and services offerings. IBM’s acquisition of Silverpop in 2014 positions the company for future marketing automation success in the space.

ChallengesMessaging. Since IBM’s acquisition of Silverpop, existing and new customers have found the messaging, branding and positioning of the platform confusing. Those considering purchasing the MAP find it difficult to determine what it does and doesn’t include. For example, the company communicated that the IBM Marketing Cloud is built on Silverpop Engage – however, it is unclear whether it’s necessary to purchase the IBM Marketing Cloud when an organization only wants to purchase as a standalone MAP. The company is currently in the process of rebranding and positioning marketing cloud packages, as well as their on-premise solutions.

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Program design and user permissions. Silverpop Engage’s program designer takes a filmstrip-like approach (i.e. left to right) to designing demand creation programs. This works well for simple programs, but for more complex programs (e.g. multiple decision rules) it becomes unwieldy as the number of rows (sequences of activities) increases. The way in which contacts enter, transition and are dispositioned in a program flow is not clearly visualized for the user. In addition, though Silverpop can manage user permissions at an individual user level, including the ability to restrict access and assets (e.g. email, landing page, forms) through foldering, the platform is not able to group users into roles (e.g. admin, creative staff, reporting user) and make role-based changes, which makes user administration more difficult for companies with a high number of users.

MarketoMarketo is a strong candidate for larger organizations considering marketing automation for the first time or those that need to switch to a solution that offers advanced capabilities and sales applications. However, organizations with limited marketing technology skillsets and resources – or more advanced lead scoring needs – should consider alternative options.

DifferentiatorsNurture program builder. Marketo’s Customer Engagement Engine makes it easy for users to build modular nurture streams aligned to buyer personas, stages of the buyer’s journey and solutions of interest. Users can easily test how nurture stream email elements impact the overall performance of the nurture stream. Using champion and challenger scenarios, the marketer can define a control group and test group, declare a champion, and deploy the champion stream for the rest of the stream entrants.

Demand performance visualization. Revenue Cycle Analytics, Marketo’s lead modeling tool, allows marketers to define demand creation stages with rules and criteria to manage lead progression. Once these process elements are defined, a success path analyzer provides a timeframe-specific snapshot of model performance, showing lead balance by stage, inflow/outflow during the period, conversion rates and velocity. With the lead model as a guide and analytics to measure performance, marketers can more effectively design and execute programs and tactics.

Demand performance accessibility. Marketo helps marketing teams create a central display of program performance via large-screen wall-mounted TV displays. Marketing teams can easily see and be reminded of the importance of data-driven decisionmaking. They can congregate to make decisions based on viewing program goals and performance against those goals along various dimensions. Marketo Moments is a mobile application that provides users a real-time view of the performance of recent tactics, produces reports to help determine impact, and has the ability to share successes with a larger group of team members.

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ChallengesUsability. Marketo has always received high marks for usability, however, its leadership in design and usability has begun to erode, as it has not kept pace with the user interface in some areas of the platform. As Marketo expands its functionality in nurture, mobile and reporting, user experience is becoming inconsistent, which increases the learning curve for new users.

Lead scoring. Although organizations can build lead scoring models with Marketo, the vendor’s lead scoring capabilities are not easy to use. For example implementing score decay for behavioral criteria is not an out-of-the-box feature and requires workaround programs for support; however, they offer pre-packaged programs for lead scoring models that allow customers to get started.

Microsoft Dynamics MarketingFor organizations looking for a pre-built integration with Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is an obvious short-list option. Although Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers an application programming interface (API) and software development kit for integration to third-party applications, organizations that require an out-of-the-box integration to other marketing and sales applications may want to consider other providers.

DifferentiatorsReporting and visualization tools. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers both analytical and pre-designed reports, making it easy to analyze and present marketing results. Standard reports include tactic performance, budget usage, lead performance and marketing results. The tools can be customized and include access to a marketing calendar, a graphical timeline report to identify when lead engagement increased and decreased, as well as a sales view that includes lead and social dashboards. Every user is provided with a Microsoft Power BI license to create, view and share personal dashboards and reports. For data scientists or mature marketers, an upgraded license provides more advanced functionality, including the ability to create content packs, dashboards for teams, active directory groups for sharing and managing control, and advanced data queries from any integrated source, including SFA.

Extended functionality. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing extends beyond the traditional features of marketing automation to include marketing resource management capabilities from a single platform. Marketers can integrate planning, budgeting and tracking for offline and online marketing channels to understand campaign performance and cost. Resource allocation, project management, workflows and approval processes help marketers stay on budget, track milestones and allocate resources.

Role administration functionality. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers many out-of-the-box, pre-configured roles with permissions granted for typical use cases (e.g. administrator, marketer, sales, reporting-only). The solution also gives organizations the ability to support complex business needs for individual permissions, group roles and privileges, with the ability to create as many roles as

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necessary. Division or department hierarchy access is provided to enable agencies or organizations to easily partition access to data, programs and assets.

ChallengesLanding page and form capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers landing page creation and personalization using an IFrame and relies on third-party integrations for Web site personalization. Form integration into a Web site requires extensive Web development experience with HTML, CSS and Javascript knowledge that most marketers lack.

Experience. Microsoft launched its Dynamics Marketing solution in 2014. Although Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers a platform with many sophisticated use cases, the user community is new and the coaching and marketing guidance is based on limited experience.

Oracle Marketing Cloud (Eloqua)Oracle Eloqua should be considered by global organizations or organizations seeking to execute advanced demand creation programs with rapidly expanding demand creation needs. Organizations looking for a simple and streamlined MAP should consider other platforms instead.

DifferentiatorsProgrammatic site retargeting. Oracle Eloqua’s basic/enterprise package offers marketers a license to use programmatic site retargeting with its native integration with the Oracle Data Management Platform, formerly BlueKai. Individuals within the MAP can be appended to third-party data from the Oracle Data Management Platform, then served display advertising through partnerships with demand-side platforms. This allows marketers to target and retarget individuals outside traditional email programs. In addition, Oracle Eloqua can build look-alike audiences to find additional individuals that match the target profile and serve ads to those anonymous individuals. Individuals who respond to an ad are captured within a nurture program and can be served additional cross-channel messaging.

Lead scoring performance. Oracle Eloqua’s Lead Scoring module allows multiple advanced lead scoring programs to run quickly across millions of records, and to be scored immediately for segmentation and further action directly within the campaign canvas. With the lead scoring module built into the platform, Oracle Eloqua has improved the performance of its scoring models for complex programs that support large data sets and rules.

Global presence. Oracle Eloqua excels at supporting the global enterprise. As part of this global organization, Oracle Eloqua customers can utilize local servers outside of North America, including the Netherlands and Australia. In addition, support is available in 18 languages with the cultural localization in-browser. Finally, Oracle Eloqua has the largest number of partner resources and certified consultants outside of North America vs. other MAP providers.

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ChallengesTime to value. Oracle Eloqua has designed the advanced capabilities within the platform to be fairly intuitive. However, its complexity precludes most smaller organizations from leveraging all of its advanced features for the cost. Smaller marketing teams may not need the advanced functionality of the platform, but if they anticipate growing into these capabilities, they should establish process and organizational plans for this growth before investing in Oracle Eloqua.

Sales enablement. Organizations can view customer data and activity within Eloqua Profiler in their SFA systems and sales reps may send emails using Eloqua Engage and be notified of Web site activity. However, while Oracle Eloqua recently made improvements for mobile-friendly display and external activities (e.g. event attendance and video views), little additional innovation has occurred over the past two years in the area of customizable lead alerts, content sharing and social listening.

Pardot (a Salesforce Product)Pardot offers strong email marketing and lead management capabilities along with an intuitive user interface. Pardot should be on the short list for small and medium-sized Salesforce customers. However, global enterprises with multiple business units and complex lead management requirements should evaluate other solutions.

DifferentiatorsEase of use. Pardot’s user experience is optimized for the average marketing user and is not overly stylized, allowing users to focus on the task at hand. The landing-page wizard and designer are particularly strong, featuring a library of template options, a drag-and-drop editor and HTML scraping that can insert a user’s Web site look and feel to an initial Pardot landing page that can be further edited. Reports are clear and easy to understand. Pardot offers a compelling view of basic Demand Waterfall performance in aggregate.

Salesforce portfolio. As a part of the Salesforce product family, Pardot is positioned well to win mindshare from sales leadership. As a result, organizations that are evaluating marketing automation for the first time may find it easier to make the business case for Pardot to executive leadership. Integration with the Salesforce1 Mobile App allows Sales Cloud users to check prospect activities, score data and add prospects to nurture programs from any device. Connector improvements have been made to enhance security and ensure that Pardot and Sales Cloud clients can make unlimited API calls between the systems at no cost. Finally, Pardot users can now log in with their Salesforce credentials.

Customer support. Pardot customers consistently comment about the quality of the service and support they receive. Pardot offers free, unlimited instructor-led training sessions that cover Pardot basics, automation, social media, drip programs and reporting. For Pro and Ultimate subscribers, Pardot offers in-product chat support.

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ChallengesVision. Since Salesforce’s acquisition of ExactTarget and Pardot, there has been confusion as to how Pardot is positioned externally to customers. Customers are often unsure whether they are evaluating ExactTarget or Pardot, and they’re not sure whether Pardot exists as part of the Sales Cloud or the Marketing Cloud. In addition, although Pardot is continuing to work on integration with Salesforce, the promise of a unified data model – originally communicated in the early days of the acquisition – has yet to be completed.

Enterprise support. While Pardot has made some investments to help support larger organizations (e.g. foldering), there is still a lack of features to support the global enterprise. For example, Pardot does not support advanced nurture personalization based on attributes that come from a custom data object. Pardot offers roles and permissions capabilities, but it requires the highest account edition to define custom roles and permissions.

SalesfusionSalesfusion’s event management and lead scoring capabilities make it an appealing option for small and medium-sized organizations. However, more advanced organizations may not find the capabilities or advanced functionality they need (e.g. Web personalization, form usage), and should consider other platforms.

DifferentiatorsBuilt-in event management platform. Salesfusion goes beyond typical MAPs with a built-in event management platform available a tier up from its standard package. Marketers can build events using a custom flow or wizard workflow that incorporates event management, demand generation and nurture activities (e.g. invitations, registration forms, reminders landing pages). The platform can also support multiple sessions for events (e.g. user conferences) and has a built-in check-in function using mobile devices.

Lead scoring. Salesfusion’s lead scoring tool, Lead Analyzer, is extremely customizable, allowing flexible lead scoring models that ensure the right leads are being handed to sales. Using Listener, Salesfusion’s workflow tool, marketers can find actions taken by individuals and use specific data points to score activity within Web, email, landing page and events and add these directly to their scoring programs. Custom objects can be integrated and used for scoring programs as well. Marketers can save templates and use them as alerts for sales and create opportunities based on score levels. Multi-scoring programs are supported and are easily pushed to the SFA system for sales reps.

Pricing. Salesfusion offers the lowest pricing by contact tier across all listed MAP vendors, and pricing across contact tiers is the same for the base and premium packages. Salesfusion’s current pricing provides an affordable option for companies looking for standard MAP functionality.

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ChallengesLack of advanced functionality for mature marketers. For small and medium-sized organizations looking to enter the MAP space, the tool provides all that is necessary in a clean user interface. However, larger or more advanced organizations may notice several shortcomings – the inability to personalize landing pages or Web pages beyond recognizing an individual via a cookie; the one-to-one relationship between forms and Web pages, which requires the creation of a new form for each individual page; and the lack of social connectors. In addition, Salesfusion has a less mature partner base than other MAPs.

Organizational change. Salesfusion recently made several organizational changes – including a new CEO and a new CMO in early 2015 – and seeks to expand its internal marketing capabilities to focus on market presence, persona definitions and overall positioning. A renewed focus on the market opportunity and target customer should help Salesfusion accelerate in the future, but it’s in a transition period as can be seen by its efforts to de-emphasize social listening and publishing tools, despite its acquisition of LoopFuse a year ago.

SitecoreOrganizations that currently use Sitecore for Web content management (WCM) and are looking for an integrated platform that provides MAP and WCM capabilities should include Sitecore on their short list. Organizations seeking a standalone MAP solution or that anticipate a significant reliance on MAP services and support (especially in the global arena) should consider other solutions.

DifferentiatorsBuyer experience and progressive personalization. Sitecore provides a complete view of buyers and their journeys within a single platform. Using contextual information like persona details, behavior and buying cycle stage, marketers can leverage automation to personalize and optimize the treatment plan for each potential buyer. This makes the buyer’s experience more relevant, helping to increase conversions with appropriate messaging, offers, assets and marketing channels. Sitecore goes further, customizing each interaction based on known information. When a behavior pattern is recognized, the system begins progressively personalizing the content and modifying the experience as more information is collected. Additionally, marketers can determine the most and least efficient paths toward a pre-determined goal, weighing the effort required for the desired outcome.

Testing and experience optimization. Sitecore allows marketers to perform robust Web site, landing page, email A/B and multivariate tests on all aspects of the visitor experience. No coding, tagging or development work is required. Sitecore measures engagement by understanding the best way to drive potential buyers toward a pre-determined goal. Because the optimization testing capabilities are native to Sitecore, marketers can test individual components, entire site items or the entire site experience across whichever marketing channel

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is used. There are no limits to the number of combinations or tests that can run concurrently.

Dynamic, personalized printed collateral. As email response rates diminish, marketers are turning to alternative marketing channels. Sitecore’s Print Experience Manager offers organizations the ability to manage their print efforts, including direct mail and sales collateral. Content stored in Sitecore can be leveraged to create printed pieces customized by persona, buying cycle stage and behavioral insights captured from Web activity. The native integration offers a workflow with version control and routing functionality.

ChallengesPricing and ecosystem support. Sitecore provides WCM and MAP capabilities that are sold as one integrated system and at one price. When purchasing Sitecore, organizations do not have the choice to purchase MAP functionality alone. For organizations with a WCM system already in place, Sitecore’s pricing will prove to be higher compared with other MAP systems that lack WCM functionality. Although Sitecore has a global network of more than 2,000 partners, only a small group of these partners have marketing automation capabilities, making the level of specific marketing automation capabilities in this network lower than that of other vendors in the space.

Market positioning. Sitecore’s solution is well suited to organizations with marketing focused heavily on Web site initiatives, including digital and inbound marketing. While Sitecore has a strong brand for Web technologies, it is still building awareness within the marketing automation and marketing community.

The Sirius DecisionThis SiriusView is designed as a starting point for organizations seeking a short list of potential MAP vendors. Today’s MAPs offer marketers advanced nurturing and scoring functionality; the ability to easily personalize emails, landing page and Web sites; and use of multi-channel communications for nurture tactics throughout the buying cycle. In addition, many platforms offer the ability to test hypotheses and improve tactic performance through A/B and multivariate testing. Organizations should evaluate the current state of their demand creation marketing initiatives, the level of resources and expertise required for implementation, and how these conditions correlate to the functionality, capability and cost of each MAP vendor. SiriusDecisions recommends securing customer references for any prospective vendor as part of due diligence.

This content is copyrighted by SiriusDecisions, Inc. and cannot be reproduced or shared without prior expressed written permission from SiriusDecisions, Inc.

SiriusDecisions helps business-to-business companies worldwide improve sales, marketing and product effectiveness. Management teams make more informed business decisions through access to our industry analysts, best practice research, benchmark data, peer networks, events and continuous learning courses. SiriusDecisions is based in Wilton, CT with offices in London, Montreal, San Francisco and Waltham, MA.

187 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897 203.665.4000 fax 203.563.9260siriusdecisions.com

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