Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Summary: The first of three posts describing my new scoring system for B2B marketing automation vendors. I’ve finally had time to work up the vendor scores based on the 150+ RFP questions I distributed back in September. vendor strength , which assesses a vendor’s current and future business position.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Vendors 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 8, 2011

Summary: HubSpot announced a $32 million investment yesterday by Sequoia Partners, Google and Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com and Google announced their long-anticipated entry into the marketing automation industry, in the baby-step form of investments in HubSpot.

Salesforce.com 120

Salesforce.com Enterprise Management Hubspot Marketing Automation Services 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MAY 2, 2012

Intuit last week announced an agreement to acquire local business marketing vendor Demandforce for $423.5 It’s not a typical marketing automation vendor, since it provides appointment management, referrals, reviews, social campaigns, local advertising, post cards, and search marketing in addition to email. million of investment.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Small Business Marketing Vendors 120

Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Summary: HubSpot has continued to grow its customer base and expand its product. HubSpot has always aimed to provide small businesses with one easy-to-use system for all their marketing needs. Of course, this competition was always implicit – few small businesses would have purchased HubSpot plus one of those products.

Small Business Marketing 120

Small Business Marketing Marketing Automation Services Hubspot Demand Generation Agencies 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 30, 2009

Summary: Hubspot offers a bundle of Web traffic generation and lead management features in one low-cost package. Marketing automation vendors entering this market are essentially betting that they can make their systems powerful enough to be useful and easy enough for a small business to run. Hubspot has accepted this challenge.

Small Business Marketing 120

Small Business Marketing Bundling Work Management Paid Search Agency 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

I’ve just published the latest edition of our B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST), with updated entries on all your favorites and several new entries to boot. This is always a fun project because it gives me an overview of what all the vendors have been up to for the past six months. lots of new vendors.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Enterprise Management Marketing Management Top of Funnel 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 31, 2015

Yesterday I released the mid-year edition of the VEST Report on B2B marketing automation vendors, thereby meeting my self-imposed deadline of July 31. The only new vendor to make a splash recently has been SharpSpring , which went from zero to 500 agency clients in the past year. Look here for more information or to make a purchase.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Report Marketing Automation Paid Search Agency 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 13, 2014

The main basis for my prediction is high growth that vendors reported in 2013, and in particular a trend towards higher revenue per client among the vendors who share that information with me. If I were an email vendor, I''d think about that one. Features Don''t Drive Decisions.or

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 31, 2012

I’ve just released the latest edition of my B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST), which contains detailed analysis of all 22 B2B marketing automation systems. Vendors in the VEST are asked for estimates of their client counts by company size. For a couple of vendors, I’ve used my own estimate based on past data.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Marketing Report Marketing Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 30, 2013

Raab Associates officially released the new edition of our B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST) yesterday. This is our flagship report on the industry, with nearly 200 data points on 23 vendors and separate ratings for micro-business, small to mid-size companies, and enterprise marketing departments.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Enterprise Management Marketing Management Acquisitions 120

Customer Experience Matrix

AUGUST 1, 2012

I’ve gotten used to thinking of the B2B marketing automation industry as entering a consolidation phase, during which a handful of dominant vendors emerge and small vendors drop away. It's only in the later stages of consolidation – after crossing Geoffrey Moore’s chasm – that the dominant vendors really take control.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation B2B Marketing 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 5, 2015

I just finished the latest release of the B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool , a.k.a. That’s a technical step backwards but will actually make it easier for buyers to access the detailed vendor information, and in particular to screen for vendors with particular capabilities. more micro-business vendors.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Report Marketing Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 11, 2011

Our just-released update to the B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Toolkit (VEST) shows that client counts grew just over 50% over the year ending in June, compared with nearly 100% growth for the year ending last December. You might think the slower rate is expected because each period starts from a larger base. Not necessarily.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Manticore Marketing Automation ActiveConversion 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

I released the 2012 edition of our B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST) report today, an event that deserves more hoopla that I’ve given it. The VEST provides by far the most detailed, objective information available on industry vendors. For those of us who don’t get out much, that’s downright exciting. Myth busted.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Report Marketing Automation Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

The system has prebuilt connectors to import data from popular vendors including Salesforce.com , Marketo , Hubspot , SAP , SugarCRM , and Facebook. Claritix tells me this has been quite sufficient for their initial clients, who have liked the fact that set-up is virtually all automated or handled by the vendor.

Analysis 120

Analysis Marketing Analytics Tools Marketing Automation Services Salesforce.com 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Both of the acquired vendors had bright prospects at one time but fell by the wayside. Since both vendors ultimately failed to survive, it might seem reasonable to conclude that freemium doesn’t work for B2B marketing automation, despite its successes elsewhere. Can they succeed where Genius and LoopFuse did not?

Loopfuse 120

Loopfuse Marketing Automation Services Banners Vendors 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 10, 2013

I only mention this because I’ve recently been looking at a lot of new (to me) vendors and haven’t been able to write about many of them. This makes it a system for both small business and service vendors: two of my four themes. This will remind marketing automation aficionados of HubSpot, which has made a similar journey.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Automation Services Paid Search Agency Small Business Marketing 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

I’ve just finished the latest update of our B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST), available on the raabguide.com Web site. The VEST is our evaluation of industry vendors, aimed primarily at companies choosing a marketing automation system. We use two methods: Vendor revenues. How scientific can you get?

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Marketing Management Forecasting 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JUNE 13, 2016

But most vendors serving the ABM space have taken a much narrower approach, either in providing data about accounts, managing campaigns against externally-built account lists, or providing account-level metrics such as coverage, engagement, and funnel velocity. Now things start get interesting.

Account Based Marketing 120

Account Based Marketing Marketing Automation Services Work Management Buy 120

Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 8, 2011

So marketing automation vendors are understandably eager to support it in their systems. I recently took a quick tour of vendor sites to see what social features they’re offering. I need to stress that I’ve only credited vendors for features they list on their site. But social is clearly growing fast and has great potential.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management Social Media 120

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 29, 2015

When I first described Customer Data Platforms two and half years ago, all the vendors offered an application such as predictive analytics or campaign management in addition to the "pure" CDP function of building the customer database. Integrations with Oracle Eloqua , HubSpot and Salesforce Pardot are planned by end of this year.

Work Management 120

Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Lead Ranking 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 6, 2016

billion $420 - $520 Infusionsoft small business integrated sales and marketing software 35,000 $100 million $2,857 HubSpot integrated marketing and CRM software 18,100 $181 million $10,000 Infusionsoft managers recognize that expanding the customer base requires making marketing easier. Two other vendors also caught my eye. million $1.6

Small Business Marketing 120

Small Business Marketing Work Management Marketing Management Planning 120

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 20, 2016

Indeed, many of the firms I originally identified as CDPs were lead scoring and customer success management vendors who serve primarily B2B clients. This excludes the predictive modeling vendors and customer success managers, as well as the big marketing clouds that list a CDP as one of many components.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 11, 2011

To me, it looks like a reaction to the success of other low cost small business systems, including HubSpot , Act-On Software , and Pardot. HubSpot and Act-On have similar pricing to Spark, while Pardot runs a bit higher. Those vendors have starting prices around $300 per month and offer built-in shopping carts and CRM.

Small Business Marketing 120

Small Business Marketing Marketo Marketing Automation Services Work Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JANUARY 25, 2012

I had an intriguing demonstration yesterday from social CRM vendor Nimble. Integrations are currently available for Outlook, Gmail, Google Calendar, MailChimp email, Wufoo web forms, and HubSpot marketing automation. That might not sound like much, but in practice it’s pretty darn slick.

CRM 120

CRM Work Management Paid Search Agency Marketing Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MAY 14, 2014

Lots of vendors have now taken to describing their systems as platforms – Oracle , Salesforce , IBM , Adobe , Marketo , HubSpot , InfusionSoft and even CallidusCloud. Now I’m going to feel guilty if I don’t cover the topic more fully – even though there are other, easier topics that I had meant to write about first.

Rules 120

Rules Work Management Marketing Management API 120

Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 13, 2011

The marketing automation industry continues to grow quickly, with many vendors announcing their client bases have more than doubled in 2011. Marketing automation vendors are painfully aware of these issues. Among B2B vendors, Eloqua is the poster child for this approach. They've taken a range of approaches to addressing them.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Marketing Automation Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 9, 2012

New-ish marketing automation vendor NurtureHQ showed me its product recently. Other vendors have asked the same questions and reached the same conclusions. But vendors can't succeed if their clients fail – especially they rely on revenue from subscription renewals. What does this mean for the software vendors themselves?

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 24, 2014

SalesPredict is a perfect example: a small vendor with a powerful system that just launched earlier this year. That said, SalesPredict’s primarily integration with Salesforce.com, user interface, and company name itself suggest the vendor’s main focus is on helping sales users spend their time on the most productive lead.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Automation Salesforce.com 120

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

But still, as I noted last week, the growth rate is slowing – and for some vendors seems to have fallen considerably in the second half of 2012. Figures for other vendors are not publicly available but I've seen hints that several have slowed as well. If true, these figures would actually be bad news for marketing automation vendors.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JANUARY 11, 2011

Looking through my files and asking a few questions, here are vendors for whom I have reasonably reliable information: This gives an average of $171,000 per employee. Aprimo has stated they are 40% B2B, and the rest of those vendors are 100% B2B. This leaves all the other B2B marketing automation vendors.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation ActiveConversion 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 16, 2012

Web site management vendor SDL purchased Alterian last November and sales enablement vendor CallidusCloud bought LeadFormix in January. And, as the two giants converge, the marketing automation industry stands between them like a mushroom, waiting to be crushed or gobbled up (if giants eat mushrooms).

Salesforce.com 120

Salesforce.com Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 4, 2011

There are vendors on both sides of the argument. But I’ve heard almost exactly the same argument recently from other vendors including Net-Results , Marketbright , and to lesser extent, Genius.com. On the other hand, the vendors with the greatest success to date have stressed the importance of process.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation Loopfuse 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JUNE 19, 2015

Mautic certainly has an appeal for service vendors, since it removes the cost of payments to a HubSpot or Infusionsoft. There are about twenty of these, including major vendors in each category. Mautic will encourage such support by building a marketplace for users to sell or share resources such as workflows and templates.

Marketing Automation Services 120

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Work Management Automation 120

Customer Experience Matrix

JANUARY 7, 2010

On the other hand, there are still plenty of new entrants; few pioneering vendors have failed or consolidated; and related software vendors (in this case, CRM, email and Web site management systems) haven’t yet introduced me-too products. I do expect vendors to converge on more standard social media features. me-too products.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Marketing Automation Services Work Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

APRIL 26, 2011

HubSpot also has many micro-business clients but is not focused on them exclusively and – probably as a result – has a slightly different feature set: more Web traffic generation and no built-in contact management or shopping cart. There are plenty of other vendors serving micro-businesses. MakesBridge is another contender.

Small Business Marketing 120

Small Business Marketing Work Management Features Marketing Management 120

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 26, 2015

Some vendors do this better than others. Integration is currently available for Salesforce.com CRM, Marketo , and HubSpot , with plans to add Salesforce.com Pardot and Oracle Eloqua shortly. - But such integrated solutions are rarely comprehensive. This means that meeting a full range of needs requires connecting with external systems.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Display Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services 120