John Neeson of SiriusDecisions estimates that “less than 25% of those who have marketing automation are taking full advantage of the system’s functionality.&#. Chris Selland Capital says “For the most part, marketing automation outsourcing is the way to go. from DemandGenReport white paper ‘Don’t Buy Marketing Automation and Let It Collect Dust&#. But marketing automation software customers are realizing that tools alone do not address the high-quality leads problem. About Find New Customers LLC. MORE >>

There's a new report out from Demand Gen Report, sponsored by Manticore Technology, that reveals the reflections of 53 marketing executives who are using marketing automation systems. The benefits from automating marketing programs can be many. Marketing automation systems enable the gathering of prospect intelligence and the delivery of content made more relevant when offered in parallel to those insights. Even better, the systems can help you generate online dialogue and interactions valuable to both your prospects and your company. Well done! MORE >>

My new obsession with Twitter (follow me as @draab) has led to several messages from people who seemed to have trouble choosing between Eloqua and Marketo. This is a bit perplexing, since those products are at the opposite ends of the spectrum: Marketo being relatively low cost / limited functionality / easier to learn, and Eloqua being higher cost / richer functionality / takes more training. Marketo is certainly a fine product, but marketers should still look around before picking it by default. It shouldn't be hard to figure out which one suits you better. Just kidding.or MORE >>

But Eloqua , Silverpop and Marketo remain industry leaders. The leaders among demand generation systems are still Eloqua , Silverpop and Marketo. The only important exception is LoopFuse , which I have deferred at the company's request. Tags: vendor rankings demand generation marketing automation lead management Summary: Based on Web traffic rankings, new demand generation vendors with low prices are gaining market presence. Pardot and (perhaps) Genius.com look particularly strong. You can see that post here. Results are in the following table. How about it guys? MORE >>

Almost 7 out of 10 companies say “ Generating high-quality leads &# is their #1 problem. But in trying to solve that challenge, companies make a fundamental error: The lack of high quality leads problem renders business leaders highly susceptible to the siren song of marketing automation companies, like Eloqua , Marketo , Silverpop , Genius.com , Market2Lead , HubSpot ,  Pardot and the like. All those companies make fine software and they’re right — to a point. Marketing automation is just like that race car. agree. MORE >>