Marketing automation

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Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations automate repetitive tasks [1] and consolidate multi-channel (email, SMS, chatbot, social media) interactions, tracking and web analytics, lead scoring, campaign management and reporting into one system. [2] It often integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platform (CDP) software. [3]

Contents

Overview

Marketing automation tracks top-of-funnel activities to drive prospects to sales. This is contrasted with CRM, which manages information about the prospect and their position in the sales cycle. [3]

The use of marketing automation makes processes that would otherwise have been performed manually much more efficient and makes new processes possible. Marketing Automation can be defined as a process where technology is used to automate several repetitive tasks that are undertaken on a regular basis in a marketing campaign.

Marketing Automation platforms allow marketers to automate and simplify client communication by managing complex omnichannel marketing strategies with a single tool. Marketing Automation assists greatly in areas like Lead Generation, Segmentation, Lead nurturing and lead scoring, Relationship marketing, Cross-sell and upsell, Retention, and Marketing ROI measurement. Effective marketing automation tools leverage data from a separate or integrated CRM to understand customer impact and preferences.

There are three categories of marketing automation software:

Marketing intelligence
Uses tracking codes in social media, email, and webpages to track the behavior of anyone interested in a product or service to gain a measure of intent. It can record which social media group or thread they followed, which link was clicked on in an email or which search term was used to access a website. Multiple link analysis can then track buyer behavior - following links and multiple threads related to product A, but not B will show an interest only in A. This allows more accurately targeted response and the development of a nurturing program specifically targeted towards their interest and vertical market. This allows businesses to more efficiently and effectively reach target consumers who show, through their internet history behavior, that they will be interested in the company's products. [4] Due to its interactive nature, this has been described as Marketing Automation 2.0.
Marketing automation
Has a focus on moving leads from the top of the marketing funnel through to becoming sales-ready leads at the bottom of the funnel. Prospects are scored, based on their activities, and receive targeted content and messaging, thus nurturing them from first interest through to sale. Commonly used in business-to-business (B2B), business-to-government (B2G), or longer sales cycle business-to-consumer (B2C) sales cycles, Marketing Automation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of email marketing technology coupled with a structured sales process.[ citation needed ]

Advertising Automation

Has a focus on automating the process of advertising, usually focusing on the campaign lifecycle management. Automation involves different areas such as media mix model, media planning, scheduling, campaign setting, adserving, and reporting. Applicable to just one or many of these elements, advertising automation focuses on automating either an entire aspect or their most mundane tasks - often with the use of Artificial Intelligence. A clear example is to be found in ad operations (also known as trafficking), which involves the activities around mapping adserver and analytics placement to different media and ad-tech platforms, creating tracking pixels to disseminate across the different media, and management of the UTM parameters — traditionally manually operated across different adtech platforms — that with advertising automation is automated. This generates an automated creation of placement, automated pushing of trackers to the various media, and automatic management of the creation of UTM parameters. While commonly used among big advertisers to simplify complex infrastructures and processes, advertising automation is paving the way to make advertising accessible to unskilled users.

Advanced workflow automation

Encompasses automation of internal marketing processes. These include budgeting and planning, workflow and approvals, the marketing calendar, internal collaboration, digital asset creation, and management and essentially everything that supports the operational efficiency of the internal marketing function. Typically, these systems require a CRM or COM (commercial operations management) administrator to set up a complex series of rules to trigger action items for internal sales and marketing professionals to manually process (designing files, sending letters, sending email campaigns). This type of system increases the marketer's ability to deliver relevant content to relevant individuals at relevant times. Limitations may apply, based on the human resource capacity of an organization and their level of commitment to the tasks as they are assigned. Advanced workflow automation's can be created to support the entire customer journey, including awareness, consideration, decision and long term loyalty.

Effects of GDPR on marketing automation

As of 25 May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect in the EU, [5] this has had a large impact on the way marketing teams and organizations can manage their consumer data. Any organization using marketing automation tracking is required to ask consent from the consumer as well as provide transparency on how the data will be processed.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

Similarly, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which took effect on January 1, 2020, introduced strict data privacy laws for residents of California. [6] The CCPA grants consumers the right to know what personal data is collected, the purpose of collection, and with whom it is shared. It also allows consumers to opt-out of the sale of their personal information.

The CCPA's impact on marketing automation includes:

Global Trend Towards Data Privacy

These regulations reflect a global trend towards stronger data privacy laws, influencing marketing automation by:

Impact of marketing automation on consumers

Consumers are directly impacted by marketing automation. [7] Consumers provide data for companies, and companies use algorithms to determine products and services to market towards the consumer. The products and services are personalized based on the collected data for each individual. The use of marketing automation is interpreted as an efficient customer experience [8] while others interpret a loss of autonomy [9] [10] for the consumer.

Functionality

Marketing automation solutions provide three key functions: [11]

Examples of automation

After a user visits a merchant's website and navigates away, an automated email can be triggered to be sent out that user. They can be reminded of an abandoned shopping cart, a subscription that is about to expire, or be welcomed if they are a new customer. Coupons and messages can be tailored based on past purchases. [3]

Software can also automate the creation of product landing pages and chatbot for customer support. [3]

Market size

According to Gartner, the B2B automation market was valued at $2.1 billion in 2020 and more than $2.74 billion in 2021. [12] [13] [3] Gartner identified the following vendors as B2B marketing automation platform leaders as of August 2021: [13]

History

See also

Related Research Articles

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or another organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.

Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies use data analysis and digital technology to show adverts to individuals based on their perceived characteristics and interests. Marketers use methods from data collection, analytics, digital electronics, and digital economics then use technology to analyze it and show personalized ads based on algorithms that attempt to deduce people’s interests.

Database marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing.

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Email marketing strategies commonly seek to achieve one or more of three primary objectives: build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.

The eCRM or electronic customer relationship management encompasses all standard CRM functions with the use of the net environment i.e., intranet, extranet and internet. Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers through the use of information technology (IT).

Lead management is a set of methodologies, systems, and practices designed to generate new potential business clientele, generally operated through a variety of marketing campaigns or programs. Lead management facilitates a business's connection between its outgoing consumer advertising and the responses to that advertising. These processes are designed for business-to-business and direct-to-consumer strategies. Lead management is in many cases a precursor to sales management, customer relationship management and customer experience management. This critical connectivity facilitates business profitability through the acquisition of new customers, selling to existing customers, and creating a market brand. This process has also been referred to as customer acquisition management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital marketing</span> Marketing of products or services using digital technologies or digital tools

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. It has significantly transformed the way brands and businesses utilize technology for marketing since the 1990s and 2000s. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.

Oracle CRM is a customer relationship management system created by Oracle Corporation. It includes a number of different cloud applications that can be deployed together or used individually to analyze customer data and help companies connect and manage sales, marketing, and customer support.

Dialogue marketing emerged in the early 2000s as companies engaged willing consumers in an ongoing dialogue to create lasting relationships. For example, based on data, marketers invite groups of likely consumers to connect with the company. The engagement process provides value to both the consumer and the company. Marketers use these opportunities as data collection points. The companies use the data to further customize their marketing messages and personalize the experience for their consumers and market segments. In exchange for sharing opinions, buying patterns, etc., consumers receive perks such as discounts, tips, and free trials as well as appropriate messaging from the company.

HubSpot, Inc. is an American developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. HubSpot was founded by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah in 2006.

A contact manager is a software program that enables users to easily store and find contact information, such as names, addresses and telephone numbers. They are databases that provide an integrated approach to tracking information and communication activities linked to contacts. Simple ones for personal use are included in most smartphones. Sophisticated contact managers provide calendar sharing features and allow colleagues to access the same database.

The fields of marketing and artificial intelligence converge in systems which assist in areas such as market forecasting, and automation of processes and decision making, along with increased efficiency of tasks which would usually be performed by humans. The science behind these systems can be explained through neural networks and expert systems, computer programs that process input and provide valuable output for marketers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Act-On</span> American software company

Act-On Software is a software-as-a-service product for marketing automation. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon and was founded in 2008, originally retailing its software exclusively through Cisco, which provided $2 million in funding.

Healthcare CRM, also known as Healthcare Relationship Management, is a broadly used term for a Customer relationship management system, or CRM, used in healthcare.

Voice-based marketing automation (VBMA) refers to software platforms designed for marketing, sales, and support departments to measure, manage, and automate their phone conversations. Marketing departments, sales teams, and support agents use VBMA to initiate, manage, monitor, track, route, record, and report on sales and support phone conversations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontraport</span>

Ontraport is a "business automation software for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and small businesses" that incorporates tools like CRM, marketing automation, ECommerce and reporting.

Optimove is a privately held company that develops and markets a Relationship Marketing software as a service (SaaS). Optimove's product has a Customer Data Platform at its core and applies algorithmic optimization to autonomously improve multichannel campaigns. The company serves various industries, including retail, eCommerce, travel and hospitality, gaming, and financial services.

Data onboarding is the process of transferring offline data to an online environment for marketing needs. Data onboarding is mainly used to connect offline customer records with online users by matching identifying information gathered from offline datasets to retrieve the same customers in an online audience.

A customer data platform (CDP) is a collection of software which creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems. Data is pulled from multiple sources, cleaned and combined to create a single customer profile. This structured data is then made available to other marketing systems. According to Gartner, customer data platforms have evolved from a variety of mature markets, "including multichannel campaign management, tag management and data integration."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX)</span> Cloud-based marketing service

Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX) is a suite of cloud-based applications offered by Oracle Corporation that includes tools for advertising, marketing, sales, e-commerce, customer service.

References

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