ForresterWave TCMA

The Forrester Wave™: Through-Channel
Marketing Automation Platforms, Q3 2015
Amplify Your Marketing Voice With One Of These 14 Vendors
by Tim Harmon and Lori Wizdo
August 4, 2015
For B2B Marketing Professionals
forrester.com
Key Takeaways
Vendors Bring A Broad Range Of Capabilities
To Bear On Through-Channel Marketing
TCMA solutions cover a broad array of
functionality with which to equip your channel
partners -- including distributed/syndicated
email marketing and web content syndication;
online advertising and social marketing; and
traditional print, radio, and TV. Moreover, they
include a range of DIY and DIFM capabilities to
accommodate your partners’ marketing maturity.
Collectively, TCMA Vendors Are Outdoing
Enterprise Marketing Automation Vendors
TCMA vendors as a group are bringing more
innovation, flexibility, and architectural rigor to
their products than their enterprise marketing
automation counterparts.
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Insight
Use the detailed Forrester Wave model to view
every piece of data used to score participating
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Access the report online and download the
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under “Tool & Templates.” Alter Forrester’s
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Why Read This Report
In Forrester’s evaluation of through-channel
marketing automation (TCMA) platforms,
we identified 14 significant vendors —
Averetek, Balihoo, BrandMaker, Brandmuscle,
Bridgeline Digital, Distribion, EarthIntegrate,
Partnermarketing.com, Revenew, SproutLoud,
Standard Register, StructuredWeb, TIE Kinetix,
and Zift Solutions — and researched, analyzed,
and scored their products according to 20
criteria garnered from our interactions with B2B
marketing professionals. This report details our
findings about how well each vendor’s product
meets those criteria — and where they stand in
relation to each other — to help B2B marketing
professionals identify the top vendor candidates
for their through-channel marketing programs.

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Table Of Contents
The Power Of Through-Channel Marketing
How TCMA Is Evolving
The TCMA Platform Evaluation Process
Explained
Evaluated Vendors Offer A Powerful Mix Of
Tools And Services
Vendor Profiles
Supplemental Material
Notes & Resources
Forrester interviewed 24 vendor and user
companies: Aflac, Align Technology, Avaya,
Bowers & Wilkins, Ciena, Cisco Systems,
Control4, CruiseOne, Curves, Emerson Reid,
Infor, Intel, Key Bank, LIMRA, Lincoln Financial,
McAfee, The Motorists Insurance Group, Nuance,
Red Hat, Safe-Guard, Shaw Floors, TideSmart,
Unify, and The UPS Store
Related Research Documents
Partner Marketing Capabilities Assessment
The 10 Most Innovative Partner Co-Marketing
Tactics
Turn Your Channel Into A Marketing Machine
The Forrester Wave™: Through-Channel Marketing Automation
Platforms, Q3 2015
by Tim Harmon and Lori Wizdo
with Peter O’Neill, Jacob Milender, and Matthew Izzi
August 4, 2015

The Forrester Wave™: Through-Channel Marketing Automation Platforms, Q3 2015
August 4, 2015
© 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorized copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law.
Citations@forrester.com or +1 866-367-7378
2
The Power Of Through-Channel Marketing
B2B companies have historically viewed their channels — whether in the form of agents (insurance,
telecommunications), brokers (financial services, insurance), distributors (healthcare, industrial
equipment, tech), franchisees (business services, healthcare), manufacturer’s reps (industrial
equipment), or resellers (tech, telecommunications) — as sales channels. But savvy B2B marketing
professionals are waking up to the potential of through-channel marketing, i.e., leveraging channel
partners as a marketing channel, to:1
›› Amplify their marketing voice to customers. B2B companies typically have hundreds or
thousands of channel partners engaging with customers in the sales process. Leveraging those
voices in a broader marketing scope to reach and be heard by more customers is a no-brainer.
›› Deliver a more consistent brand experience to customers. Those channel voices may be
singing a different tune than the B2B firm’s marketing message orchestra. Left unmarshaled, they
can confuse customers, slow deals, or even damage the firm’s brand.
›› Drive new partners to profitable revenue faster. Partner enablement may not be the primary
objective of a through-channel marketing program, but it sure is a welcome consequence. With
proactive marketing support, you can onboard new partners, scale partner revenue generation
efforts, and build partner loyalty more quickly.
How TCMA Is Evolving
TCMA technology is the engine for B2B companies’ through-channel marketing programs. To properly
value today’s TCMA solutions, B2B marketing pros must understand how and why they have evolved.
Modern TCMA Has Vertical And Functional Lineage
Modern TCMA solutions budded:
›› From marketing asset management and content syndication roots. The first instantiation of
what might be thought of as TCMA supported little more than the provisioning of an eCommerce
means for channel partners to order marketing materials (e.g., printed brochures and direct mail)
and goods (e.g., signs and placards), later expanding to encompass digital assets.2
TCMA’s roots
can also be traced to e-collateral syndication technology.
›› First in franchise/dealer networks. TCMA first came on the scene for consumer franchise-
oriented verticals, because marketing support of franchisees is dictated in franchise agreements.
Early pre-TCMA vendors arose to address franchisors’ need for what was in essence a contractual
obligation for through-channel marketing.

August 4, 2015
3
›› More recently in B2B industries. Early B2B vertical adoption of TCMA solutions six or seven years
ago was catalyzed by B2B marketers’ pivot from print/product marketing to digital/value marketing.
Digital marketing lent itself not just as an engagement medium. The technology underpinnings of
digital marketing enabled marketing programs to be broken down into component assets, and those
assets were reassembled into a myriad of packaged campaigns customized for channel partners —
enabling through-channel marketing as an assembly line type of process.
Governance Sets TCMA Apart From Marketing Automation
Generally, the TCMA vendor collective’s products are quite advanced as marketing automation
platforms. Some customers of both TCMA and enterprise marketing automation solutions report that
they are using their TCMA solution more and more, and their corporate marketing automation solution
less and less.3
Indeed, marketers can also use TCMA products in a field marketing context — for
those cases where the regions have a good deal of autonomy — in addition to or in lieu of supporting/
enabling channel partners. The TCMA vendors’ encroaching footprint will be a significant challenge to
the leading corporate marketing automation vendors in the future.
But beyond their generally superior functional capabilities, TCMA products are uniquely characterized
by governance capabilities — by the B2B firm, i.e., the “brand” — involving:
›› Syndication. Syndication — the ability to “create once, feed many” (or “create once, distribute
through many”) with respect to marketing content, such as website content, email content, and
social media content — supports the amplification value of through-channel marketing.
›› Federalism. Federalism is a precept of TCMA architecture. In federalism, power is divided
between a national body and various regional bodies. With TCMA products, the marketing
process is divided between the brand and its channel partners. Abstractly, the brand creates and
manages the digital assets and marketing campaigns, and channel partners extend and execute
the tactics in those campaigns.
›› Latitudinal discretion. TCMA technology offers B2B marketers the ability to customize their
channel partners’ participation type according to those partners’ abilities and preferences. For
example, one partner, adept in digital marketing, may want a great deal of latitude in adding its
own content (logo, value proposition, pictures, and so on) to content syndicated from the brand; or
it may want to design its own campaigns consisting of digital asset raw materials provided by the
brand. On the other hand, a partner may want the brand to send out tweets on the partner’s behalf.
Indeed, we define TCMA as:
A distributed marketing system used by enterprise marketers to enable and scale local marketing
program execution through channel partners (stores, agents, dealers, franchisees, distributors,
and resellers) with governance to protect brand integrity.

August 4, 2015
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TCMA Is Still An Emerging Market
The TCMA market is characterized by a relatively small number of early-adopter customers and a ton
of TCMA vendors.4
Thus the average revenue size of TCMA vendors is small, and their relatively small
stature and limited resources lead many of them to focus on select vertical markets (see Figure 1).5
The
irony is that most of the TCMA vendors’ products have no vertical specificity (although some support
regulatory content). The product of a TCMA vendor focused on the consumer franchise/dealer market
may fit the bill well for a tech company, and vice versa.
FIGURE 1 TCMA Vendors Tend To Target Tech, Financial Services And Insurance, And Franchise/Retail
Tech and telecom
Financial services/
insurance
Franchises/
retail
Other
TIE Kinetix
SproutLoud
Zift Solutions
Averetek
Partnermarketing.com
StructuredWeb
Brandmuscle
Revenew
Standard Register
Distribion
Balihoo
Bridgeline Digital
EarthIntegrate
BrandMaker

August 4, 2015
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Different TCMA Strokes For Different Folks: Know Your Channel Partners
As noted, a foundational governance principle of TCMA is latitudinal discretion, whereby B2B
marketers can determine how much editing and execution latitude they prefer to offer their channel
partners. The appropriate TCMA style is also strongly influenced by the marketing profile of the channel
partners themselves (see Figure 2).Typically, partners fall into the following categories of marketing
proclivity and efficacy:
›› Independents who call their own marketing shots. Your largest channel partners will likely
have their own marketing programs and tools. Moreover, they may carry a number of vendor/
manufacturer brands in their portfolios, and they may want to both remain agnostic in representing
any one brand’s marketing and combine multiple vendors’ products into their own branded
solutions. While these marketers are not likely to participate in your through-channel marketing
program, they will appreciate access to branded assets and syndicated content, and integration into
their marketing automation and digital asset management capabilities will be important to them.
›› Professional marketers who prefer DIY tools. Some savvy channel partners have their own
power marketers who prefer do-it-yourself (DIY) enablement. These power marketers are likely
found in your large or midsize single-tier channel partners. In addition to knowing their target
markets well, they have a well-thought-out marketing strategy and effective execution capacity.
DIY channel partners will use your packaged campaigns, but they also require a high degree of
content customizability to inject their own brand messages and value propositions into syndicated
campaign materials. Many DIY marketers will also want to construct their own campaigns from
your raw materials (marketing assets).
›› Neophyte marketers who need DIFM programs. For most B2B marketers, the biggest slice of
channel partners today will need the do-it-for-me (DIFM) approach to through-channel marketing.
These channel partners may have some basic marketing program (say, an email newsletter program),
but they aren’t staffed or skilled to design or deploy a multistage or multichannel marketing
campaign. DIFM services might take the form of canned rules-based campaigns, where campaign
tactics are triggered and executed based on some predefined event or schedule. Or they can be even
simpler, such as the option to opt in to turnkey, cobranded subscription programs the partner can
“set and forget.”
›› Luddites who prefer to remain uninvolved in local marketing. You’ll most likely find luddite
marketers among your smaller channel partners, which have traditionally relied on sales, business
development, and relationships to grow the business. Some luddites may wind up taking
advantage of some of your subscription-based DIY offerings, but don’t spend too much time
trying to recruit them into your through-channel marketing program. The most successful TCMA
strategy for luddites is to offer on-behalf-of (OBO) services such as distributing leads from centrally
executed programs, setting up a local web presence, managing local directory listing services, or
even running geographically segmented performance marketing programs.

August 4, 2015
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FIGURE 2 The Spectrum Of B2B Channel Partners’ Marketing Efficacy
Partner marketing profile TCMA approaches
Corporate marketer
• Large single-tier partners or distributors
• Carries many global brands
• In-house marketing automation
• Sophisticated marketing practitioners
Independent
“Give me branded assets and
syndicated content.”
Power marketer
• Large or midsized single-tier partner
• Knows its target market well
• Competent marketing strategists
Do it yourself (DIY)
• “Give me content and assets that make
it easy to sell your products.”
• “Give me the tools to execute programs.”
• “Let me cobrand, customize, and create.”
Neophyte
• Large or midsized single-tier partner
• Knows its target market
• Already executing some marketing
activities, such as events or email
campaigns
Luddite
• Small or midsized single-tier partner
• Relies heavily on sales, business
development, and relationships to
grow the business
Do it on behalf of (OBO)
• “Conduct localized, cobranded
marketing programs without my
involvement.”
• “Give me leads.”
5%
20%
35%
40%
Do it for me (DIFM)
• “Give me content and assets that make
it easy to sell your products”
• “Give me options for turnkey, cobranded
programs that I can opt in to ‘set and
forget.’”
Note: Data comes from customer interviews with 24 users of through-channel marketing automation (TCMA)
solutions.

August 4, 2015
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The TCMA Platform Evaluation Process Explained
To assess the state of the TCMA platform market — and see how the vendors stack up against each
other — Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the top TCMA platform vendors.
Evaluated Vendors Have Functional Depth And Proven Market Success
In this Forrester Wave evaluation, Forrester’s first of TCMA platform vendors, we looked at how
vendors support traditional TCMA management capabilities — content syndication and asset
management — as well as meet the emerging needs of TCMA marketers in marketing campaign
management, cross-channel execution, social campaigns, and analytics. Forrester included 14
vendors in the assessment: Averetek, Balihoo, BrandMaker, Brandmuscle, Bridgeline Digital, Distribion,
EarthIntegrate, Partnermarketing.com, Revenew, SproutLoud, Standard Register, StructuredWeb, TIE
Kinetix, and Zift Solutions (see Figure 3). Each of the participating vendors has:
›› A multifunctional TCMA platform. Each vendor included in this evaluation has sufficient
functionality to operationalize the key stages of TCMA management.
›› A sustained presence in the TCMA market. Vendors included in this evaluation target the B2B
marketing automation market and have offered a product to the market for at least three years.
›› Evidence of marketplace viability. Included vendors must generate more than $5 million in
annual revenue from the reviewed product functionality or have at least 10 customers actively
using the product.
›› Customer references. Each of the vendors provided us with at least three reference customers
that we interviewed to validate the utility of the product. All of the references provided were in
organizations typical of Forrester’s client base.
›› Mindshare within Forrester’s client base. Included vendors are frequently mentioned in Forrester
client inquiries and other forms of client interaction.

August 4, 2015
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FIGURE 3 Evaluated Vendors: Product Information And Selection Criteria
Vendor
Averetek
Balihoo
BrandMaker
Brandmuscle
Bridgeline Digital
Distribion
EarthIntegrate
Revenew
SproutLoud
Standard Register
StructuredWeb
TIE Kinetix
Zift Solutions
Product evaluated
Averetek
Balihoo Local Marketing Cloud
Marketing Efficiency Cloud
BrandBuilder
iAPPS
Distribion Distributed Marketing Platform
Pando Relationship Marketing Platform
Revenew
SproutLoud
SMARTworks
Channel Marketing Automation 2015
Demand Generation Platform
ZiftMarcom, Zift123
Product version
evaluated
1.0.4
5.7
5.0
5.3
3.08
3.35
8.3
15.11

August 4, 2015
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FIGURE 3 Evaluated Vendors: Product Information And Selection Criteria (Cont.)
Inclusion criteria
A product that supports partner profile management.
A product that supports digital asset management.
A product that supports campaign management.
A product that supports program funding and payment.
A product that supports business intelligence (BI) and performance management.
A product that supports web content syndication.
A product that supports through-channel traditional marketing vehicles.
A product that supports through-channel digital marketing vehicles.
A product that supports through-channel social marketing.
Three public enterprises (1,000 or more employees) as reference customers that are running
applications on the platform. These references must be publicly disclosable.
Platform must be generally available to customers and meet nine out of 10 selection criteria listed above
as of April 15, 2015.
Evaluation Criteria Include Current Offering, Strategy, And Market Presence
We assessed the products across 20 criteria — based on past research, user need assessments,
and customer practitioner interviews — involving the vendors’ current offering, strategy, and market
presence. Strategy scoring takes into account the vendors’ corporate strategy per their product
vision/road map, channel/ecosystem development, and capitalization, as well as their go-to-market
model involving industry penetration and geographical coverage. For market presence, we considered
the vendors’ revenue, revenue growth, and number of customers. The current offering assessment
component covers:
›› The brand’s governance capabilities. When letting loose of some of your marketing execution
to a large number of channel partners, you need a level governance to curb the potential entropic
effect of doing so. We incorporated B2B marketing professionals’ TCMA governance wish list,
including the ability to offer partners varying degrees of latitude in what they can do themselves
(e.g., assemble their own marketing campaigns from provided digital assets); the ability to
determine the level and types of partners’ value-add customization to marketing content; the ability
to monitor and measure partners’ take-up and performance and campaign/tactic effectiveness; and
the ability to automate via a rules-based mechanism that uses partner profile attributes.

August 4, 2015
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›› The partner’s execution enablement. Because through-channel marketing program success
depends greatly on partner adoption, we evaluated the TCMA vendors’ products from the partner’s
perspective. We factored in criteria like a wide variety of marketing tactics/vehicles (email, pay-per-
click, social, video, print) and the ability for a partner to determine how it wants to participate.
›› Technology fundamentals. In particular, we tested for user interface/user experience (UI/UX)
intuitiveness, navigability, and aesthetics, for both the back end (brand/vendor governance) and
front end (partner execution). And we credited mobile app support, as more and more partners are
using mobile devices as their primary conduit to their brand/manufacturer partners.
›› API integration. We also assessed the products on their ability to integrate with other technology
solutions in the customer engagement stack, as well as their API architecture (see Figure 4).
FIGURE 4 How Through-Channel Marketing Automation Fits Into The Customer Engagement Technology Stack
Enterprise
marketing
automation
List
providers
Customer data
TCMA
Customer
data
Lead
data
Campaign
constructs
Customer
data
Partner
profiles
Partner
profiles
MDF
accounts
Customers
“Sharp end” of marketing
(partners, field)
Brand marketing
(corporate)
Partner system
of record
Customer
relationship
management
Partner
relationship
management

August 4, 2015
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Evaluated Vendors Offer A Powerful Mix Of Tools And Services
The evaluation uncovered a market in which (see Figure 5):
›› There are no clear Leaders. TCMA is still an emerging software market. The vendors have
functional parity for most of the core TCMA capabilities (e.g., content syndication), but features at
the fringe can vary depending on the genesis of the vendor (e.g., the seminal industry, business
model, or geography). Although we were impressed with the functional depth of the leading
vendors in the field, we still see room for Leaders to emerge. To be fair, our evaluation criteria are
far ahead of the state of through-channel marketing practice, so vendors have been careful not to
invest too far ahead of the demand curve.
›› Ten vendors emerge as Strong Performers. Balihoo, BrandMaker, Bridgeline Digital, Distribion,
EarthIntegrate, Revenew, SproutLoud, StructuredWeb, TIE Kinetix, and Zift Solutions each
validated their position as a Strong Performer. BrandMaker, Distribion, and Revenew scored
well in the overall governance dimension. SproutLoud distinguished itself in execution on the
strength of its digital marketing execution capabilities. StructuredWeb was a standout for business
intelligence and performance management, and Zift for having a deep integration capability
involving partners’ applications.
›› Four vendors are Contenders. Averetek, Brandmuscle, Partnermarketing.com, and Standard
Register demonstrated that they are strong Contenders in this space. TCMA practitioners should
note that more is not always better when evaluating a TCMA vendor; sometimes more is just more.
If one of these Contenders has strong features that are important to your marketing process, or is
exceptionally amenable to your channel partners’ needs, it could be a good fit for you.
Fine-Tune The TCMA Criteria Weights To Find Your Right Strategic Fit
The TCMA market is in an early stage of evolution, so the vendors’ products represent a vast and
varied array of capabilities. This evaluation of TCMA platform vendors is intended to be a starting point
only. We encourage clients to view detailed product evaluations and adjust the criteria weightings to
fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. Use this
Forrester Wave to guide how you think about TCMA solutions and:
›› Change the weightings to reflect your company’s marketing needs. Do your channel sales
involve complex products and solutions, which dictate a longer, more studied approach to
engaging customers? If so, you may want to weight certain factors higher, such as campaign
management and web content syndication. Do your buyers have a propensity for digital
engagement? Then increase the weighting on digital and social marketing channels and decrease
the weighting on traditional vehicles.

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›› Adjust for your channel partners’ marketing proclivities and proficiencies. The latitudinal range
of execution capability varies greatly by TCMA vendor. Some vendors’ products lean toward DIY
power marketers; others toward the DIFM neophytes or the OBO luddites. Look closely at the scale
explanations. They provide insight into the execution options available for partners.
›› Go deeper. In an emerging market Forrester Wave, we limit the number of evaluation criteria, in
this case to 20. In serious consideration of a TCMA solution, you’ll need to factor in additional
evaluation criteria beyond the scope of this Forrester Wave (e.g., price and pricing/consumption
model, agency support, architectural scalability).
›› Go broader. As previously noted, besides the 14 vendors evaluated, there are several other
notable TCMA vendors that you should include in your consideration (this Forrester Wave was
oversubscribed). We have relevant perspectives on those vendors as well.
FIGURE 5 The Forrester Wave: Through-Channel Marketing Automation Platforms, Q3 ’15
Challengers Contenders Leaders
Strong
Performers
StrategyWeak Strong
Current
offering
Weak
Strong
Go to Forrester.com to
download the Forrester
Wave tool for more
detailed product
evaluations, feature
comparisons, and
customizable rankings.
Market presence
Averetek
Balihoo
BrandMaker
Brandmuscle
Bridgeline Digital
Distribion
EarthIntegrate
Revenew
SproutLoud
Standard Register
StructuredWeb
TIE Kinetix
Zift Solutions

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FIGURE 5 The Forrester Wave: Through-Channel Marketing Automation Platforms, Q3 ’15 (Cont.)
CURRENT OFFERING
Governance (brand/
manufacturer/vendor)
Execution (partners)
Technology
STRATEGY
Corporate strategy
Industry strategy
Geographical
coverage strategy
MARKET PRESENCE
Number of customers
Financials
3.10
2.80
3.30
3.40
3.10
2.00
5.00
3.00
3.57
5.00
2.40
Forrester’s
Weighting
50%
45%
35%
20%
50%
40%
25%
35%
0%
45%
55%
3.45
3.35
3.50
3.60
2.51
3.00
3.00
1.60
2.23
3.00
1.60
2.89
2.90
2.80
3.00
2.67
2.00
3.00
3.20
2.90
4.00
2.00
1.99
1.65
2.20
2.40
2.17
2.00
1.00
3.20
1.22
1.00
1.40
2.91
2.95
2.80
3.00
1.96
2.00
1.00
2.60
1.44
1.00
1.80
3.16
2.70
3.50
3.60
2.32
2.00
3.00
2.20
2.00
2.00
2.00
2.85
3.35
2.00
3.20
3.57
3.00
5.00
3.20
2.68
4.00
1.60
2.02
1.90
2.40
1.60
2.77
1.00
5.00
3.20
3.67
4.00
3.40
3.79
3.95
3.80
3.40
3.19
4.00
3.00
2.40
2.33
2.00
2.60
3.57
3.30
3.90
3.60
2.86
3.00
3.00
2.60
2.11
2.00
2.20
1.84
2.00
2.10
1.00
2.40
2.00
5.00
1.00
4.33
4.00
4.60
3.17
3.05
3.20
3.40
2.21
2.00
2.00
2.60
1.99
1.00
2.80
2.42
2.25
2.20
3.20
3.09
2.00
3.00
4.40
2.66
2.00
3.20
3.21
2.85
3.10
4.20
2.82
3.00
2.00
3.20
2.22
2.00
2.40
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).
Averetek
Balihoo
BrandMaker
Brandmuscle
BridgelineDigital
Distribion
EarthIntegrate
Revenew
SproutLoud
StandardRegister
StructuredWeb
TIEKinetix
ZiftSolutions
Vendor Profiles
Strong Performers
›› Revenew brings a comprehensive enterprise-class offering to the TCMA landscape.
Revenew’s TCMA offering is distinguished at several levels, including control, transparency, and
a holistic view of localized marketing. Revenew seeks to enable enterprise brand marketers, who
are accustomed to the sophistication and targeting strategies available in enterprise marketing
automation, with the same ability when executing strategies at scale across a local ecosystem. It
currently has about 70 customers. Partner management (categorization, permissioning) is strong.
Management of market development funds (MDF) and co-op is strong, although Revenew doesn’t
support alternate payment schemes. The product supports a broad tactical landscape: It can
support a number of cobranded marketing assets (including cobranded video); it ranges far beyond
the TCMA digital staples of cobranded multiple campaigns to include digital advertising and digital
billboards; and it supports traditional channels (print and even telemarketing). Revenew’s patented
technology for integrating the marketing programs from multiple brands/vendors (including joint
dual-vendor programs) represents true innovation in the TCMA space.

August 4, 2015
14
›› SproutLoud brings local presence into through-channel marketing. Some channels, such
as a retail electronics store, are obviously local. Some channels (e.g., a networking value-added
reseller) are not so obviously local. But in both those situations, local presence — the ability to
be found — is a significant contributor to new leads and business. SproutLoud’s local presence
capabilities include local listing, local web presence, and local advertising. Its distributed marketing
capabilities can support the engaged DIY partner with features like one-time ordering, which allows
partners to order all the services for an upcoming campaign — including local event management,
media buying, direct mail, social, email, and so on. At the same time, strong subscription and date-
triggered campaigns can support the less engaged DIFM partners. And SproutLoud offers strong
governance. All campaigns have integrated funds management (co-op and MDF). The brand can
control the entire customer life-cycle campaign globally, with touchpoints triggered and customized
on behalf of local partners relevant to their specific customer.
›› BrandMaker has a diverse customer set comprising B2B2B and B2B2C marketers.
BrandMaker, headquartered in Germany, has been delivering TCMA solutions to large brands and
manufacturers across Europe for the past several years, and it is now expanding in North and
South America. The company’s European DNA — reflected in a multilingual, multicurrency, and
multicultural product — has helped it acquire about 200 customers in over a dozen industries for
its TCMA offering. Strong centralized control is supported with robust digital asset management,
a web-to-web capability for web content syndication, and a performance management approach
that emphasizes strong key performance indicators (KPIs) rather than volume metrics. Flexible
decentralized operations are enabled via a Digital Marketing Center for email, retargeting,
performance display, and social media. The product also supports vehicles for the offline world
(e.g., print advertisements, trade show booths, posters, and printed collateral).
›› Bridgeline is a digital engagement company aiming to be a SaaS TCMA player. Over the past
15 years, Bridgeline Digital has acquired more than 2,500 clients and delivered websites driven by
iAPPS, a scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that comprises web content management,
eCommerce, digital marketing, analytics, and social media management. The majority of the
company’s revenue comes from services, rather than software, but the mix is shifting. Bridgeline
has demonstrated success in franchise systems, dealer and distributor networks, and original
equipment manufacturer (OEM) and private-label companies. Not surprisingly, given its roots,
Bridgeline has strong content syndication capabilities that B2B marketers can use to manage
content on partners’ sites, create microsites, or stand up new sites altogether. Digital campaigns
are email-based and simple, but more sophisticated campaign construction is on the road map.
Bridgeline has flexible social syndication and is one of the few TCMA vendors with a social listening
capability. The product is very strong for the DIFM partner landscape.
›› Zift Solutions aims to inject its TCMA solutions into partners’ systems of engagement.
What sets Zift apart in the TCMA vendor landscape is a commitment to transparently integrating
its TCMA solutions into the partner’s application landscape. If the partner is using a marketing
automation product like Hubspot, then campaign assets are available through Hubspot. If the

August 4, 2015
15
partner is using a CRM platform like Salesforce, then leads and customer insight are available
through Salesforce. This lowers the barrier to action and drives partner engagement above the
average of 20%. Zift’s offering provides a comprehensive range of email marketing tactics, from
single email blasts to multitouch, automated drip and nurture marketing, cobranded print marketing
(for use at events, in sales literature, or in direct mail), online advertising (AdWords, retargeting,
social), social media marketing, and syndicated website content of all types, from banner ads to full
server-side widgets to embed product showcases. The company currently services nearly 10,000
channel partner organizations around the globe, representing over 50 vendors.
›› Distribion brings a strong architectural bent and application flexibility to TCMA. Formed
in 2009, Distribion is one of the few TCMA vendors whose genesis is purely in SaaS distributed
marketing management (as opposed to an offshoot of an agency offering or print/fulfillment), and
its product is built upon a robust API foundation. Distribion has approximately 180 customers and
180,000 users in a variety of industries, with a large client base in financial services and insurance.
The product scored high in digital, social, and traditional marketing execution. It’s one of the
few products with a robust campaign workflow editor for multistage campaigns with complex
decision-pathing to support personalized prospect nurturing. Another differentiating feature is the
Prospect Finder module, a real-time data pipe to a number of data providers that provides DIFM
partners with access to over a million business and consumer records, refinable by more than 300
attributes. A strong partner permissioning scheme and flexible payment options enable Distribion
to serve a wide variety of TCMA use cases.
›› EarthIntegrate focuses on enabling local sales producers. EarthIntegrate, recently acquired
by Pageflex, describes its Pando product as a relationship marketing management system. Its
goal is to enable well-governed marketing programs to be executed through distributed sales
channels. To support localized sales execution in regulated industries, the Pando product has
strong digital asset management for both branded marketing and customer relationship artifacts.
The central brand marketing team can create master multistage, multichannel campaigns with
triggers defined by corporate business rules. Local sales agents and field marketers can select and
localize campaigns, and they can mandate approval prior to execution. The product is designed to
lower the bar for field execution, with an easy-to-use interface, print and mail fulfillment options,
and integrated list sourcing. There are fewer options for the DIFM partner. The focus on campaign
execution through sales reps, agents, or affiliates is accompanied by weakness in local presence
capabilities, such as web content syndication, local search, and social marketing.
›› Balihoo focuses on national brands wanting to execute hyperlocal campaigns at scale.
Balihoo’s platform leverages internal customer and third-party data, based upon preset conditional
logic, to execute automated, highly targeted, localized campaigns. Balihoo’s 75 customers are large
(50-plus locations) national brands in the financial services, manufacturing, banking, retail, and
insurance industries. Its TCMA offering supports a wide variety of local marketing channels — and
associated activation endpoints — through an extensible cloud-based platform approach. Supported
marketing channels include local websites, email, direct mail, paid search, display advertising, and

August 4, 2015
16
social. Balihoo brings scale to through-channel marketing automation through partnerships that
support programmatic automation in media selection/buying. Balihoo’s solution has traditionally been
used by brand marketers and their agencies — rather than by the local partners themselves — to
create, activate, and manage marketing campaigns on behalf of their local affiliates and resellers.
›› StructuredWeb provides TCMA solutions suited for complex, extended buying cycles.
StructuredWeb focuses its TCMA product on the entire TCMA process, not just the marketing
to execution process. It starts with tools that allow the brand/vendor and the partner to develop
annual or quarterly plans, designed to meet revenue goals, which factor in historical conversion
rates to calculate the number of required leads and determine the number and type of marketing
programs (as well as budget and resources) necessary to attain the revenue goal. It ends with a
CRM capability for partners that aren’t using a formal CRM. Along the buyer journey, capabilities
exist for lead nurturing (using a combination of email, direct mail, and telemarketing) and lead
scoring — with linear scoring currently, and predictive scoring in StructuredWeb’s product road
map. All of this management structure comes with ease of use and strong functionality for
campaign management and digital and social marketing execution, as StructuredWeb was among
the top scorers in all those dimensions. StructuredWeb’s customer base is slanted toward the
technology vertical, but the product is suited for any brand or vendor selling complicated solutions
through a channel.
›› TIE Kinetix streamlines TCMA for small teams and time-strapped partners. TIE Kinetix has
been delivering supply chain and commerce solutions to OEMs, manufacturers, and vendors for
26 years. It has focused its TCMA solutions on the long tail of through-channel marketing — those
partners that are not going to engage actively with any given vendor’s through-partner marketing
efforts. Content syndication figures large in TIE Kinetix’s strategy. The product’s Dynamic Showcase
Syndication module allows vendors to filter content within a syndicated microsite on a partner-
by-partner basis. This filtering allows partners to configure their content profile to ensure that
only relevant content will be dynamically syndicated on their website. TIE Kinetix also deploys a
syndicated approach for social marketing, pay-per-click (PPC), and cobrand/personalized collateral
development (assets are automatically cobranded), requiring no interaction, time, skills, or resources
from the partner. The only exception is email marketing, where partners need to go through a four-
step wizard to comply with regulations and select their email list. This opt-in subscription approach
to TCMA is well suited to vendors and brands with less sophisticated or less engaged partners or
channel base.
Contenders
›› Averetek has optimized its TCMA offering for the needs of the technology industry. Since
2000, Averetek has focused almost exclusively on the technology sector. It counts only eight global
manufacturers as clients, but through those eight global vendors, the company serves 52,000
channel partner entities and over 200,000 users. This tech industry focus has shaped Averetek’s
TCMA offering: Strong web content syndication supports complex and rapidly changing product

August 4, 2015
17
portfolios; marketing program capabilities favor digital campaigns and events; strong partner
categorization reflects the industrial and geographic diversity of the global tech partners; and
a “marketing store” capability makes it easy for partners to use MDF for approved programs,
tactics, and services. To grow, Averetek will need to provide solutions tuned for smaller technology
companies and support an expanded set of marketing tactics (such as local and social marketing)
that are critical success factors in other industry segments.
›› Brandmuscle aims to be a trusted steward for a vendor’s brand assets. Brandmuscle’s
BrandBuilder solution is specifically designed to allow channel partners to cobrand creative
materials provided by the corporate brand. Strict rules apply to how these users access both the
site and the materials, as well as what can be edited within the materials. The system includes
automated workflows and customizable approval loops to streamline production and ensure
compliance, and it can support the cobranding of nearly any type of traditional, digital, or social
media. Brandmuscle has strong partnerships with a wide variety of complementary service
providers for print production, fulfillment, email processing, social media execution, web project
hosting, and more. Over 200 well-known brands use the Brandmuscle platform, spanning virtually
every industry — financial, retail, manufacturing, nonprofits, hospitality, beverage/alcohol, travel,
technology, telecom, Internet/cable providers, pharmaceuticals, and restaurants.
›› Partnermarketing.com brings governance and scale to distributed campaigns. In 2009,
Partnermarketing.com began the evolution from a fully managed campaign services company
(its partner company, UK-based creative agency Twogether) to a software company with a TCMA
offering. With its roots in the creative side of marketing, it’s not surprising that campaign creation
and execution are the strongest aspects of the Partnermarketing.com solution. Nor is it surprising
that the Partnermarketing.com team manages the process for development and creation of all
digital assets. Campaign assets (from email templates to landing pages to physical advertising
templates) are designed in line with the vendor brand and messaging guidelines. They are then
configured to make it easy for partners to customize. The solution also provides a comprehensive
workflow to ensure campaign approval. However, the emphasis on strong campaign management
comes at the expense of other TCMA features, such as web content syndication, local search, and
social marketing.
›› Standard Register combines digital with its physical heritage to enable TCMA. Founded
in 1912 as a printing company, Standard Register’s robust capabilities in traditional channels
differentiate it from vendors with a genesis in the digital age. It attributed roughly 25% of its $275
million revenue in 2014 to its TCMA solutions. With its legacy strengths, Standard Register led the
TCMA field in our criteria for traditional marketing vehicles and program funding and payment.
In fact, Standard Register is the only vendor in our evaluation with a marketing supply chain that
offers cost-effective access to a number of branded physical “things” like pens and table drapes
and tchotchkes. In most digital marketing capabilities, the company’s offerings are far off the
lead. But for brands and vendors managing their own transition from a physical to a digital world,

August 4, 2015
18
Standard Register’s SMARTworks platform helps accelerate that transition by enabling distributed
field resources to select, personalize, and engage customers with digital content in a governed,
easily managed operation.
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Supplemental Material
Companies Interviewed For This Report
Aflac
Align Technology
Avaya
Averetek
Balihoo
Bowers & Wilkins
BrandMaker
Brandmuscle
Bridgeline Digital
Ciena
Cisco Systems
Control4
CruiseOne
Curves
Distribion
EarthIntegrate
Emerson Reid
Infor
Intel
Key Bank
LIMRA
Lincoln Financial
McAfee
Nuance
Red Hat
Revenew
Safe-Guard
Shaw Floors
SproutLoud
Standard Register
StructuredWeb
The Motorists Insurance Group
The UPS Store
TideSmart
TIE Kinetix
Unify
Zift Solutions

August 4, 2015
20
Endnotes
1
A few savvy B2B manufacturers/vendors and brand leaders have been doing through-channel marketing for years.
Now it’s time to up your game. See the “Turn Your Channel Into A Marketing Machine” Forrester report.
2
Some TCMA vendors, having started out as a distributed physical/print marketing software vendor, refer to marketing
materials and goods as marketing products — and thus use the term “products” in their software solution for what
most B2B marketing professionals now consider to be assets (or marketing assets).
3
Savvy B2B marketing leaders are going beyond revenue performance management to transform marketing into
the architect of engagement across the customer life cycle. See the “The Forrester Wave™: Lead-To-Revenue
Management Platform Vendors, Q1 2014” Forrester report.
4
In addition to the 15 vendors evaluated in this Forrester Wave, there are many other notables, including: Ad Giants,
Direxxis (acquired in May 2015 by Broadridge), DataSource, Elastic Digital, Fision, LiveTechnology, Saepio, PTI
(MarcomCentral), SIM Partners, TreeHouse Interactive, and Zinfi.
5
It also makes these companies them ripe for potential acquisition.

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