Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 22, 2012

I’ll be speaking about optimization this Wednesday at the Online Marketing Summit conference in Santa Clara, CA. Since I’m very comfortable with the actual topic, most of my prep time has been spent looking for pictures for my slides. One discovery was the image above, which shows is how I think most people imagine optimization: a team of dead-serious revenue engineers carefully tweaking dials and watching gauges until they find the perfect balance among alternative marketing investments.

Work Management 173

Work Management Paid Search Agency Conference Optimization 173

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 17, 2012

Microsoft today announced the acquisition of marketing management system vendor MarketingPilot , which will become part of its Dynamics CRM group. Financial terms were not disclosed. MarketingPilot is best described as integrated marketing management for mid-tier companies. It has a pretty low profile in the B2B marketing automation world, partly because it serves a mix of B2C and B2B clients but mostly because it started as a marketing operations management system.

Marketing Automation Services 197

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management Vendors 197

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 10, 2012

I’ve now done more detailed research into the SetLogik B2B data management system I mentioned in my Dreamforce post. If anything, I’m even more impressed. I originally saw SetLogik as a tool to associate marketing leads with sales opportunities, even when they are not connected directly within Salesforce.com. That’s important in itself, since those missing links are the greatest obstacle to showing the value of B2B marketing efforts through revenue attribution.

Enterprise Management 163

Enterprise Management Work Management Lead Ranking Marketing Management 163

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 2, 2012

As I mentioned in my Marketing Automation Beer Goggles post, KXEN introduced a free lead scoring app for Salesforce.com users at Dreamforce. KXEN has since given me a closer look at the lead scoring product, underlying technology, and future plans. First for details on Predictive Lead Scoring itself. As originally reported, it’s free and requires no configuration to set up.

Lead Ranking 152

Lead Ranking Salesforce.com Automation Lead Scoring 152

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 11, 2012

ExactTarget announced its acquisition today of mid-tier marketing automation vendor Pardot , for just under $100 million ($95.5 million, to be exact). In one way, this was surprising: Pardot had seemed less interested in being purchased than others in the industry. But Pardot was also the only major marketing automation competitor without serious outside funding.

Enterprise Management 185

Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services Peer-to-peer Marketo 185

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Epiphany was one of the high-fliers of an earlier marketing automation boom: launched in 1997 with an initial public offering in 1999, it traded stock for a variety of customer management systems before its price collapsed. The remains were scooped up in 2005 by SSA Global, which was itself purchased in 2006 by enterprise software vendor Infor. Through all this, the company’s campaign management and CRM systems continued to sell with little change.

Marketing Automation Services 166

Marketing Automation Services Digital Asset Management Interactive Marketing Enterprise Management 166