The document discusses considerations for maximizing ROI on marketing automation. It identifies two categories of marketing automation solutions - current status quo (CSQ) solutions and new class disruptors (NCD). NCD solutions focus on mitigating challenges faced by traditional solutions. The top 10 considerations marketers should look for are discussed, with a focus on data quality/integration, ease of use, templated content creation, attribution modeling, and social media integration. Ease of use was identified as the top factor for maximizing ROI based on feedback from top performing organizations.

1. MARKETING
AUTOMATION:
DIS UPTING THE STATUS QUO
Research from 1396 B2B
marketers in 2013 reveals
what marketers should
demand from the next
generation of marketing
automation technologies.

2. Contents
Introduction………….................................................................................................................. 3
Chapter 1: New Class Disruptors in Marketing Automation..................................................5
Chapter 2: Top 10 Considerations for Maximizing the ROI on Marketing Automation....14
Chapter 3: Key Recommendations……………………………….............................................36
Research Methodology………..................................................................................................41
This eBook was made available compliments of:
2

3. Introduction
Marketing automation technology was designed to
empower marketers with the tools they need to execute
multi-channel communications, centralize customer data,
and promote relevant and meaningful customer
engagement across the entire customer lifecycle. As
such, most marketing automation tools offer a standard
set of core capabilities and features, such as the ability to
execute email campaigns, capture web behavior, and
prioritize leads to route them to sales when they are truly
qualified – so much so that these capabilities provide little
differentiation between providers. But research shows that
organizations achieve varying degrees of success with
marketing automation. Some of the challenges can
certainly be credited to a lack of alignment between
marketing and sales, or failure to re-think process and role
responsibilities during the implementation. But how much
of this is because of the tools themselves? Research
suggests that marketers are still struggling to embrace
some of the core value propositions from marketing
automation tools. Are there tradeoffs between the
robustness of features/functions and the rate of return on
marketing automation investments? Are some solutions so
robust that they really only meet the advanced needs of
a tiny subset of the B2B market? And if so, what are the
most innovative solution providers doing to address
emerging market needs?
3

4. Today, marketing automation solutions continue to
evolve to meet the unique needs of customers both large
and small, B2B and B2C. That means some providers are
better than others at addressing the needs of your
organization. This report will explore the challenges and
successes with marketing automation according to
feedback from senior marketing leaders across a half
dozen Gleanster surveys in 2013. The findings leverage
insights from 1396 organizations to ascertain how
marketers are actually using marketing automation and
what they should demand from next-generation solutions
to future proof investments in marketing automation.
Successful implementations are as much an exercise in
change management as they are about choosing the
right technology for your organization.
Anatomy of a Top
Performer
Gleanster uses 2-3 key
performance indicators
(KPIs) to distinguish “Top
Performers” from all other
companies (“Everyone
Else”) within a given data
set, thereby establishing a
basis for benchmarking
best practices. By
definition, Top Performers
are comprised of the top
quartile of qualified survey
respondents (QSRs).
The KPIs used for
distinguishing Top
Performers focus on
performance metrics that
speak to year-over-year
improvement in relevant,
measurable areas. Not all
KPIs are weighted equally.
The KPIs used for this
Gleansight are:
•Growth in annual
revenue
•Email Click-Through
Rates
•Growth in Lead-toSales Revenue
•Bid-to-Win Ratio
•Reduction in Sales
Cycle Time
4

5. CHAPTER 1
New Class Disruptors in
Marketing Automation
5

6. Marketing automation isn’t really about automating
marketing. It’s about empowering better relationships
with prospects and customers. And it’s about delivering
just the right engagement with a prospect at just the right
time to build a trusted relationship that results in profitable
sales. These days, share of wallet is earned through great
customer experiences. Unfortunately for marketers, great
customer experiences demand more content, more
communications, and more focus on any and all
channels customers prefer to engage with a brand. That
means marketers are under ever-increasing pressure to
do more with the same or fewer resources. As such, the
wrong marketing automation solution can sometimes be
perceived as more work to overworked marketers.
While marketing automation was designed to mitigate
marketing challenges, many organizations are finding the
technology doesn’t always reduce the burden on
marketing; it can be difficult to learn, it demands new
content, and it makes the successes (and failures) of
marketing more visible. Furthermore, it’s difficult for
marketers to embrace new technologies, especially
when some of them demand dedicated and skilled
resources or consultants. For this reason, many
organizations make investments that never fully
materialize into the expected return. The best intentions
fall short from a lack of training, headcount turnover, and
emerging best practices.
6

7. Ultimately, marketing automation is very powerful, and
the real story is far less bleak than the picture we painted
above. Gleanster estimates that marketing automation
tools are used by approximately 20,000 organizations
across the globe, and there are millions of companies
that will likely end up using these tools over the next 5-10
years. Research from the last decade has consistently
shown that organizations that achieve superior growth in
revenue are 7-8 times more likely to be early adopters of
marketing automation solutions. Therefore, it’s sufficiently
safe to assume that marketing automation has moved
beyond the early adopter stage of growth. It’s certainly
not a passing fad; it’s the future of B2B marketing. After
all, the tools allow marketers to take control of customer
data and make it actionable (a top 3 marketing priority
for B2B CMOs in 2013).
B2B Respondents Using Marketing
Automation
Figure 1
Marketing automation
adoption trends. Depending
on the data used, marketing
automation adoption has
seen compound annual
growth of between 10% and
20% since 2011. 78% of Top
Performers report using a
marketing automation tool.
100%
75%
50%
25%
45%
40%
48%
38%
46%
2011
13%
CAGR
over 3
years
2012
0%
Currently Use
55%
1H 2013
Plan to Use
7

8. One of the top 5 challenges with maximizing the use of
marketing automation is training and “lack of skilled
staff.” Depending on the solution, it’s sometimes
necessary to hire someone with a technical skill set to
operate the marketing automation solution. But it’s also
becoming increasingly difficult to retain and pay these
resources. Retention is low among skilled marketing
automation technologists, and rightfully so, because
growth in adoption means increasing demand for a finite
number of skilled resources. When demand goes up for
finite resources so does the salary, and this is driving
significant turnover with marketing technologists. As soon
as they are trained and experienced, greener pastures
are on the horizon. Marketers also need to reduce
dependency on system administration and IT; they need
a way to create simplified campaign sites, microsites,
landing pages, lead nurturing campaigns, and A/B tests
without having to involve a system administrator or IT
person.
It turns out, marketers struggle to adopt some of the
traditional features in marketing automation like lead
scoring and trigger marketing. Figure 2 shows that, even
among Top Performers, companies are struggling to use
some of the most basic features in marketing automation.
Naturally this manifests itself in the types of campaigns
that are being executed after marketing automation is
implemented. It’s not uncommon for users to rely on
legacy marketing tactics such as batch-and-blast
campaigns, long after marketing automation has been
deployed.
8

9. Figure 2
Marketing automation adoption
trends. Surprisingly, few
organizations actually use the full
breadth of features available in
marketing automation. This trend
manifests itself as continued
dependence on large volume
campaigns. Ironically, many
companies invest in marketing
automation to move away from
batch-and-blast tactics.
Use of Marketing Automation Features
Running campaigns
on a periodic basis
98%
Large volume
email campaigns
62%
Lead prioritization
55%
Web Tracking
Nurture marketing
based on
behavior
21%
Track & measure
attribution
Email Campaings (one off)
Landing Page Hosting
Lead Scoring
Social Media Marketing
Mobile Campaigns
0%
Top Performers
50%
Everyone Else
100%
9

10. Figure 3 shows the top three ways Top Performing
organizations maximize return on investment in marketing
automation. 2013 was the first time ease of use showed
up on the list of top three critical success factors for
maximizing the return on investment in marketing
automation. This was a challenging finding to
contextualize because ease of use is a subjective
concept. Demand for robust features (mainly by large
enterprise organizations) is now being countered by
demand for simple to use interfaces. Keep it simple. Many
organizations are looking for solutions that the average
person could learn in a few hours and get up and running
in minutes, not days.
Figure 3
Top three ways Top
Performers indicate they
maximized the return on
investment in marketing
automation. Ease of use
topped the list in 2013,
prompting further analysis
about how organizations
measure such objective
criteria.
Top 3 Ways to Maximize ROI in
Marketing Automation
92%
Easy to use system
87%
Re-usable camapign templates
77%
Cooperation with sales
0%
25% 50% 75% 100%
Top Performers
* Q3 2013 Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220
10

11. Below we contrast two distinct approaches to marketing
automation: the current status quo (CSQ) and new class
disruptors (NCD) that are solving some of the challenges
traditional marketing automation solutions continue to
face. When it comes to selecting a marketing automation
platform, making a buying decision based on specific
features is a mistake. It’s far more appropriate to look for
platforms that fit the broad needs of the organization. As
a result, what is emerging across the marketing
automation space is a demand for sustainable
innovation. Marketers should be demanding more from
marketing automation technologies. While the
technology can’t be blamed for poor process or a lack of
internal alignment, it can generally do more to ensure
that core value propositions like lead scoring and
revenue attribution tracking are accessible to marketers
who are not technical.
Campaign Centric
Feature Rich
Figure 4
Defining CSQ & NCD. New
Class Disruption is
characterized by innovation
that enhances traditional
marketing automation
features to mitigate
challenges and better serve
the needs of the “average”
marketing automation user.
Marketing Automation
Solutions
Current Status
Quo
Require Skilled Resources
Customizable
Templated Approach
Drag & Drop
New Class
Disruptors
Built in Data Quality Processes
Deep Social Integration
Built-in Attribution Modeling
11

12. 2013 is an important year in marketing automation, thanks
to over $3B in acquisitions (Eloqua, Exact Target) and new
initial public offerings. But as an industry, marketing
automation has started to segment. Established players
are finding it increasingly difficult to innovate, and the
platforms themselves have become very robust tools with
a core client base that is capable of truly extracting all of
the benefits of the platform. But what about organizations
that are new to marketing automation? Do these robust
tools offer too much for the average marketer? Top
Performers suggest this might be the case given the
overwhelming focus on ease of use.
In the next chapter we will explore a variety of key
elements that marketers should be demanding from
marketing automation solutions. For the purposes of this
eBook we will segmenting the market for marketing
automation into two classifications: Current Status Quo
(CSQ) and New Class Disruptors (NCD).
12

13. Current Status Quo (CSQ): Over the years, traditional
marketing automation capabilities have developed into
a standard set of features such as lead scoring, email
marketing, web analytics, landing page hosting, and
CRM integration. When marketing automation was new,
early entrants established market dominance using many
of these “traditional” features. As the market matured,
continuous innovation driven by demand from existing
clients led to more robust offerings, and many solution
providers quickly moved up market to the enterprise,
where the full breadth of the solution could be
appreciated. As a result, solutions, while robust, also got
more expensive and often required dedicated
administrators with knowledge of CSS, HTML, and API
experience.
New Class Disruptors (NCD): New class disruptors
represent marketing automation providers that are
focused on mitigating some of the challenges that first
generation marketing automation platforms have faced.
These include things like usability, scalability, platform
integrity, and computing capacity. Any provider can be
a new class disruptor, and the core of this classification is
a continuous focus on innovation, even if it means rethinking core marketing automation capabilities.
Chapter 2 will explore the top 10 things marketers should
look out for when investing in marketing automation.
Every organization has unique needs, but it’s generally a
good idea to understand if your solution provider of
choice is mitigating existing challenges through
innovation and the product roadmap.
13

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

15. So if marketing automation solutions are evolving and
innovating, what should marketers expect from nextgeneration technologies? For one thing, new marketing
automation solution providers need to re-think what has
been working and not working in marketing automation
over the last 10 years. That means the tools should be
mitigating top challenges, even from Top Performers who
often achieve industry leading performance through
early adoption of marketing automation.
The following is a list of the top ten things marketers should
look for in the new class disruptor (NCD) marketing
automation tools (in no particular order). Naturally, every
provider is unique and for the most part can check the
boxes across all of these criteria (with nuanced
exceptions), so it ultimately comes down to how well the
tool meets the unique needs of your organization across
primary channels, features, and usability.
TOP 10 CONSIDERATIONS
15

16. 1. Focus on good data.
Effective marketing automation for B2B demand
generation requires accurate and up-to-date business
data. Data that can be used to transform customer
communications into personalized and relevant dialogs.
But, according to Top Performers, data quality is a top
challenge with marketing automation.
Figure 5
Data quality tops the list of
challenges for Top Performers.
Marketing automation should
have pre-configured tools for
managing and augmenting
customer data.
Top 5 Challenges with Marketing Automation
Creating enough content at a
reasonable cost
97%
Data quality and integration
85%
Poor marketing processes
84%
Rethinking legacy processes
75%
Lack of skilled staff
73%
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Top Performers
* Q3 2013 Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220
16

17. That’s because the average organization manages 3-5
marketing technologies, and much of the time customer
data is fragmented and siloed across these tools.
Marketing automation solutions must be capable of
centralizing existing and future customer data. Current
status quo (CSQ) marketing automation solutions often
rely on third-party data cleansing and enhancement
tools to link disparate sources of data and tie them to
customer records using a unique identifier such as an
email address.
But the new velocity of business change means that the
very best source of data about the customer comes from
the customers themselves. That means marketers need to
capture explicit information on forms and landing pages,
but more importantly connect via social media. The best
source of information actually resides on social media,
and marketers need a systematic way to harvest these
sources for data cleansing and accuracy. New class
disruptor (NCD) solutions need to connect with social
networks, especially LinkedIn and Twitter. This shifts the
data cleansing challenge from “how do I make sure this
data is up-to-date” to “how do I add more value to the
data.” That transforms what marketers know about a
prospect into active and ongoing intelligence that can
be used to optimize marketing communications.
17

18. Questions to Ask About Data
•
How does the system guard against duplicate
records? The current status quo uses email addresses
as the unique identifier on customer records. But
customers often have multiple email addresses, so you
need a system with fuzzy logic to identify similar
records as the same or duplicate. The bigger your
customer database, the more challenging
implementing this kind of fuzzy logic engine will be for
your marketing automation provider. That’s why nextgeneration solutions will have to be capable of rapidly
scaling large databases (which can just as easily exist
in small-to-midsize organizations as they do in
enterprises).
•
How does the system enhance the data provided by
the prospect? Look for solutions that append data in
real time using social networking profiles as their
primary source. Static data sources, for example
Hoovers, Jigsaw, and the like, are great when it comes
to data about a particular company but ridiculously
out of date when it comes to data about specific
prospects.
18

19. 2. Ease of use is not a ‘nice
to have.’ It’s everything.
8 out of 10 Top Performers rank ease of use as a top three
value driver for maximizing the ROI on investments. All
vendors will claim their systems are easy to use, but you
need to validate that yourself. Depending on the needs
of the organization, and largely on the size of the
implementation, some systems will require IT support
during the initial implementation. Some systems also
require dedicated administrators for customizations and
more advanced campaigns, so knowledge of HTML, CSS,
and Javascript will be a plus. As previously mentioned,
about one-third of Top Performers involve consultants
when implementing a current status quo solution. This is
obviously an added expense to the implementation.
Figure 6
How do companies measure
ease of use in marketing
automation? Here are a few
of the most common answers
from respondents to a Q1
2013 marketing survey.
Top 2 Ways Your Organization
Measures Ease of Use
No knowledge of coding required
83%
Intuitive interface
79%
Desire to use the system daily
72%
Templates
62%
Minimal customization required
56%
Confident training others
46%
0%
50%
100%
* All Respondents, Q1 2013 Revenue Performance Management Survey, n= 219
19

20. New class disruptors (NCD), on the other hand, need to
embrace the fact that even the biggest company has
limited headcount and a limited budget. There will always
be a need for two distinct classes of technologies, those
that are more robust and therefore slightly harder to learn,
and those that are intuitive and easy to use. Nextgeneration marketing automation solutions are
embracing drag-and-drop capabilities through HTML5,
which provides a slick interface that deploys with all the
ease of use of a consumer class product.
Questions to Ask About Ease of Use
•
Are our current users experienced at using marketing
automation technology? If so, do we need to hire a
new resource?
•
Do I need a system that is feature rich? What is the
business case justification for these features?
•
How long does it take to author a landing page? A
thank you page? Set up a simple lead nurturing
campaign? Get hands on, and don’t settle for
screenshots during the selling phase.
•
Envision yourself and your team using the marketing
automation platform day in and day out. How will
they feel about using the platform on a regular basis?
20

21. Questions to Ask About Ease of Use Cont’d
• Does the UI focus on features you will use day in and day out
versus the “advanced features” that you will use less
frequently? Too many advanced features can make it
impossible for beginning users to understand how to get
started with a product. So the best practice is to keep
advanced options lower down in the UI hierarchy.
•
How long will it take to get onboard my company? What’s
the average for companies like mine?
•
What is the training process like? Do I have to pay for
training?
•
How long before I can create and execute my first
campaign?
•
How can I make changes to assets like landing pages, callsto-action, campaign work flows? Must I involve IT or a
specialized administrator with knowledge of your product or
will I be able to “do it myself”?
•
Can I create landing pages in a simple, drag-and-drop
manner?
•
What about graphical calls-to-action? Are tools available
that make it easy for me to create graphical calls-to-actions
and buttons and re-use them throughout the system?
•
Do I need skills in Javascript or HTML just to change the color
and look and feel of a simple button? (Warning: two very
large CSQ marketing automation vendors fall down here for
reasons we cannot fathom.)
21

22. 3. Flexible pricing and
contracts.
Today, virtually all marketing automation solutions are
bought and sold as a SaaS (software-as-a-service). That’s
funny, because the promise of SaaS is that you don’t
have to make any long-term commitment. But the reality
is that long-term contracts somehow worked their way
into the industry, and they are quite common among
providers. On the one hand, long-term contracts force
organizations to really invest in the longevity of the
solution, but on the other hand they can lock marketers
into the wrong solution for the wrong reasons. In order for
marketing automation to continue growing, providers will
need to embrace flexible pricing and place greater
emphasis on service, ease of use, and customer
satisfaction to keep customers coming back.
At the same time, many providers will price the solution
based on tiered numbers of “active” contacts in a
database. This can quickly become very expensive to
support if an organization has large lists or an active
communication strategy. Most of the time, pricing tiers
are based on active users and are designed to protect
against users blatantly sending SPAM with the system and
negatively impacting email deliverability. Just make sure
the volume of communications you plan to send is
realistic based on the price plan. Also ask if there are
overage charges and automated alerts when email send
thresholds are reached.
22

23. Questions to Ask About Pricing
•
What’s the shortest period I can license your software
for?
•
Does the licensing cost start immediately or only after
I’ve gone through onboarding?
•
If I’m dissatisfied after 30-60-90 days, can I get my
money back?
•
What’s your renewal rate? How does this compare
with your competition?
•
What happens to my data if I ever want to move to
another marketing automation platform?
23

24. 4. Look for pre-packaged
integration with CRM.
Marketing automation is largely designed for marketers to
use on a regular basis. But the ultimate goal of marketing
automation is to convert prospects into customers. As
such, it’s critical that marketing automation aligns with
CRM so salespeople are notified of just the right time to
contact qualified leads. According to respondents,
response rates are on average 287% higher when a lead
is contacted within a minute of an inquiry and 58% higher
when a lead is contacted within an hour. Inevitably,
about 20% of the prospects marketing generates will be
immediate opportunities that should be routed to sales.
The lag between when marketing automation runs lead
scoring algorithms and the update in CRM can make all
the difference.
Questions to Ask About Pricing
•
Are lead scores calculated in real time?
•
How frequently can we update our CRM solution with
marketing automation data? Are there daily
maximums or costs associated with the frequency of
the update?
•
Can sales enter leads into lead nurturing programs
from within CRM?
•
Can prospect information move bi-directionally from
CRM and Marketing Automation?
24

25. 5. Look for modern design
patterns, not templates.
Your brand is important to you. Some marketing
automation solutions use a template approach to
minimize the need to customize and configure layouts.
On the one hand, this removes the burden on marketers
to ensure campaigns are configured correctly and will
render across different ISPs. On the other hand, preconfigured templates mean landing pages, emails, and
other assets all tend to look the same. Today, content
and digital channels form the basis for engaging new
prospects with value-added content. It’s not uncommon
to see very similar design layouts across campaigns
because marketers default to a handful of templates. The
question is, does that work for your brand? The current
status quo uses templates and standardized layouts for
executing campaigns, which simplifies execution and
can give marketers a leg up in getting new campaigns
configured. New class disruptors must support the
publishing of landing pages, thank you pages, and lead
nurturing campaigns that are flexible and easily
customizable by marketers. These campaigns must be
built to look good, persuade audiences, and perform on
smart phones and tablets.
Questions to Ask About Layout & Templates
Hint: Ask these same questions for landing pages, call-toaction graphics, and email campaigns.
25

26. Questions to Ask About Layout & Templates
•
Can I see 5-7 samples of landing pages created on
your platform? Match the landing pages to the brand.
What do you see? A giveaway that the system will not
deliver the production values you need is if every
landing page looks the same and not like the
corresponding brand.
•
How much work was involved in building and
customizing landing pages, ones that look significantly
different than the templates that ship with the
product?
•
What templates come standard with your system?
(Many popular marketing automation solutions come
with standard templates. A dead giveaway that the
marketing automation platform is hard to use is when
you see the standard templates in use everywhere.)
26

27. 6. Responsive design is a must
for mobile engagement.
Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in the B2B buying
process. Research suggests that on average between 60% and
70% of B2B buyers will engage in fact-finding and research on
mobile devices before making a purchase decision. At a
minimum, marketers should embrace responsive design (where
the viewing experience is optimized for the device screen size) in
campaigns, landing pages, and the website. New class disruptors
(NCD) should come pre-configured with responsive design
elements, which ensure communications are viewable on any
platform: traditional (PC, Mac), smart phone, or tablet.
Questions to Ask About Pricing
• What assets does the system create that are ready to be
viewed on mobile?
• Can I see what a landing page, email newsletter, and thank
you page looks like on mobile from within your system?
• Have your mobile styles been updated for the iPad mini and
other smaller-format tablets? Tablets or the bigger format
Android phones?
• Is mobile transformation handled on the server side in the
browser or via some hybrid process? Server-side transformation
– sometimes called adaptive design – does not give you
control over look and feel in the same manner as responsive
design. To future-proof your marketing automation solution,
responsive design should be a preference.
27

28. 7. A/B Testing should be
wicked easy.
Most marketers will say they value testing and optimization –
as they should. But the reality is, testing and optimization is still
a challenge for marketers. There are two main reasons for
this:
1. Marketers don’t always know how to translate testing
results into action.
2. Marketers struggle with the usability of A/B and multivariate
testing in marketing technologies. (See Figure 7.)
When asked to prioritize features and functions inside of
marketing based on the areas marketers perceive to be the
highest value, 78% of marketers indicated easier A/B testing
was a top three desired feature inside of marketing
automation. Most solution providers can do basic A/B testing,
but it really comes down to how the technology closes the
loop on the results.
Figure 7
Marketers struggle with
testing and optimization
features in marketing
automation tools.
Level of satisfaction with marketing
automation tools
Creative design/templates
Web analytics integration
A/B testing
Multivariate testing
0%
Not Satisfied
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Satisfied
* Q2 2013 Digital Marketing Survey, n=321
28

29. Questions to Ask About A/B Testing & Optimization
•
After I run a test, what happens with the results? Will
the system automatically adjust campaigns, landing
pages, or email based on the test results, or does that
need to be done manually?
•
Show me how to run an A/B test in your system.
•
Do I need developer knowledge to make adjustments
to the messages?
29

30. 8. Targeting and dynamic
personalization.
Businesses don’t make purchase decisions, people do. In
the complex B2B sale it’s common for multiple influencers
and decision makers to be involved in the buying cycle.
For this reason, it is imperative for marketers to shift from a
“one size fits all” approach to marketing to a personalized
one-to-one communication strategy; business-to-business
is shifting to person-to-person. Of course, that’s easier said
than done. The need to personalize communications
more effectively is a top three reason to implement
marketing automation according to Top Performers.
Every marketing automation solution comes equipped
with the ability to configure business rules that help
marketers personalize more effectively. The biggest
impediment to personalization is actually data quality. If
you don’t trust the data, you can’t trust the personalized
communications. New class disruptors should come
equipped with smart lists (also known as dynamic lists)
whereby prospects are added to campaigns
automatically based on profile data and the stage in the
buying cycle. This allows marketers to focus on
developing the right messages instead of wasting time
managing lists for those communications.
30

31. Questions to Ask About Targeting & Personalization
• Do you support persona-based targeting?
• How easy or hard is it to pull segments out of the
database?
• Can prospects exist in multiple segments
simultaneously?
• Can I customize landing pages and the offers they
deliver based on segment membership? How easy or
hard is this to do? Show me.
• What about thank you pages? Can they be
personalized based on the stage (lifecycle) of the
lead?
31

32. 9. Multi-channel campaigns.
Do you have teenager at home? If you do, you may
have discovered that email is – in the words of Gen Z –
“how old people communicate.” Old or young, it is true
that some prospects and customers do not want to be
contacted via email and will opt out of this channel. But
email isn’t the only channel to worry about any longer. It’s
imperative that marketing automation platforms support
multi-channel campaigns. Many current status quo
companies crafted their products pre-social media. As a
result, social media tends to be bolted on versus
integrated in a seamless manner within their campaignplanning tools.
New class disruptors look at social as another channel of
communication, one that can add frequency to a
campaign and/or reach prospects that have opted out
of email communications with your company. Social
media has also become a source of insight about
prospect purchase behavior and an indication that
contact history may be out of date. In order for marketing
automation to effectively engage prospects and
customers during the buying cycle, the systems really
need to start managing the accuracy of customer data
and be a conduit for collecting additional insights on
prospects.
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33. Questions to Ask About Multi-Channel Capabilities
•
How easy or hard is it to create a lead nurturing
campaign that utilizes Twitter? Many CSQ automation
systems are centered around email.
•
Can I track and measure offline activity using the
same campaign tracking tools I use for online
marketing? This turns out to be very helpful when it
comes time to report on ROI or lifetime value across
the marketing mix.
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34. 10. Built in Revenue
Attribution.
Revenue optimization/marketing attribution should be
built-in and part of list pricing. This is an area where
current status quo companies are walking a fine line. One
would think that measuring the success of campaigns
and communications would be a natural out-of-the-box
capability in marketing automation. But over the years,
revenue optimization/marketing attribution has been
added to marketing automation solutions and largely
sold to large enterprise users. In some cases these
capabilities are a separate product that must be
licensed, for big bucks. But the idea that only the biggest
companies “need” revenue optimization or attribution
analysis is flawed.
New class disruptors need to simplify revenue
optimization/attribution analysis and bake it into the
platform as a core capability at no additional cost. While
these reports will never be 100% accurate, this has always
been a challenge for marketers. Basic weighted
attribution modeling can deliver some very compelling
directional insights for marketers. New class disruptors rely
on a combination of server-side and in-browser
technologies to simplify the creation of new campaigns
and tracking them through to conversion. The new class
disruptors understand revenue attribution requires a
nuanced approach. Most are committed to making
revenue optimization/attribution analysis a core part of
their platforms at no additional cost.
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35. Questions to Ask About Revenue Attribution
• Where does revenue optimization/attribution analysis fit in
your product roadmap? Is this something you will be
building into the platform or handling via a connector to
someone else’s application?
• What kinds of tools and reports are available for my
organization to understand the relationship between
marketing activity and revenue?
• Can I calculate ROI on a particular marketing campaign?
• Are tools available to understand the lifetime value of
different segments of customers?
• How is attribution modeling handled? There are at least 4
different ways marketers are looking at attribution models:
first touch, last touch, multi-touch weighted model,
statistical models. Look for a system that does not lock you
into any one method. Different models can be useful for
different types of marketing decisions. For example, last
touch attribution modeling can tell you what campaigns
to send to a prospect last, to accelerate the close and/or
maximize revenue.
• Will revenue optimization be handled as an additional
product or will it be built into the core product? Look for
companies that take a platform approach and build
individual applications out with consistency particularly
around the UI. This enables leveraged learning, the ability
for you and your team to learn one function and see that
learning apply when it comes time to pick up and learn
new functionality.
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36. CHAPTER 3
Future Proof Your
Marketing Automation
Investment
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37. Research suggests that the number of organizations that
have tried more than one marketing automation
technology is on the rise. In fact, 65% of Top Performing
organizations divested of one solution in favor of another
marketing automation technology over the last 10 years.
That’s not necessarily a surprise, since it’s fairly easy to
justify an investment and get the technology up and
running. But a willingness to switch providers means
organizations, for whatever reason, are unhappy. The
simple fact that organizations continue to look for new
providers is actually an indication that the technology
works, but perhaps they experienced issues with service,
pricing, or the user experience.
"How many marketing automation
solutions has your organization tried?"
80%
60%
Figure 8
Trends showing organizations
are increasingly likely to try
more than one marketing
automation solution. This is an
indication that they see
value, but struggle with some
aspect of the solution:
usability, price, customer
service, etc.
61% 57%
53%
40%
35% 38%
40%
20%
4%
5%
7%
0%
1 Solution
2011
2 Solutions
2012
3 or More
1H 2013
* Q1 2013 Nurture Marketing Survey, n= 268, Q1 2013 Revenue Performance
Management Survey, n= 219, Q2 2013 Digital Marketing Survey, n=321, Q3 2013
Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220
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38. The question is, how do you future proof your investment?
While marketing automation tools consistently play a
powerful role in Top Performing success, the return on
investment demands a holistic approach. Marketing
automation is an enabler of people and process, which
means the success of an investment hinges on the ability
to re-think marketing and sales processes, success metrics,
and the overall customer experience. There are two
critical aspects to future proofing an investment.
1. Don’t limit decisions based on features and functions.
The decisions should be based on the entire platform. If
your organization is new to marketing automation, you
may not need a laundry list of robust features and
capabilities. Be sure to conduct a demo and have actual
end-users of the system participate. Ask solution providers
to expose the platform in a trial or hands-on user
experience so users can get a feel for how things work.
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39. 2. Commit to investing in the components of change:
people, process, and technology. Marketing automation
will require you to re-think your marketing and sales
strategy, processes, and measures of success. It’s very
common for organizations to invest in marketing
automation, fail to make necessary internal changes, and
then blame the systems for failure. Sixty-three percent
(63%) of Top Performers rank process re-engineering as a
top priority for maximizing the return on investment.
Figure 9
Managing the components of
change. Successful marketing
automation investments
require systematic attention
to all three areas.
•Technical ability
•Marketing & Sales
alignment
•Motivation
•Common goals
•Resource budget
People
Process
•Shared definition of
qualified lead
•Nurture marketing
•Lead stages defined
•Linkage to CRM
•Multi-channel
•Intuitive
•Training & support
•Customization
•Executive reporting
•Data integrity
Technology
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40. Conclusion
The good news is marketing automation solutions are
evolving to meet the unique needs of organizations of all
shapes and sizes. There will always be growing pains as
new disruptive industries form, and marketing automation
was definitely a disruptive force in the marketing
technology stack. Bottom line, marketers should be
holding solution providers accountable for solving their
biggest challenges. In a highly competitive market,
buyers have many choices, and perhaps that is the main
driver behind continuous innovation in marketing
automation. Your solution provider should be earning your
business, not locking you into contracts. Your solution
provider should be making it easy ascertain revenue
attribution insights from no-cost built-in models. Your
solution provider should ultimately address your needs as
B2B marketers.
Marketing automation will eventually replace legacy
disparate marketing technologies, so it’s generally a
good idea to start thinking about how your organization
can simplify the marketing technology stack and extract
more value from a core system of record for customer
data. As much as we love to say success is not about
flipping the switch on the technology, that doesn’t make
finding the right technology any less critical.
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41. Research Methodology
• In 2013, Gleanster conducted 6 different surveys on B2B marketing strategy,
inbound marketing, lead nurturing, marketing automation, and revenue
performance management. This eBook leverages data from each of these
surveys and represents the collective feedback of 1396 B2B marketers.
• Q1 2013 Inbound Marketing Survey, n= 203
• Q1 2013 Nurture Marketing Survey, n= 268
• Q1 2013 Revenue Performance Management Survey, n= 219
• Q2 2013 Digital Marketing Survey, n=321
• Q3 2013 Marketing Automation Survey, n= 220
• Q3 2013 Omni-Channel Marketing Survey, n= 170
• Gleanster used a weighted methodology using key performance indicators
based on self reported performance from anonymous survey participants to
distinguish Top Performers (defined as the top 25% of qualified survey respondents)
from Everyone Else (the bottom 75%).
41

42. Lead Author
Ian Michiels, Principal & Managing Director
This eBook was made available compliments of:
About Gleanster
Gleanster is a new breed of market research and advisory services firm. Its larger, more
comprehensive “Gleansight” benchmark research reports and concise, more bite-sized
“Deep Dive” analyst reports highlight the experiences of top performing organizations:
why they invest in technology, how they overcome challenges, and how they maximize
the value of their investments. Gleanster also aggregates outside thought leadership in
the form of vetted white papers and research reports from third-party sources, including
those from technology solution providers – who, for their part, can create and maintain
their own Vendor and Solution Showcases on Gleanster.com to help further educate the
marketplace.
For more information, visit www.gleanster.com.
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