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  • State of the Marketing Operations Professional Report: Talent and Teams (post 1 of 2)

    Marketing Operations remains a relatively new function and profession, but it’s evolving quickly. In its annual report  State of the Marketing Ops Professional , MarketingOps.com (the community-led platform for Marketing Operations Professionals), surveyed almost 600 Marketing Ops pros from multiple industries to better understand the trends driving the function. Those trends can be broken down into two large categories: (1) “people” trends impacting Marketing Ops pros and teams and (2) martech trends impacting the tools and technologies deployed and supported by Marketing Ops. In this two-part series, we’ll cover the findings of the must-read report under those two categories, beginning below with trends impacting Marketing Ops pros.  7 key findings on Marketing Ops pros Who are Marketing Ops pros? They are problem-solvers who take a strategic, cross-functional, and data-informed approach to proving and improving marketing value/ROI. The important work they do requires a thorough understanding of what other people do within the organization - Marketing Ops pros must align with Sales and other teams. It also requires a deep understanding of business processes, the customer/buyer journey, data analytics, and how technology impacts all of it. Here’s what the report found about the evolving role of Marketing Ops pros:  1. The Marketing Ops function is expanding and maturing. 80%+ of companies have a dedicated Marketing Operations individual or team (up from 65% in 2021), says the report. While 80% of Marketing Ops pros have at least 3 years of experience, 30% of them report having 10+ years of experience. Only 1 in 10 pros working within the function have less than a year of experience. In terms of age, survey responses indicate that most Marketing Ops pros are either Millennials or Gen Z, so they tend to be lifelong learners who skew younger. 2. The Marketing Operations role can be different depending on the organization.  The Marketing Ops function is anything but a standard, cookie-cutter role, which is why it’s so challenging for its practitioners. As the report explains: “Marketing Operations can look different at each organization. Some Marketing Ops pros are dedicated to managing software tools, naming structures, integrations, workflows, and the technical aspects of the marketing team. Others work closely with GTM teams to define leads, lead handoff processes, automation, and ensure the end customer experience is streamlined.” Clearly, the Marketing Ops role requires a learning mindset, both because the role requires working across multiple parts of the organization and because Marketing Ops continues to evolve and expand in scope. Regardless of the setting in which the Marketing Ops pro works, communication skills are essential because Marketing Ops is tasked with driving change across the organization. This means they must speak “the language and lingo” of multiple areas, from IT to Sales to Finance and others. 3. The top job responsibilities involve tech, processes, and data. The report found that the top four job responsibilities for Marketing Ops pros are:  Developing and implementing software or system integrations (54%) Designing, implementing, and optimizing operational processes/procedures (48%) Evaluation of tech stack and assessing what tech is needed (48%) Data analysis and data reporting (47%) So Marketing Ops pros must keep pace with trends in martech, including automation, artificial intelligence, and data management, while also keeping up with their organization’s various use cases for technology. 4. Marketing Ops is like a coach helping the marketing function prove and improve its value.  The report is clear about the most common, and most important, role of Marketing Ops: it operates “like the coach of the overarching marketing team, planning out the strategy, monitoring execution, and making sure that everything is running smoothly so the players can succeed.”  The Marketing Ops function, as we’ve said repeatedly, is ultimately about proving and improving what marketing does. That takes investments in technology, but also in training and enabling people. 5. Marketing Ops is a well-compensated function.  According to the report, about 7 in 10 Marketing Ops professionals make more than $100,000 per year. Those that report being at the Director, VP, or Executive level typically make $250,000 per year or more. As Marketing Ops becomes more defined, so will the specific titles and specialized roles within the function. It’s clear that more organizations are not only deploying a dedicated Marketing Ops team – with an average team size between 2 and 10 people – but are also seeing the need to fairly compensate and retain Marketing Ops talent. 6. Marketing Ops pros report working most closely with Sales, Demand Gen, and Sales Ops.  This is no surprise given the cross-functional nature of the role. Marketing Ops seeks to foster alignment in order “to figure out the best strategy to reach and convert more prospects and to engage with existing customers,” says the report. The alignment of the multiple teams that impact revenues and customer experience is foundational for Marketing Ops success.  7. The top four priorities for Marketing Ops teams are, according to the report:   Supporting revenue operations and pipeline Improving campaign efficiency Data cleansing/hygiene Improving/updating the tech stack Conclusion: State of the Marketing Ops Pro Report The Marketing Ops function is complex and multi-faceted, requiring its practitioner’s to have a broad-based skill set, as well as a mindset of continuous learning/growth. “The State of the Marketing Operations Professional” report highlights the multiple challenges Marketing Ops pros face – especially around alignment, processes/data, and technology – and how they are meeting them. In our next post, we’ll explore the technology and tools Marketing Ops pros are deploying and supporting to get the job done.   Want to learn more about Marketing Operations and its impact on driving the efficiency and effectiveness of your B2B marketing? Let's talk .

  • State of the Marketing Operations Professional Report: Evolution of Martech (post 2 of 2)

    Marketing Ops remains a relatively new function, but it’s evolving rapidly. In its annual report  State of the Marketing Ops Professional , MarketingOps.com (the community-led platform for Marketing Operations Professionals), surveyed almost 600 Marketing Ops pros from multiple industries to better understand the trends driving it. Those trends can be broken down into two large categories: (1) “people” and teams and (2) tools and martech deployed by Marketing Ops. In this 2-post blog series , we cover the findings of the must-read 43-page report under those two categories. In this post (#2), we’ll explore the evolution of martech and how marketing ops deploys it to prove and improve marketing ROI. 4 key Martech trends Marketing Ops teams are tasked with selecting and deploying martech to drive marketing efficiency. Whether they’re choosing or using martech, Marketing Ops teams “are prioritizing tools that are able to grow and scale with them, and that integrate with their existing martech stack,” says the report. Here are four key martech trends highlighted by the report: 1. Most popular “general” tools. The #1 tool Marketing Ops pros use is - wait for it - spreadsheets, a surprising finding since spreadsheets have been around since 1979 . This finding is a bit like learning that Pac Man is the #1 video game decades after its creation (not true, by the way – the most popular video game today is Candy Crush). The #2 and #3 most popular tech tools are the collaboration/project management platforms Asana and Jira. As one senior Marketing Ops leader recommends in the report, you should either be using your tools or losing them: “Audit your tech stack and ask if anyone is using the tool. If not, get rid of it. Ultimately, you want every tool in your stack to contribute to revenue. When contracts are up for renewal, really think about their value, current features, and overlap with other tools.” 2. MAPs and martech tools.  Adobe Marketo Engage is the most popular marketing automation platform, with HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Oracle Eloqua following, in that order, within the MAP category. About 80% of surveyed Marketing Ops pros report being either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their current MAP.  Unsurprisingly, Salesforce is by far the most popular CRM. More than 50% of Marketing Ops pros surveyed have a martech stack that includes a dedicated email and/or landing page creation platform. 3. Most important factors when choosing a martech provider.  The most important factor when Marketing Ops selected new martech in 2022 was the tool’s ability to integrate within their martech stack, with 69% of Marketing Ops pros citing that factor. Second was the tool’s ability to scale along with the company, with 53% of Marketing Ops pros citing that factor.  The next four most important factors in choosing a martech provider were: Ease of use (39%) Ability to meet compliance challenges, especially around data privacy/GDPR (29%) Price (26%) Service and support levels from provider (20%) 4. The top coding language Marketing Ops pros know is HTML, with about half of those surveyed knowing it. About 30% of Marketing Ops pros know JavaScript. When it comes to knowing the #1 coding language in 2022, Python, only about 5% of Marketing Ops pros know how to use it. About one in four Marketing Ops pros say they don’t know a single coding language. The good news, of course, is that in-built automation and other martech trends around “consumerization” are reducing the need for any user to understand a programming language to create value. The future of Marketing Ops: 3 ongoing trends “The State of the Marketing Ops Pro” report concludes by looking at the ongoing trends that will continue to shape the function. Three of the biggest “future trends” are: 1. More clarity and definition around the role.  Marketing Ops remains relatively young, and it tends to be an “everything plus the kitchen sink” role in many organizations. Marketing Ops pros, the report says, “want a more clearly defined role in their organizations.” The future will see more headcount, increased resources, and more specialized roles within the Marketing Ops function. 2. Marketing Ops talent will be harder to find and develop.  The function is so challenging because it’s so collaborative and cross-functional. The ideal Marketing Ops pro is strategic and data-driven, conversant in new technologies, a great communicator who can gain “buy-in” from Sales, IT, and senior leadership, and a dedicated, lifelong learner. Where does such a person find time to sleep, let alone perform their challenging and ever-evolving responsibilities? Marketing Ops will basically develop alongside the capabilities of the professionals working within the function. The future may indeed be about martech, but it will also be about the creativity and commitment of people. 3. There’s room for more digital transformation and growth at 93% of organizations , even if they already have a Marketing Ops team. Average Marketing Ops teams might have 2-10 members today and use a limited number of martech tools. The future will see more demand for what they do as well as larger, more specialized Marketing Ops teams deploying a bigger martech stack. As we’ve seen in Sojourn’s Marketing Ops reports done in 2021  and 2019 , the level of maturity among Marketing Ops talent and martech is growing but still leaves a lot of room for more growth. In fact, “The State of the Marketing Ops Pro” report says that only 7% of organizations surveyed have a fully developed digital maturity level, with integrated systems, complete lifecycle nurturing, and personalized content. That means 93% of organizations will continue to need big investments in their Marketing Ops capabilities in order to achieve marketing goals. Read post 1 of this 2-part series now.  Want to learn more about Marketing Operations and its impact on driving the efficiency and effectiveness of your B2B marketing? Contact us  today.

  • Tip: Use copy/paste to save time on your Oracle Eloqua Campaign Canvas

    You know how sometimes you attend a User Group meeting and it's like, mmm, okay? Well, our February Oracle Eloqua User Group meeting wasn't like that at all - it was more like OKAAAY! Let me tell you why... First, a brief promo - our Eloqua User Group  is open to the Eloqua community and anyone interested in learning more. We spotlight one or two featured speakers each month, mixing it up from Oracle, an app partner, a Sojourn Eloqua expert, an Eloqua customer - you get the picture. In our February meeting, one of our two featured presenters was Sojourn’s Kelly Newton. Kelly's an Eloqueen (IYKYK), and shared a time-saving tip about using copy/paste functionality on Oracle Eloqua's Campaign Canvas. Y'all - the Q&A section lit up with all kinds of very relevant questions and tips from attendees - so much that we decided to share highlights with the community via this post.   Kelly's Tip : Use copy/paste to save time on your Eloqua Campaign Canvas when you're building similar steps and/or flows, especially complex flows. What? How? Here's what you do... Campaign Step Flow  - Place your cursor on the canvas near the flow you want to copy, then select and drag your cursor to outline the flow. Next, right click to copy (or use your keyboard shortcut) and then paste (using your cursor or keyboard shortcut). Voila! Campaign Step  - click on a step and either right click, or use your keyboard shortcuts, to copy/paste BONUS tip from an attendee : You can copy/paste from one campaign canvas to a second campaign canvas, as long as the second campaign canvas is loaded in the same tab.  See Kelly's " Two Minute Tip " video to see all this in action! To conclude, using copy/paste on your Eloqua Campaign Canvas allows you to quickly duplicate elements and ensure that your campaign is consistent and efficient.  Next up? We've got highlights from the very active Q&A:   Question 1 : If you copy/paste a Segment and update the pasted Segment in the same Campaign, does a single contact that exists in both Segments get both emails? Answer 1 : No - if a contact exists in both Segments, they will only enter the Campaign once and exist in only one of the flows. Question 2 : If you had all of the settings specified (in a Canvas or in an individual Step), will those all copy as well?  Answer 2 : Yes, in both cases.  Question 3 : Can you use the same email twice in the same canvas? I don't think so, but just making sure. Answer 3 :   I wasn’t sure, but I tested it and yes - yes, you can. I’m not clear on the use case for this,  but Campaign Canvas does support it.  Question 4 : Would there be an issue if you have two segments with separate emails on the same canvas? Some of our users are thinking of doing this as they find it more convenient than setting up two separate canvases. Answer 4 : No, this is actually ideal as long as it meets your overall goals and objectives - one consideration here might be reporting, ie, what are those requirements and will they be met if the two segments and two emails are included in the same campaign.  Question 5 : If we copy/paste to create two segments and two emails, how would we manage our seedlist, since the contacts can only be in the campaign once? Answer 5 : This can be done several ways - one is to create a full flow for a seedlist segment only, sending the first email (then pause for feedback as needed), and then the second email.  Question 6 : There is a setting in the campaign settings that allows someone to enter the campaign more than once - that doesn’t allow them to be in both paths?  Answer 6 :  No, this setting requires that a contact exits the campaign before they can re-enter - an example here would be a multi- To wrap, one attendee provided this BONUS tip : "Since we started using Eloqua, I knew we could use .1 hour in the wait steps, the equivalent of 6 minutes, but I didn't realize until recently that you can use .01 hours (3.6 seconds). We use the wait steps to understand better where people are exiting our programs/campaigns."  We hope you find these Eloqua time-savings tips helpful! For more tips and other learnings, register  for our March Eloqua User Group now. Also, subscribe  to our YouTube channel to receive notifications on new "Two Minutes Tips" now.

  • 3 ways B2B marketers can improve customer data quality to improve results

    B2B marketers leverage digital channels because that’s where most B2B buying journeys happen today. In order to fine-tune and deliver relevant messaging to their B2B target audiences, marketers are using ever-increasing amounts of customer data and data management technologies.  It's more clear than ever before that old-school "spray-and-pray" outreach doesn’t work. Period. More mature B2B marketing teams are investing in a strong data foundation to generate the insights that fuel targeted engagement. Simply put, high-quality data is the fuel propelling today’s B2B marketing revenue engines. It’s therefore no surprise that nearly 7 out of 10 (69%) of B2B marketing teams plan to increase their investment in database strategies throughout 2023, according to Demand Gen Report . So where specifically are B2B marketers investing in their “data ecosystems,” and what steps are they taking to ensure their data quality? Answering that key question is the focus of this blog post. To dive even deeper into this topic, you can read Demand Gen Report's full report, What’s Working in Database Strategies? , which covers some of the same ground we’ll cover below.  #1: Integrate your data to ensure a “single source of truth” More data, by itself, is never the right answer - unless that data is properly governed across your organization’s customer-focused stakeholders. When you have data siloes embedded in multiple departments, you have the ingredients for data chaos, not data-fueled customer engagement. It’s often better to have less data, used more efficiently (i.e., with the approach described in this blog post) than to have tons of data that remains unorganized and badly managed. Incoming customer data needs to be put in the right format and be managed through a standardized process/workflow (including for fields and other naming conventions) across your organization. Moreover, data needs to be integrated across your systems so that changes made to data in one system are automatically updated in all other systems. You can’t maintain high quality data for long with data siloes, and random acts of data governance.  Why does having a “single source of truth” represent the first step towards ensuring data quality? Because it’s the only way to effectively manage data internally and also maintain a consistent, unified customer experience/CX. For instance, when a customer calls your customer success/customer service department to complain about the product they purchased a month ago, the sales department should not be calling said customer later that day trying to upsell or cross-sell your latest offering. That’s just embarrassing for the company and infuriating for the customer. When your data is unified, shared, and updated automatically, those revenue-killing CX moments disappear.  Unsurprisingly, many B2B companies deploy their CRM platform as their centralized, shared, and single source of truth. You simply cannot maintain data quality and leverage your data to fuel engagement unless you’re operating from a single source of truth. When your data turns to garbage, so do your insights/analytics, reporting, segmentation, strategies, planning, and overall decision-making.  Bad data costs you money. IBM estimated that bad data cost the US economy $3.1 trillion  (with a t) in 2022 in manual rework/cleansing, wasted investments, and lost business opportunities.   #2: Deploy automation to cleanse and transform your marketing data Ensuring quality data is a bit like chasing the sun – it’s an elusive activity that’s never done. The “high-quality data” you used last month can become absolute garbage next month. Maybe the VIP at your biggest account changed companies . . . maybe the big account pivoted their strategy and no longer needs to buy your offerings. Like life, data has a way of continuously moving and changing. When you use inaccurate, outdated data to build customer segments or create analytics or make business decisions you’re only amplifying the waste caused by bad data. Data quality can erode by as much as 20% per year. Never forget the oldest maxim in data science: garbage in means garbage out. Bad data leads to bad engagement. Many savvy B2B organizations are using automated tools  like data washing machines to continually maintain their data quality.  Automation and AI-powered custom solutions can constantly sift through your database to cleanse and update data, dynamically segmenting your database based on updated data, and more. Having your B2B data fully integrated and using automation/AI to constantly cleanse data and maintain its quality is foundational for any effective data management and data governance approach. #3: Use first party data + appended data to fuel insights  First-party data is data that customers provide by visiting your “owned” digital assets, such as your website. It is the single most valuable type of data because it tells you how customers are interacting with your content. So if a customer goes to your site and looks at a specific product page and then accesses your latest webinar on the product, you’d probably want to follow up quickly on that first party data.  B2B marketers are also looking to leverage data providers in order to enrich their data sets. Sojourn, for instance, has recently launched a new Marketing Data & Analytics Service  to help customers do this and more. The practice of incorporating enriched data into B2B databases is growing: about 33% of B2B marketers used data providers in 2021, but that number grew to about 50% in 2022, according to Demand Gen Report.  Of course, marketers need to do their due diligence before partnering with any data provider and when incorporating enriched data into their databases. Understanding the data quality offered by these providers is absolutely critical. Where are providers getting the data? How often do they refresh their data? What processes do they have internally to validate their data? Ask and find out to avoid issues and optimize your results.    For help with ensuring your ongoing data quality - the foundation of effective B2B marketing -  contact us  today.

  • Finding a Marketing Automation Platform: MAP capabilities B2B Marketers need (post 1 of 2)

    Salesforce has sponsored and released a massive, 45-page guide to marketing automation platforms, called (fittingly enough) B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide , describing:  The capabilities B2B marketers need in a MAP, and  How B2B marketers can select and implement a MAP that’s right for their needs. We’ll be detailing the guide’s important findings in this 2-post blog series, and we also recommend that you watch Sojourn’s recent MAP Comparison webinar  ( register  for our October webinar now).  What a MAP does.  The Salesforce MAP guide begins by explaining the role of marketing automation in B2B marketing: marketing automation, it says, “focuses on defining, scheduling, targeting and tracking marketing campaigns, allowing the marketing and sales organizations to nurture leads with highly personalized content aimed at attracting and retaining customers.” Any marketing automation platform should also integrate well with your other martech tools, including (most importantly) your CRM. How a MAP is used.  The guide explains that more B2B marketers are leveraging their MAPs to enhance and drive personalization, using customer data to tailor and send the right messages to the right customers/accounts at the right time. Another important MAP use case focuses on deploying a platform to support account-based marketing approaches. This is where marketers and their sales teams engage with B2B buying groups on larger-scale purchases that tend to have a longer, more complex buying journey than B2C. 6 must-have MAP capabilities  The guide says that big trends in the MAP space include building artificial intelligence into many of the available features, making it easier for MAPs to integrate with other martech via open architectures, and increasing the number of apps available to enhance what MAPs do. With that said, here are six of the most important capabilities marketers should be looking for in any MAP: 1. Email marketing capabilities.  The first MAPs were built on a firm, historical foundation of email marketing campaign planning and execution. All modern MAPs enable users to create, send and measure personalized email campaigns. MAP vendors may differ in how email content gets created and personalized, explains the guide: “Some offer wizard-based campaign design or content templates, while others provide a more customized approach.” MAPs should also help you with improving email deliverability.  2. Lead management.  Managing leads and accounts (with ABM) may be the most strategic function of any MAP, because it’s central to demand generation. Any MAP should support B2B marketers seeking to dynamically segment their customers or conduct lead scoring and lead prioritization. MAPs today need to be lead nurturing machines, explains the guide, “keeping prospects engaged through periodic, personalized communications or campaigns until they are ready to buy. MAPs may offer pre-built nurturing steps or actions, as well as allow users to customize their content and process.”  3. Mobile marketing.  Mobile marketing is expanding because more customers and accounts are engaging with brands via their mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets). And today’s mobile marketing goes way beyond the ability to integrate SMS/text messaging into your campaigns.  The content your MAP sends out must be “mobile-ready.” If it isn’t, then you’re losing a lot of engagement. As the guide explains: “many MAPs [now] include responsive templates for email, landing pages and web forms. Several vendors integrate with email testing tools such as Litmus, which allow users to preview email messages across clients and devices.” 4. Predictive analytics.  Using your customer data to anticipate buyer behavior is a massive trend in the MAP/marketing automation space. With more and better AI coming onto the scene, MAPs are getting better at analyzing customer behavioral patterns and providing insights based on those patterns to support personalized, relevant engagement.  As the guide puts it, “more [MAP] vendors are offering predictive analytics and models based on machine learning. This uses algorithms to process data and surface trends or insights that enable marketers to customize visitor experiences and marketing campaigns.” 5. Support for ABM.  Account-based marketing requires an “account context” around buying groups that make big purchasing decisions on behalf of companies. If a MAP doesn’t comprehend that a certain account has a buying group of seven people, and instead views each person as an individual lead, that necessary account context is missing, and ABM becomes impossible. MAPs are stepping up their ABM game and creating that account context, identifying buying groups, and enabling targeted engagement of the account as a whole. 6. Connecting with the larger martech ecosystem.  Your MAP isn’t an island, so should connect with other marketing automation tools. Integrations are important, so carefully consider whether your MAP has native integrations built-in or how it otherwise enables needed connections with your other tools. If it’s a big challenge to integrate your MAP and CRM, for instance, you’ll have a hard time aligning your marketing and sales teams around shared, real-time data. Most MAP vendors also have “app marketplaces” so you can enhance your MAP’s capabilities. As the guide explains: “App marketplaces can be an important area of differentiation for vendors. Cultivating relationships with developers who create add-ons and integration tools adds to the software’s utility without requiring the vendor to develop those integrations.” The bottom line here?  There’s a ton of competition in the MAP space around the core capabilities described above, not to mention around issues of price and service. In the second post of this series, we’ll offer tips and insights on selecting a vendor and implementing a MAP. Watch Sojourn’s latest MAP Comparison webinar  (free) and reach out  to us if you could use some help selecting, implementing or optimizing your MAP.

  • Finding a Marketing Automation Platform: 7 tips to select and implement a MAP (post 2 of 2)

    Salesforce has sponsored and released a massive, 45-page guide to marketing automation platforms, called (fittingly enough) B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide , describing: The capabilities B2B marketers need in a MAP, and How B2B marketers can select and implement a MAP that’s right for their needs. In this second post of our “Finding a MAP” series [ see post one on MAP capabilities ], we’ll explore how to select and implement the right MAP for you. We also recommend that you watch Sojourn’s recent Marketing Automation Comparison webinar  (and register  for our October webinar), so you can see what specific features and functionalities multiple MAP vendors offer. Selecting and implementing a MAP: 7 steps to success Here’s a 7-step plan for finding and implementing the best MAP for you, the one that best meets your strategic needs and delivers marketing ROI: 1. “Map out” what you need in a MAP.  Don’t simply run out and buy the first MAP you see. You need to take stock first, beginning with a deep understanding of your strategic goals as a B2B marketing organization as well as the existing martech tools, processes, and people/team you’re deploying to meet those goals. Too many organizations forget to assess the skill sets and capabilities their people/team will need to adopt and work with a MAP. When they purchase a great MAP, their people don’t utilize its full value – making a great MAP “less than great.” The guide explains this self-assessment process well: “Understanding your current marketing processes, knowing how to measure success and being able to identify where you are looking for improvements, are critical information when deciding about a MAP.” This self-assessment will tell you exactly what features, functions, and training support you need in a MAP, so you can begin looking for what you need to achieve your goals. This step will also inform all the other steps below. 2. Know how MAP pricing and purchasing works.  MAP vendors typically offer PaaS/SaaS-based pricing, meaning the platform and software are licensed by the customer and hosted by the vendor. Your actual pricing will generally be based on the number of contacts in your marketing database, the number of email marketing messages you send each month, and/or the number of internal users you have (and instances you need).  You should also consider your training needs and related costs. Pro tip: Many MAP providers will ask you to sign an annual contract (some offer monthly pricing). If you’re willing to offer the MAP vendor a longer-term commitment, you can request a discount for doing so. 3. Know the importance of integration.  A MAP may be amazing in isolation, but if it doesn’t integrate well with the rest of your stack, especially your CRM, then you won’t be able to optimize its value and achieve your marketing/strategic goals.  Since you’ve already conducted a full self-assessment of your stack in step #1 above, you should be ready “to ask [any] marketing automation vendor about integration,” says the guide. “Many vendors offer app marketplaces, which provide faster access to the participating systems. Virtually all marketing automation vendors offer APIs, but they may be an add-on to the price of the platform.”  4. Know how you’ll measure MAP success.  This step ties directly into step #1 above. Knowing why you’re selecting a MAP will help you measure the ongoing effectiveness and success of your chosen MAP. If your goal is to increase conversions, for instance, you’ll need to establish a pre-MAP baseline to know what your conversion rate was before implementing your MAP in order to effectively measure any post-MAP impact.  The guide offers another example: “If [your goal is] to improve email efficiency, be prepared with [pre-MAP] metrics on open rates, clicks, etc. It’s also wise to measure the depth and breadth of [your MAP] platform usage. Many marketers only use basic email capabilities, which can end up being a costly investment” that goes to waste. Again, training your people in using your new MAP and all its functionality becomes very important for driving utilization/usage, as well as MAP ROI. 5. Prepare your RFP and send it out to MAP vendors.  Your RFP or “request for proposals” describes your exact needs for a MAP, listing the core capabilities/functionalities you require as well as some “like-to-haves” such as (maybe) predictive analytics or a native CRM integration. Once your RFP is drafted, create a list of MAP vendors that you believe have the capacity to meet at least your core requirements. Send these vendors your RFP with a deadline to respond with relevant information. 6. Winnow down your vendor shortlist, set up demos.  When the vendor responses to your RFP come back, you’ll need to begin by eliminating vendors who don’t meet your basic/core requirements. From there, you can begin ranking the remaining RFP responses from best to worst, perhaps defining a shortlist of 4-7 vendors to engage with at a deeper level. Request further information from these shortlisted vendors and start to differentiate them on functionality, price, service, and other factors. Request a demo from these vendors, start asking detailed, relevant questions, and open up a preliminary negotiating process with your preferred 2-3 vendors. 7. Select a MAP vendor and begin implementation.  As part of step #6, you should already know how each vendor plans to work with you to implement your new MAP. Make a final decision on your preferred vendor and begin creating an implementation plan together, defining an SLA (or “service level agreement”) that sets expectations and consequences for both you and your chosen MAP provider.  You should also consider bringing in outside expertise in the form of an implementation partner (like Sojourn) to facilitate time-to-value for your MAP. An experienced implementation partner can help prepare your data, other martech tools, and your people for optimizing your MAP utilization. Watch Sojourn’s latest  Marketing Automation Comparison webinar , and reach out  to us if you could use some help selecting, implementing or optimizing your MAP.

  • Spring Cleaning your Marketing Automation Platform: Tips for B2B Marketers

    Contributor: Brenda Barrelle Following these spring cleaning tips can save you time, improve your deliverability score, your campaign results, and even the return on investment (ROI) for your marketing automation platform (MAP). Remember, your MAP is only as good as the data it contains, so prioritizing these spring cleaning tips will help to ensure your data is as accurate as possible. As a B2B marketer, your marketing automation platform (MAP) is your lifeblood. It’s where you store your customer and prospect data, run your campaigns, and measure your results. However, over time, your MAP can become cluttered with old data and inactive contacts, which can negatively impact a number of things including your deliverability score and ultimately your return on investment (ROI). To ensure your MAP is working at its best, we recommend conducting a spring cleaning at least once a year. Here are a few tips to get you started: Identify inactive contacts:  Inactive contacts are those who haven’t engaged with your marketing campaigns (or separately with any of your tracked digital properties) in a defined period of time. Review your database and identify those contacts - a key consideration here is to find the answer to the question "what is an inactive contact (to us)?" Depending on the results, you have several options to consider next - not just removal, but potentially launching a win-back campaign or even accelerating (or perhaps fully reviewing) your current contact acquisition strategy to lesson the potential impact to your targeted audiences.   Pro tip: Do the inactive contact analysis - is it 12 months, 18 months, longer? Does it vary by geo, product line, or another factor? It's worth spending the time to have a data-driven response to the question from your campaign managers "why do I have 2,000/20,000/200,000 less contacts in my campaign?" Clean out your contacts:  Where's the best place to start? You can typically score a "quick win"* by removing global hard bounces and global unsubscribes. These records can negatively impact your targeting, campaign performance, and reporting results. How? Most visibly, they inflate the numbers in each of these areas, which because they can't engage makes your results appear worse than they should. For example, if you're targeting 500,000 contacts in an email campaign and 25% of them are global hard bounces/unsubscribes, that's 125,000 contacts showing up in your dashboards that cannot engage. This does negatively impact any results you're reporting, and can even send you down a "what's not working in my campaign" rabbit hole - when in fact, it's your data that's playing a big factor.  Pro tip: Removing contacts from your MAP that you're not able to engage via email can also potentially help you save money, as some vendor contract pricing is based on the number of contacts. *We call this a quick win because the first pass is easy to complete, however, you do need to have a process in place to prevent the deleted records from being dumped back in to your MAP - the most likely source here is typically your integrated CRM. There are other things to consider as well, so feel free to contact us  to learn more.  Clean up your contacts:  Native data standardization functionality - an app or other - can help you clean and standardize your contact data, ensuring it's as accurate as possible. For example, most of us standardize Country fields values - that's simple enough - but you can do more. For example, you can standardize Title or even programmatically create a Title value based on a captured role/level value combination. This will help build queries that better match your ICP, improving the value of your campaigns. Bottom line? By minimizing data errors, you improve your campaign performance and reporting results. Pro tip: Before paying for a new tool to clean up your contacts, fully explore what your MAP can do to help. Some of this functionality may not be obvious - and may require a more data-driven mindset than some on your team may have - but we always recommend vetting out your current tool before buying a new one. To save time, vet it against your real use cases - this helps you to prioritize your time (ie, if the tool doesn't meet your second highest use case, then it may not make a difference it it meets the others). Just a thought.   Target inactive contacts:  Creating queries for inactive contacts can help you target these contacts with a win-back campaign or simply remove them from your database. Some examples of oldie but goodie win-back campaigns include the "we miss you" email, the "incentive" email, the "feedback request" email, or perhaps you'll need to go with the "goodbye" email. Consider this a jumping off point to get you started, and feel free to contact us  with any questions. Pro tip: Download and securely store all key contact data before purging inactive contacts, in case you need to reference the data in the future. To wrap it up, there's no question that these MAP spring cleaning tips can help you in a number of ways - so now it's up to you to get started. One more pro tip? Plan the time to benchmark where you are before you get started, where you are at key milestones, and where you when you complete your spring cleaning. Don't make the mistake of undervaluing the importance of your spring cleaning efforts!    Our team at Sojourn can help you with any/all of the MAP spring cleaning tips above! Learn more  about our Marketing Data & Analytics Services, or feel free to  contact us  for help with Oracle Eloqua, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, or SFMC Account Engagement.

  • How UCLA Health used 2 Eloqua's to extend marketing's reach and manage global subscription data

    UCLA Health  faced challenges with the integration of two Eloqua instances. While quick integration was implemented to send global unsubscribes, it caused several problems such as an increase in contact volume, compliance risk, and cumbersome manual solutions. UCLA Health approached Sojourn Solutions to find a new solution that could integrate subscription data between the two systems, ensure data alignment and consistency, limit the creation of net new contacts, and eliminate manual list scrubbing.  In this post, we'll take a closer look at the challenge and the solution designed by Sojourn that helped UCLA Health stay within their contract threshold limit and eliminate the risk of emailing unsubscribed contacts. The Challenge UCLA Health implemented a second instance of Eloqua in 2021 to allow their Strategic Marketing team to do larger list purchases and outreach to net new prospective patients without harming the domain of their main patient instance of Eloqua. When this second Eloqua instance was implemented, some quick integration leveraging form reposts was implemented to send global unsubscribes between instances by simply creating mirror contacts in each instance. However, in this case, quick didn’t mean better. The initial integration created several problems: First, when recording the unsubscribe in the secondary instance, the process created unnecessary net new contacts and increased UCLA Health’s Eloqua contact volume, causing them to go over their contract threshold. A more important problem was that the quick integration didn’t take into consideration when a contact changed his or her subscription preferences, which added a huge compliance risk.   Finally, the manual solution designed to manage and vet the subscription data against the two systems was too cumbersome to continue. The Solution UCLA Health challenged their marketing operations consulting partner, Sojourn Solutions, to find a new solution to not only integrate the global subscription data between the two systems, but to also: Ensure data alignment and consistency of Global Subscription preference status (Unsubscribed AND Subscribed) between UCLA Health’s two Eloqua instances; Keep the overall contact volume in mind and limit the creation of net new contacts that are not needed in the opposite instance; Ensure if a record is deleted, and later re-created, their previous subscription status remains; Eliminate the need to manually scrub list purchases against the older “Main” instance of Eloqua before uploading into the new “Strategic Marketing” instance of Eloqua. So how did Sojourn achieve all this? A Program Canvas was created using the Form Submit App. The Program sends the most up-to-date subscription status data to the opposite instance of Eloqua. That data is received using a new form, created specifically for subscription status updates, which in turn creates a full set of new contacts. Once the new contacts are received, the program triggers necessary processing rules to find and match any contact records and update the subscription field. Once the fields are updated, then a secondary program automatically deletes the net new contacts from the contact table. The Results The new integration eliminated hours of monotonous, time-consuming manual work to compare lists against each instance of Eloqua to ensure an accurate reflection of global subscription data. Instead, UCLA Health was able to quality control all of the contacts in the Strategic Marketing instance of Eloqua and delete all unnecessary contacts that were previously created just to log the unsubscribe. By implementing the solution, UCLA Health was able to stay within their contract threshold limit and remove the risk of emailing unsubscribed contacts they should not be reaching out to, saving UCLA Health both time and resources while enhancing their contact data reliability and engagement quality. To learn more about how Sojourn can help you improve data quality plus engagement quality - while staying within contracted thresholds - for your organization,  contact us  today.

  • How UCLA Health tackled complex data to send highly personalized emails using Eloqua

    UCLA Health  prides itself on providing the best patient experience every time - a commitment that the Digital Marketing team takes seriously. The team knew that leveraging their vast patient database to produce highly personalized communications was a no-brainer. But first? They needed an easy way to manage contacts with complex many-to-one relationships to ensure the right message was addressed to the right individual. They reached out to Sojourn Solutions for help solving the issue.  In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at how UCLA Health utilized Eloqua  and the 4Thought Many-to-One Email Cloud App  to improve their transactional patient marketing.  The Challenge UCLA Health wanted to send highly personalized messages to its patients. On the surface, they had everything they needed to do this. Each day, their Office of Health Informatics and Analytics (OHIA) team would send a daily feed of patient data to Eloqua (suppressing certain records with restricted flags as needed). Each patient has a unique encrypted patient identification code in OHIA and a valid, though not necessarily unique, email address. Eloqua – by design – uses email address as the unique identifier. UCLA Health faced a specific and difficult challenge: find a way to manage duplicate email addresses to accommodate multiple family members who share a single email address while still sending the right message to the right person. Patients occasionally share email addresses. For instance, a parent might use their own email address for information not just about his or herself but also for his or her child. For example, Jane Doe and her son John are both active patients. Jane and her son each have their unique patient identification code, but they both use Jane’s email address. UCLA Health wanted to remind both of them to get their COVID-19 booster, which ideally would generate two separate emails: one addressed to Jane/herself, and one for John. UCLA Health simply couldn’t personalize the message with the old system. So when OHIA sent data to Eloqua, Eloqua was simply updating the single contact record with the most recent patient data available for that email address. As a result, individual patient data was mixed together, which made it impossible to identify who was who in Eloqua and prevented UCLA Health from personalizing any message specific to a unique individual.  Bottom line? This problem prevented them from sending an email to all applicable patients at that email address regarding a clinical update (e.g., COVID vaccine eligibility) using even simple personalization such as patient First Name. The Solution First, Sojourn addressed the data, recommending integrating UCLA Health’s Eloqua instance with the 4Thought Many-to-One Email Cloud App. This allowed for management of the complex, many-to-one relationships and enabled seamless updates to the unique patient’s contact by leveraging Eloqua’s Custom Object data. That capability hadn’t previously existed for UCLA Health.  Once the data was addressed, the next steps were as follows -  Once the app was installed, it was then time to set up all the necessary assets and components such as new contact and custom object fields. This allowed the app to work appropriately with the necessary data. Next, the related template campaign canvas flows were updated to ensure that the new campaigns would act properly. Once the necessary configuration and campaign pieces in place, Sojourn worked with OHIA to update the daily data feed into Eloqua to migrate the storage of patient data from Eloqua’s Contact table to the new Custom Object. After testing and troubleshooting, Sojourn fully documented the new data integration process. With the new integration in place, it was also time to document the changes in the patient communications process. This included new steps for appropriate segmentation, campaign canvas and app configuration. The final step was to document how the team could finally use personalization in their patient messaging. The Results The results to date have been impressive. The Digital Marketing team saved hours of time in monotonous, manual work. But more importantly, the personalized messaging significantly improved response rates, which helped reinforce their goal of a superior patient experience every time. UCLA Health is now able to deploy their transactional patient communications in a much simpler and efficient manner, while ensuring each patient receives the appropriate email(s) (even if the same email address is included more than once in the list). The straightforward configuration allows their email specialist to build and execute the campaigns herself. Emails deploy to more than 50k patients within minutes and the UCLA/OHIA team is able to easily reference standard campaign-level reporting. Since patient communication is now more personalized, overall patient engagement has been enhanced.  To learn more about how Sojourn can help you improve personalized email messaging for your organization, contact us  today.

  • How Citeline Reduced Martech Stack Complexity (While Personalizing 1.6M Emails Per Month)

    Citeline/Norstella is a $5 billion business with more than 1,000 employees that delivers high-quality content (pharma intelligence) to a target market of life science professionals. The editorial team at Citeline, made up of 65+ journalists and hundreds of analysts, produces the best email newsletter in the pharmaceutical industry.  Citeline powers a full suite of complementary business intelligence offerings to meet the needs of pharma/life science professionals, supporting their work in accelerating patient treatments and therapies. Citeline’s daily and weekly email newsletters are sent out according to the subscriber’s pre-defined preferences for content. Citeline wanted to migrate to a single Eloqua instance for sending its personalized emails to subscribers. The project described below produced a powerful and unique synergistic effect (combining Citeline’s editorial and marketing teams), while exceeding the project’s goals around reduced license-related costs, increased operational efficiency, increased email reach and engagement, and operational continuity. Eloqua Migration: Project Goals and Challenges  The project objectives, as detailed by Citeline, were as follows: (1) to significantly reduce license-related costs (e.g., sunsetting Salesforce Marketing Cloud), (2) to maintain continuity of Citeline’s personalized Insights email product, and (3) to increase the reach and engagement of personalized Insight emails, all while migrating to a single Eloqua instance that leveraged the Instant Marketing (IM) app.  The new approach as developed by Citeline, in partnership with Sojourn Solutions and Instant Marketing, would: Send out highly-personalized, best-in-market pharmaceutical news stories via email to subscribers, with dynamic content pulled from its news website, while allowing Citeline marketers to maintain the system without relying heavily on technical coders/developers. Automate the generation of email content in Eloqua based on preferences and content selections pre-determined by email subscribers in Sitecore, which had been happening in SFMC prior to the Eloqua migration. Among the challenges the project confronted were: Creating newsletters from complex RSS feeds, many assembled uniquely for each subscriber based on their preferences. This was an extremely complex automation, which was being done using SFMC’s legacy “AMPScript” code language, which was difficult for marketers to work with. Managing subscriber preferences and content selections across different platforms (Sitecore, Salesforce) and integrating them into a new Eloqua instance, without disruption to subscribers as emails went out daily and weekly. Ensuring dynamic population of email content for each recipient while maintaining performance and avoiding email bounce issues. On average, 1.6 million emails went out per month, each with up to 20 articles depending on user preferences. Handling different email variations and branding requirements across multiple use cases and brands. Building logic to pull and format content from external sources (RSS feeds) and incorporating them into emails. Managing data complexity and potential limitations in querying and processing large datasets from Salesforce/Eloqua CDO. Implementing a new Eloqua instance within a tight 3-6 month timeframe, while working with multiple teams across two different companies as Citeline was breaking away from Informa and integrating with Norstella. Project Strategy  The Sojourn team determined that if Citeline was migrating to Eloqua, it didn't need to continue using the SFMC platform. The legacy approach leveraged a lot of complex code and processes, but the Citeline team lacked sufficient documentation and support around the code and related processes. While Eloqua would support Citeline’s business needs and existing architecture, it didn't have an out-of-the box solution for accommodating personalized Insight emails, so an Instant Marketing app was built and added onto Eloqua to enable personalized emails.  Eloqua + IM App Sojourn brought in partner Instant Marketing  (IM), knowing it would be able to help build a solution. The Instant Marketing app plugged into Eloqua and had the capabilities of doing the RSS feed function and intelligence required to produce the Insight emails on time and to a high standard.  Removing SFMC reduced license-related costs, as well as complex coding and manual processes that brought high risks of operational failure. The legacy Eloqua + SFDC approach lacked sufficient documentation and also required a dedicated coder to help. Reporting was also difficult. The new approach replaced legacy SFMC AMScript with low-code and no-code components: Eloqua drag & drop tools removed the need for a lot of the code, providing a simple visual interface. What code remained was migrated from AMPScript to Instant Marketing’s Custom Actions, enabling users to write modern server-side JavaScript directly from inside Eloqua itself. A huge amount of complex, unwieldy AMScript was thus reduced to a tiny fraction of modern, type-safe TypesScript written, maintained and monitored directly from Eloqua. The new Eloqua + IM solution was implemented in such a seamless way that no customer realized that Citeline was migrating away from SFMC to a new Eloqua instance.  Project Execution The specifics of the solution, all achieved within a tight project timeframe of 3-6 months and without any disruption to Citeline’s email subscribers, were as follows: Development of an Instant Marketing app to query and filter preferences stored in Salesforce and Eloqua CDO for each email recipient. Email content was dynamically populated based on subscriber’s saved searches, My View preferences, and daily email requirements. Implementation of the logic to pull content from external RSS feeds and incorporate them into email templates. Brand-specific styling and customization were ensured for each email variation. Mechanisms for email tracking, click-through, and handling ad blocks as per brand requirements were set up. Email deliverability was monitored using inbox replacement, list validation, and sender score reputation. Deployment of extensive IP warming to control the ramp up to large volume sends on the new Eloqua instance. Project Results: Exceeding Expectations Achievements of the new Eloqua + Instant Marketing app approach included: Sunsetting the SFMC license reduced license-related fees by 88%. Continuity of personalized email delivery, at a volume of 1.6 million emails per month, with 40% increase in reach vs. legacy. Implementation of dynamic content population based on user preferences and real-time data. The low-code/no-code approach streamlined operations, saved hours of work each month, and made for a better marketer/user experience. Time to create actionable insights from reporting reduced by 50%. More than doubled the click-thru rate: Eloqua average of 4.19% vs. SFMC average of 1.9%. Compliance with branding and styling requirements for each brand's email variations. Agency monitored emails that were sent out and ensured more emails were actually reaching their intended recipient's inbox. Tracking email performance and reporting capabilities hadn’t happened with SFMC.  Due to enhanced monitoring and reporting, these deliverability metrics are now continually improving: Delivered rate  of 83.84% (Eloqua) vs. 79% (SFMC) Soft bounce rate  of 16.15% vs. 25%+ (SFMC) Hard bounce rate  of 0.6% vs. 0.92% before Oct. of '23 Reporting of email delivery and engagement at an account and user level will add significant value for Citeline’s commercial/sales teams. The ability to quickly take up new requirements (e.g.,  separating free and paid users) will be an ongoing benefit. Key Project Takeaways The speed of doing the project in 3-6 months and without disruption to Citeline’s email subscriber base was mission-critical, especially as Citeline was in the middle of integrating into Norstella. Another indicator of project success is that a similar project is now on Citeline’s roadmap for their other product team.  The project improved the experience of internal marketers who were managing the solution (improved employee experience), due to easier workflows/processes related to low-code/no-code, and also lays the groundwork for ongoing improvement of the experience of Citeline’s email subscribers (improved customer experience). A Final Word from Citeline Julia Seto, Product Manager, Insights and Platforms, at Citeline, shared the following perspective on the Eloqua migration project: Switching from Salesforce Marketing Cloud to Eloqua was a massive undertaking, which we had to do in a short time-frame as we moved from Informa to Norstella. The team had not initially grasped how complicated the backend solutions were. Getting everything set up, including the IP warming, was all very compressed because we had so many things happening at once.  So from the perspective of degree of difficulty, and our goal of not disrupting product continuity, this was a very challenging and, in the end, a highly successful project. Citeline’s project was recently entered into the 2024 ANA Business Marketing B2 Awards, in the “Integrated Marketing Program: Large Enterprise” category. Contact us  learn more about how Sojourn Solutions can help your marketing organization improve its marketing operations.

  • Important Update: How Yahoo!’s Feedback Loop Changes Affect Your Oracle Eloqua Experience

    Although Oracle have already sent out an update, we wanted to give you a heads-up ourselves about some important changes from Yahoo!, that might affect how Oracle Corporation North America uses Oracle Eloqua. What’s Happening? Yahoo! has recently updated its Feedback Loop (FBL) system. This system helps email senders, like you, get reports on spam complaints from Yahoo! Mail users. These updates could change how these complaints are reported to Eloqua, which might impact the data you see for your email campaigns.   Here’s What You Need to Know:   1.  Spam Complaint Data: You might notice a delay or change in how often spam complaint data gets reported. This could affect how quickly you can respond to these complaints.  2.  Deliverability Metrics: The changes might influence your overall deliverability metrics because of the new way Yahoo! processes feedback.  3.  Campaign Adjustments: You may need to tweak your email strategies to keep your deliverability and engagement rates on track.  The Oracle team is on top of this and is working closely with Yahoo! to understand these changes fully and plan to make any necessary adjustments to minimize disruptions.   What You Can Do:   •  Monitor Metrics: Keep a close eye on your deliverability metrics and spam complaint rates over the next few weeks. If you notice any significant changes, take action promptly.  •  Review Campaigns:  Take a look at your current email campaigns. Consider making adjustments to improve engagement and reduce the chance of spam complaints. This could mean refining your targeting, enhancing your email content, or adjusting how often you send emails.  •  Stay Informed: We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about the impact of Yahoo!’s changes, and will share any further recommended actions, if needed.  This change takes effect on Thursday 1st August - so please ensure you have contacted Oracle Support to have Yahoo Feedback Loops setup and request TXT records from Yahoo Sender Hub for any of your sending domains, as per Oracle’s update.  If you have any questions or need help with any of the above, feel free to reach out to us. We’re here to support you!

  • How Citeline automated campaign naming conventions in Eloqua (and improved results)

    Editor's Note: Steve McConnell is a Marketing Automation Consultant at Sojourn Solutions with seven years of Eloqua experience. He has 10 years of Marketing experience specializing in Marketing Operations, Sales Enablement, CRM Integration, and System and Data Management. Steve is a certified Oracle Eloqua B2B Implementation Specialist, and loves training and empowering Eloqua users to do new and exciting things, ie, "... likes making Eloqua do backflips."  Citeline is a pharmaceutical, biomedical and medtech information service company. Within the Citeline organization, there are multiple brands and hundreds of products, spanning from business intelligence platforms to curated editorial and news alerts via several publishing brands. Part of Norstella, a FTSE 250 organization, Citeline’s marketing and product teams send thousands of automated emails, internal and external marketing campaigns, and run lead management processes across several brands. Their technology stack includes multiple instances of Salesforce CRM and multiple Marketing Automation Platforms (Oracle Eloqua and Salesforce Marketing Cloud), which Citeline was trying to streamline down to a more manageable technology landscape. The Reporting Challenge  “We needed a way for all of our brands to speak the same language when it comes to reporting,” says Kevin Sowden, Eloqua Product Owner on the Citeline team. “We obviously want to allow freedom and flexibility when it comes to how each brand measures success. At the same time, ensuring that campaigns are named the same so that they can easily be compared and contrasted when it comes to our reporting capabilities." Sowden explains that this was actually critical before as they were using both Eloqua and SFMC for email. "Sojourn [Solutions] helped us to streamline that stack by moving all of our SFMC functionality into Eloqua," he shares, "and were also able to migrate much of our reporting from Tableau to native Eloqua reports. This again massively reduced the overall complexity of our landscape." However, Sowden states, "it’s still really important for us to be able to take campaign data and blend it together with other data in our reporting systems.”  “The solution we landed on was abiding by a campaign naming convention, which we were enforcing using a spreadsheet before we migrated,” he continues. “This worked great when it was used correctly, but it was liable to human error, and difficult to enforce." Why? Sowden says, "We had no way of having the system ensure that people used the names in the correct ways. We also had real challenges with communicating with the Sales team about campaign results, as the campaign names were just a string of characters rather than a meaningful friendly name which the sales team can understand.” It might sound like a simple problem, but had deep ramifications within the business. “If a campaign is not named correctly it’s a real problem should we need to blend our Eloqua and Salesforce data together,” Sowden explains. “Our reports and dashboards rely on the naming convention to show the correct information – if a campaign is named incorrectly it could be attributed to the wrong brand, or drop out of the reporting altogether. It affects our ability to plan and measure results and just made things much more complex overall." The Solution “It was an interesting requirement,” says Steve McConnell, Marketing Automation Consultant at Sojourn Solutions. "It’s not just enforcing the naming convention and producing a string of characters – you’ve also got the challenge that Sales doesn't actually know how to interpret that information (and would rather have a friendly name)." So, McConnell shares, "We actually wanted something where we could have two different campaign names for the same campaign; with no external spreadsheets to work with; and fully automated and 100% reliable so that if people forget about the naming convention, there’s a way for it be enforced by the system.”  The solution they ended up implementing revolves around using Eloqua campaign fields. McConnell says, "When a campaign is created in Eloqua, it’s really easy to put drop-down controlled mandatory picklist fields on it, which the marketer has to fill out before the campaign can be activated." That takes care of the issue of marketers forgetting the process or not using the correct values." "Everything in Eloqua is made mandatory and picklist-controlled so that there’s no way you can get your email to send without going through these quick steps first,” McConnell explains. “We also maintained the ability for marketers to add a friendly name by simply using the initial Eloqua campaign name as the friendly name. So when they’re setting up their campaign, they don’t have to think about the naming convention at all – just put in your friendly name and fill out the campaign fields.”  “After the campaign is created, Citeline’s Eloqua/SFDC integration kicks in, takes those field values the user selected on the campaign, and turns that into a string," says McConnell. That gives the naming convention which is then sent into Salesforce. "We then have a simple automation running to take that string and pull it back into Eloqua, replacing the campaign name," McConnell shares. "We also retain the original friendly name that the Campaign was created with. That’s then used as the Salesforce campaign name, so the Sales team see a nice friendly name instead of a complicated string.”  The Impact  “The team loves it," Sowden says when asked about the reception from the marketing team. “We’re lucky to have some really digital-savvy and experienced Eloqua users in our team who are very tech-oriented. But the best feedback we’ve had has been from some of our less technical users who were never that happy with the original spreadsheet solution,” he explains." “Hearing from those team members that this is saving them time and effort is obviously great on its own, but it also represents a real efficiency savings which contributes to better ROI from marketing overall." Having to use spreadsheets and even calculators on occasion to get the correct name was a pain before - "and this has completely removed that step from the marketer’s processes,” says Sowden. “We’re also seeing much better use of our Sales Enablement tools and processes such as Eloqua Profiler – having a friendly name on the Salesforce side, instead of a complex string of characters, is helping our sales development representatives dig deeper into where our Leads came from which is setting them up for better success rates on their calls,” Sowden continues. And finally, "We’re able to measure the results of that in terms of conversion rates more reliably due to the process being automated." "The removal of any human error from the process and the fact that it’s automated in Eloqua helps us build trust in our reporting data which we use to make key strategic decisions," states Sowden. "We were basically able to build everything we wanted into this process without having to compromise, even with requirements that felt contradictory like wanting different names for the same campaign in two different systems. It’s worked great so far and laid the foundations for us to deepen our attribution and results measurement in the future,” Sowden concludes. _______________ FYI... Interested in learning more about the above solution? Register  for our virtual Eloqua User Group meeting on Thursday, November 16, for Steve McConnell's live presentation! Check out our Marketing Automation Consulting Services  for more use cases and examples of automations that could help your business. Or, contact us  to discover how your organization can get the most out of your Eloqua platform.

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