I am excited the marketing automation market has matured to the point that people are asking this question versus "what is marketing automation". I look forward to the answers here as marketing automation has moved from shelf-ware to a solution being used by marketers.

Hey Shelton,

I work for Marketo as a marketer, but prior to doing so went through selecting a marketing automation vendor and choosing Marketo as a solution for my marketing team.

I recently talked to Reachforce about how I made the decision and posted this on their blog:

I first became aware of Marketo when I was working as a demand generation manager for a mid-sized IT company. Here, I had two primary responsibilities- I needed to generate leads and I had to pick out the best leads for sales. While this may sound like a small job, it involved deciding on a mix of online and offline lead generation activities, vendor selection, social media marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring and more. I realized quickly that my CRM system alone was not able to provide all the data I needed to accomplish my goals, so I started looking at marketing automation vendors.

I went through a detailed search, comparing a number of different marketing automation companies. There were many differences in the vendors, and I needed to select the one that was powerful enough to meet all my needs without locking me into a complicated, rigid structure that would slow me down. The features that were most important to me were:

•Powerful email marketing
•Lead nurturing with personalization
•Landing page creation and optimization
•Integration into my CRM system
•Lead management
•Website monitoring
•Powerful reporting
I also needed to make sure it was easy to use so I didn’t waste a lot of time training and could get started using the solution right away.

I choose Marketo and achieved results beyond what I had ever expected. My first success with the system happened in just days as I was able to make better utilization of my current house list, interacting with opted-in leads I was missing with my previous email marketing tool. These successes continued as I was able to create landing pages quickly without needing help from designers or IT anymore. I was making much better use of new content, as I could deploy programs quickly and ensure it was seen by everyone relevant using my nurturing campaign.

Since then, Marketo has introduced Sales Insight, which helps reps prioritize, understand and interact with your companies hottest leads, saving time and closing deals faster. This sales tool truly helps close the gap between sales and marketing allowing companies to be better prepared at every stage of the revenue cycle and to deliver the right response at the right time to their prospects.

-----While I don't know about your company or what you are specifically looking for, I can tell you that a big part of my decision was based on what I saw in the demos. Some of the companies I looked at showed me quickly how 'easy' it was to create lead scoring or segment my list, but then when I'd ask for the sales rep to perform a sample activity (like set up a campaign that I can launch or change a score by 10 points if they visited my pricing page) the sales rep would struggle. Marketo could simply drag and drop the pieces into place and show me everything- literally brining me to the button that would launch the demo activity. I recommend you think about what you will want to do with the system and challenge the sales rep on how you will create this in their system. In the end, your selection of the right tool impacts how you will be able to do your job and your success at your company, so it’s important that you feel confident with your decision.

Good luck and stay in touch!!!

Shelton,

Unfortunately, there's not a simple answer. They each have strengths and weaknesses and are a better or worse fit based on internal resources, what you're looking to accomplish and a host of other considerations. Marketing automation is a big investment because (despite some vendor claims) it's not easy and takes time to truly get value. I'd highly recommend that you create a list of what you want to accomplish and have the vendors do demos. I'd also add Manticore and Marketbright to your list, since they have equally good solutions. If you want to buy a resource, the Raab Guide is a good tool. Happy to chat by email or phone if that would be helpful. Good luck and welcome to the future of marketing.

Shelton,
I'm with Eloqua, and we're glad to hear you're considering marketing automation.

Evaluating the solutions can be an interesting challenge, as many claims seem very similar among a variety of vendors.

The best way to hear the differences is of course from our customers, and I would encourage you to learn from them here:

http://www.eloqua.com/customers/explore_customers/

The themes that we commonly hear from customers who select us or upgrade from other vendors are the following:

Focus on Success:
When it comes to matching *your* business process and *your* marketing plans, the experience we have with a wide variety of unique business challenges means that we get you to success. Success means people and process, not just technology, and you'll see us focus on that throughout, including a comprehensive Customer Success methodology and our well known SmartStart program that gets you delivering value in 3 intensive days - far quicker than any other option.

Platform Quality:
We've made significant investments in the "nuts & bolts" that make things "just work", and this is a major driver of many clients who have upgraded to us after significant frustrations elsewhere. When you upload a large list, run a report, or deploy a campaign, you want it to just happen; no delays, issues, or downtime. With Eloqua, that is what you will get, every time.

Community:
The Eloqua community of marketers who share ideas, innovations, extensions, and advice is large and very active - something you won't find elsewhere. Whether you are getting advice on multi-channel campaigns from a sports marketer for an NBA team, thoughts on managing your first international deployment from a Fortune 500 company that markets in 50 companies, or social media advice from a cutting edge startup, there is always something to learn from this community.

Things You Didn't Know You'll Need:
We've been around this space for a long time, and worked with a lot of marketers. Many of the capabilities in the platform are not things you will recognize a need for right away, but as your marketing needs grow and advance, you will avoid running into the numerous frustrations and roadblocks that you would run into without these capabilites. Often times, this will save a campaign, provide an insight, or identify a hot lead. It's hard to know what you'll need in advance, and the space can be confusing. With Eloqua's experience in the space your growth will continue for many years.

I hope that helps you in your search. If there's anything we can do to help you in your search, we look forward to talking with you.

Hi Sheldon,
Although I work for Market2Lead now, I have experience with Silverpop/Vtrenz, Marketo and Eloqua from a past life. Given that very large firms like CIsco, Redhat, ResMed, and Citrix trust Market2Lead, I like to think we have earned our place in the top vendors list. Ok, enough of the commercial!

Despite the analysts suggestions that the differences are becoming minor, you will still find significant differences in the areas of focus of each of these firms. As a result, one size does not fit all. I can speak positively about all 4 firms for different situations! The dimensions of your research, wherein you will find differences and learn to map the best solution to your company's needs should include:

Contact data integration - how do you get online and offline contact data into and out of these systems, how good is the CRM integration?
Response Management - how good are the forms, hypersites/microsites, landing pages, is there data validation and normalization, is there personalization?
Lead Management - how good is the scoring, how good is the lead handling, how effective are the alerts and notifications, task setting for Sales reps?
Campaign Automation - how easy is it for right brain marketers to use the system to set up campaigns? Does IT need to get involved? How easy is it to copy programs, reuse assets, add new offers etc. Define your own demo based on what you need and ask the vendors to do it with no preparation time!
Reporting - Your campaign performance will not improve if you cannot adequately measure the results; what reports do you need? Encourage the vendors to show you exactly the reports you want to see - examples, might include marketing influence on the opportunity funnel, or form abandonment rates, or MQL conversion rates by program type etc!
Support and PS - Get to know their support and professional services folks. You want to review the "whole product" not just the features.

I agree with much of what Steve said above. Find a vendor whose solution meets your marketing needs, and a firm that is a good fit with your firm.
Enjoy the journey!
-Kevin

Shelton, Lots of interesting stuff here and I appreciate Kevin's particularly vendor agnostic approach. (That being said, and in the spirit of total disclosure, I'm the Director of Marketing Communications at Genius.com. We provide a marketing automation solution as well. I'll try and be helpful, if not particularly vendor agnostic.)

I would offer the following additional thoughts to the discussion:

1. Genius is set apart by delivering true real time sales alerts that enable sales results. In this competitive and demanding environment timeliness matters. Recent studies show that even if you wait five minutes your ability to reach your prospect drops 10 fold.

2. I'd also look for a solution that aligns sales and marketing. Ideally you want to empower marketing for sales. This philosophy led to our founding of the Sales 2.0 Conference and is part of our DNA. (see more about this and our social media monitoring capabilities here in the recent Focus.com article: http://www.focus.com/blogs/marketing-automation/geniuscom-make-link-between-social-media-sales-and-marketing/)

3. I would consider the total cost of ownership and time to value- equally important in this day and age. There are some big differences among the vendors in the space.
.
4. For salesforce.com customers, our unmatched integration ensures that all information is up-to-date and guarantees data integrity on both sides.

5. Finally, professional services can a valued asset as you are rolling our your marketing automation efforts - and worth considering when picking a solution.

Hope that's helpful. If you need to know more you can contact me at ptrewin@genius.com.

Shelton,

First, let me say there’s no one solution in this product category that’s right for everyone. And secondly, whoever it was that recommended these three companies to speak to gave you good advice – they’re the leaders in the space.

My firm, Connect Direct (CDI), is a full-service marketing agency and a significant chunk of our business is helping companies implement marketing automation and lead management. We have experience with all three of the solutions you mention: coordinating client implementations of both Vtrenz (now Silverpop) and Marketo, and designing campaigns for implementation through Eloqua.

Eloqua is far and away the most full-featured solution on the market, and they’ve been around for the longest. In my view, if you need a sophisticated enterprise solution with all the bells and whistles, and are willing to pay for it in price, complexity, and resources, they’re worth considering.

Of the other two solutions, my vote would be for Marketo. We’ve partnered with them extensively over the past year and a half – and the product is a unique (in our experience) combination of ease of use and very robust functionality. Pricing is competitive, support is excellent, and the company just received a vote of confidence (in the form of Series C funding) from Mayfield Partners, one of the premier VCs in the business. We’ve used Marketo for everything from simple email blasts to sophisticated, multi-step, triggered lead nurturing strategies, and recommend them highly.

The #1 question I would ask any marketing automation vendor is regarding “time to value” – i.e. how long does it take, and what resources are required, to implement the system to its full capability. Ease of use is a huge factor with these products, and brochures don’t always tell the whole story.

Good luck to you. Regards,

Howard

I'm admitted biased as Marketo sponsored How to Find New Customers, my highly acclaimed white paper. But there's a more important factor that which marketing automation platform you select. You will also need a content marketing strategy. You can learn more about your content marketing strategy here. http://pages.leadlife.com/avitage/ThinkLikeAPublisher.

In addition to a content marketing strategy, you'd need a good process, lead scoring, a strong value proposition, and more. As I like to say, automation can make crap faster, but it's still crap.

For more please visit http://www.findnewcustomers.net

Jeff Ogden, President
Find New Customers

Hi Shelton,

I have two resources that you may find interesting. First of all, I have a list with pretty much all marketing automation systems: http://www.leadsloth.com/demand-generation-software/

And last week I blogged about 8 Tips to Get Started With Marketing Automation:
http://www.leadsloth.com/blog/8-tips-to-get-started-with-marketing-automation/

Hope you find this useful.

Best,
Jep

I’m Kristin Hambelton from Neolane, and like many of the respondents, I too am a marketer by trade (and by passion!) and have evaluated, selected, and used many of the solutions mentioned within this thread at both small and large organizations I’ve worked at. So I can share some of the key criteria I’ve used in past roles to determine which marketing automation solution was right for my organization(s). As there has been quite a bit of ground covered here, I’d like to hone in on a few key areas that can help you with your “short list.” Because no one size fits all in this space, you need to start by first understanding your own specific organizational marketing needs; then you can evaluate vendors based on features and functions. Marketing automation is a strategic investment, so it should be treated as such within your organization!

-- First, you need to consider your own company size, business needs, and marketing complexity/maturity. I’m not sure what sort of company you are with, but it does matter whether you are a smaller organization with very basic needs, versus a medium to large-sized organization. Using revenue size of your organization is just one factor, but equally if not more important is looking at key characteristics of your organization such as number of product lines, number and type of CRM or SFA systems you have, number of marketing channels you employ or wish to employ in the future (email, mobile, web, social, etc.), number of geographies, and maturity/complexity of your marketing processes. Simple versus complex marketing processes alone can be a key factor in determining your short list, as vendors vary in what they can/cannot support based on demonstrated experience. All of these characteristics I just listed will help you answer key questions about the type of vendors you should consider. Don’t worry if you don’t have all of the answers – at least generate the list of characteristics and questions, and use that list to talk to prospective vendors to determine fit.
-- Another key consideration is the type of marketing you employ, whether B2B, B2C or B2B2C. Some organizations fit strictly into one bucket, others may have a mix. Also, think about the strategic direction of your organization, and if you are B2B today but know through some impending event like acquisition you may move into B2C, then take that into account. If your organization is B2B today but is thinking of launching an eCommerce site, well then you might just find yourself in B2C marketing! That analysis will help drive the types of vendors that you look at because there are distinct differences in functionality by TYPE of marketing – don’t let anyone tell you differently. Yes, we all agree that there is bleed over between B2B and B2C, but there are differences today that cannot be force fit. As a side benefit, by having this discussion internally, it helps elevate the importance of automating your marketing processes and demonstrates strategic importance to the organization. One last point – consider B2E – business-to-employee – meaning, do you plan to use the solution to communicate internally with your employees – you might consider this, as it can help drive even more value from the solution you choose.
-- Another key factor and I can’t emphasize this enough is considering where your organization will be/wants to be in 2, 3 even 5 years down the road. You may just be thinking about email and web today, and maybe some social media, but what about new social media channels are emerging? What about mobile? What about direct mail, which might make a resurgence? What about your call centers – if they are customer service driven today, could they become a marketing channel in the future? What other channels might you want to utilize? What are your measurement and reporting requirements today – but also in the future? Think about your future needs, and not just what you think will solve the immediate pain of today – you don’t always get a second chance, especially given what we unfortunately all know today about the average tenure of marketing professionals within an organization.
-- Another consideration is deployment model. Based on your company’s business requirements and long-term goals for BOTH TCO and ROI (not an either/or consideration!) you may want to consider vendors that offer both an on-demand and on-premise solution so you can be flexible as your needs change. If you are an industry that has strong regulations or governing rules around data security, but at the same time might not have the IT resources, consider solutions that offer a hybrid model whereby your data is kept behind your firewall, but transactions are done out in the cloud. Don’t forget that you will need IT support on this at some level, so try to get them on board and understand their needs BEFORE choosing a solution. Your IT organization may have a pre-disposition to one model or another, so find that out.
-- Consider other solutions within your organization that won’t be ‘going away’ no matter what you do in marketing, for example, billing systems, contract systems, and other back-office type of systems – will you need to integrate to them? Can you derive value from the data that’s within those systems and use it in marketing, for example, sending marketing messages out combined with customer service notices that we all know have higher open rates. This is a great way of extending the value of your marketing solution!

Once you answered these important strategic questions, then you can look at features and functions that are required to support your needs. That will immediately and quickly help you identify your short list! Key resources you can use to help you evaluate vendors are blogs like this, third party analyst firms, webinars and white papers, and industry events where you can meet vendors and see demos. Best of Luck! Kristin.Hambelton@neolane.com

Shelton,

I'd encourage you to look at Jep's list. There are many, many vendors in the space. If you're married to those three, check out the Raab report.

As far as the market goes, each vendor definitely has it's strengths and weaknesses. For example, some are good at integrating social media into campaigns and including enterprise class setups for email, while others are good at behavioral Web targeting and maybe outsource the email component altogether. Some have very advanced form building capabilities, while others rely on companies like Salesforce.

There are many, many different ways vendors have addressed the marketing automation and demand generation question. The only way to find which one is best for you is to get some demos and hopefully determine what is important to you before you do so.

I'd suggest you look at the systems you have in place, what you want to accomplish, and see how the different vendors address it vs. letting them lead you in the conversation. I think you'll definitely find some additional benefits as you go along, but be aware what's important and what's superfluous to your operation as they're presenting their solution. Balance feature sets with implementation and ongoing costs. Is it worth what you want to do with it? There is always a break even point.

To be honest, the space is so crowded that you'll get pitched all day long if you let it happen. On the flipside, you should be very confident in finding something that intersects with what you place value in and what you have budget for.

So I guess what I'm saying is I'd re-frame your question from how do these vendors compare in terms of feature sets, pricing, etc., to what do marketing automation vendors have that can address my specific issues, and do it an a way that's going to be cost effective.

I would also consider adding Aprimo Marketing Studio to your list of companies/products to consider. Aprimo has been a long-standing leader in marketing automation and their interactive/online solution is the best I've seen out there.

Hi Shelton,

I am not with one of the marketing automation vendors, but I am a guy that has spent a career with software companies, including several years reviewing software for a popular magazine. The best advice I can give you as you evaluate these products is, "stay in control of your evaluation."

I recommend creating a document that outlines the usage scenarios you expect these products to perform under. Give that document to each vendor, and then ask them to demonstrate according to your scenarios. This will show you what you need, instead of what the vendor wants to show.

If you are interested, I can give you some examples of usage scenarios. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I evaluated 5 products a couple of years ago and selected Silverpop's Engage B2B for a number of reasons. I started my evaluation with a document that outlined my usage scenarios. It's the only way to get an apples-to-apples comparison.

Hi Shelton,
I wish you well in reading through all of these vendor posts. I must admit I am with Net-Results, which also is in the marketing automation ecosystem. We are generally not mentioned with the likes of Eloqua, Marketo and Silverpop due to pricing, marketing and some feature differences. I do wholeheartedly agree with starting with going to Jep's list, as well as his post to get you started. I wish you well on your journey.

Hi, Shelton. Seems as though there has been no shortage of ideas from those of us in the vendor community about how to navigate the marketing automation marketplace.

I'm with Silverpop, where I serve as a B2B marketing advocate -- educating marketers about how the B2B buyer is changing and how to respond at a strategic, process and systems level.

My take is that you should judge a marketing automation vendor less on the features and functions of today and more on two key criteria:

One, the customer segment they've focused on -- because not all systems are right for all sizes (and levels of sophistication) of organizations.

Two, their broader approach to helping marketers solve the major challenges they face in the 'brave new world' of B2B marketing today -- because features/functions will always change/improve, but a vendor's platform strategy, services and ecosystem must align with your own strategic direction.

This is something that I talked about in a recent piece on our Demand Generation blog:

http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/demand-generation/marketing-automation/judging-marketing-automation-v.html

I would also note that integrations DO matter. No marketing automation platform lives in a vacuum, so out-of-the-box integrations with leading CRM platforms and/or APIs for integration are also something that will ultimately be a major factor governing the platform you choose.

As far as how Silverpop differentiates based on these grounds, I won't make this a long post, but I'd suggest checking out a recent guest post I did for the Reach Force blog. They have asked many of the leading vendors in the marketplace to outline their differentiators. You can see my take on how Silverpop is different here:

http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/what-is-silverpop-engage-b2b-%e2%80%93-marketing-automation-who%e2%80%99s-who/

I'd close by saying that successful B2B marketing is a lot more process and strategy than technology. Marketing automation is most effective when it is a force multiplier in helping to scale an already-successful go-to-market approach. So I'd take a deep look at where your organization is today and what you need to do to make sure you will fully benefit from a marketing automation platform. And consider your relationship with your platform vendor an opportunity not only to deploy great systems but also to build a partnership that will help support your strategic evolution towards a world-class, savvy B2B marketing machine!

Hi Shelton,
The information everyone is sharing is really great for you to start to formulate the business reasons of why you need marketing automation. It is somewhat of a buzzword out there, so be sure to figure out not only what features you will need NOW to get off the ground, but what you'll need LATER to continue to anticipate the needs of your Sales and Marketing teams.
I am a SIlverpop EngageB2B (which was Vtrenz) customer and I can't say enough about how happy I am with them. I was definitely an influencer in the decision-making process to go with Silverpop, but I didn't have the final say so I was somewhat skeptical. I am the day-to-day user of the program so my worries and needs included support, training, ease-of-use, and a decent Wysiwyg tool to build emails, landing pages etc. I was pleasantly surprised by the training process and the account management. The trainers are very pleasant and follow up with every question that comes in during the training. My account manager was amazing - I don't think 'No' is in her vocabulary. Any idea or business problem I would come to her with questions on as to what was the best way to approach it, she would always come up with an answer that worked.
As my role has morphed and changed in the last year that we've had EngageB2B, I've also become the Lead Nurture/ Lead Scoring advocate in my company and have slowly but surely began the process of testing these campaigns out so we have solid results to show sales to develop the buy-in needed to take full advantage of the marketing automation. I have no doubts that Silverpop will be there along the way as we work through the process. It's a great feeling, especially since a lot of this can seem really complicated at the beginning!
I'd be happy to speak with you about your specific business objectives or put you in touch with other customers more like you - we've developed a group of 8-10 of us Engage B2B Marketers who have monthly calls and talk about what we're working on and trade ideas and best practices.
I hope this helps, good luck in your search!

I wanted to remind everybody about our Focus marketing automation market primer and buyer's guides on the field. You can fine these at http://www.focus.com/research/market-primers/marketing-automation/marketing-automation-market-primer/ and http://www.focus.com/research/buyers-guides/marketing-automation/buyers-guide-marketing-automation/. Let me know if you have feedback.

Like has been mentioned in this thread multiple times, before you even start sitting down with vendors, put together your requirements based on your business objectives. It will save you a ton of time and headaches...

Hi Shelton,
You've had plenty of sound advice here. One thing that needs to be said clearly is that Marketo and Eloqua are far apart in terms of cost and complexity -- so one or the other is almost surely not right for you. Hopefully you'll figure out where you fit quickly enough. Silverpop Engage B2B is somewhere in between so they might qualify in either case. There are also some firms including Pardot that would be even simpler than Marketo.

For a more detailed look at key differences among these and other vendors, and for help in figuring where you fit in, you can download our free report on Vendor Usability Scores from the www.raabguide.com site. If you want even more detail, you can purchase the Raab Guide itself.

Even with all that information, you still need to define specific usage scenarios and have the vendors walk you through them. Be sure to create your own scenarios rather than just watching what the vendor chooses to demonstrate. If you're really new to the space and don't know how you'll use the system, take the time to do some research into the possibilities and then define your project objectives and derive the scenarios from that. Be sure to consider long-term goals, not only what you'll do in the first few months. It is definitely possible to run out of steam with some of these products.

Like several others who have replied, my firm also offers consulting to help with this selection. Obviously I'm biased, but I think it's well worth spending some money to help ensure you make a sound choice, save your own effort and speed up the process. One less obvious benefit provided by us or any other good consultant is that we'll help you address the business planning and process change issues that will ultimately determine your long-term success.

I'd encourage you to make sure that the "marketing automation" category that the "analysts" have defined is actually right for you. There is a lot more to marketing than what the marketing automation systems actually do, sometimes marketers get confused because the category is not well named.

Is your problem how to get more leads and fill up and grow your database?
Or...
Is your problem how to better automate emails and followup activity to your existing database of leads?

If your only problem is #2 (automating lead followup and nurturing), then one of the systems listed on this page are probably right for you. You should investigate: Eloqua, Manticore, Marketo, Pardot, Silverpop, Infusionsoft, Pardot, Market2Lead, LoopFuse, Aweber, Salesforce/Google connector, and more that I can't think of right now.

If you also have problem #1 (how do I get more leads?) then you need to think about building an inbound marketing strategy to get found by more prospects and convert more of them into leads. Jeff Ogden alludes to this in terms of building more content, but it is actually even bigger than that, incorporating social media, search engine optimization and more. If you want to know more, check out the book "Inbound Marketing" - it is a top 5 marketing book on Amazon and might make you think differently about your company's marketing.

I'm evaluating marketing automation platforms, and I'm narrowing my sites on Genius and Marketo. Has anyone either found themselves deciding between these two, or had experience with both?

Hi Shelton, What did you decide on - just out of curiosity :D

We are leaning toward Marketo after doing an admitttedly rapid evaluation of several. Does anyone have an evaluation guide? I didn't realize there were so many options. Particularly interested in how well they integrate to a CRM platform (likely Salesforce or SugarCRM).

Patrick,

I'm in Business Development at Silverpop and was curious as to whether you have considered our new Engage 8 platform launched earlier this year.

By aligning our email marketing and marketing automation solutions into a unified platform, Silverpop is providing marketers with a sophisticated suite of tools that were previous unavailable in one solution. Utilizing a platform like this will allow you to be ahead of the curve and send more relevant
messages, higher conversions, and prove your marketing ROI.

Please take a look at our website for more information. http://www.silverpop.com/