Eloqua Parts Ways With Pedowitz Group Over IP Exclusivity Debate
The competitive slugfest among marketing automation vendors is spilling over into the services space, as Eloqua recently parted ways with demand generation agency The Pedowitz Group after a long history between the two companies..... Read Full Article Here - >
Conversation Continues On Vendor Neutrality’s Role In Demand Gen
There’s been a recent dialogue around vendor neutrality, a topic I’m particularly interested in because it’s foundational to Left Brain Marketing.
Vendor neutrality in the agency world means being capable of making client-centric recommendations regardless of one’s personal or economic interest. It literally means, your agency is technology neutral or agnostic and, irrespective of which one you pick, your agency will support your success. Fundamentally, the right choice is the one that will provide the best technology layer to help you execute against your strategy. And your overall demand generation strategy should drive that choice, nothing else.
Vendor neutrality doesn’t mean your demand generation agency doesn’t have an opinion or a preference. You want your agency to have a preference, to help guide and inform your decision-making process. But if that preference is tied to some separate economic advantage — an interest that has nothing to do with the core marketing strategy you are defining and driving — then it’s very probable that that recommendation is going to be clouded by self-interest.
Since any agency can claim to be vendor neutral, you should ask some basic questions:
1. Does the technology determine what you should be doing or does the goal of your marketing programs drive the choice of technology?
2. Has your agency directly supported clients on at least three, and preferably more, marketing automation platforms? One or two is not agnostic; it’s a way to serve different parts of the market.
3. Does your agency have trained people who work on each of the platforms they support?
Am I suggesting that you should only use a demand generation agency that works with multiple vendors? Not at all. I’m a huge fan of lead management consultancy, The Annuitas Group. Jay and Carlos [Hidalgo] know lead management cold, and if a client engages with them I would expect that client to be extremely happy with the result. But here’s the thing, The Annuitas Group doesn’t claim to be vendor neutral when it comes to marketing automation selection. They work with specific technologies, something they’re transparent about.
My point is simple: neutrality shouldn’t be veiled self-interest that’s motivated by current alliances. It should come from a firm and long-standing commitment to customers that manifests in the actions of an agency and its leadership.
Malcolm Friedberg is a twenty-year marketing veteran and former CMO. He is a published author and frequently speaks and writes about marketing automation. He can be contacted at
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Eloqua Parts Ways With Pedowitz Group Over IP Exclusivity Debate
The competitive slugfest among marketing automation vendors is spilling over into the services space, as Eloqua recently parted ways with demand generation agency The Pedowitz Group after a long history between the two companies.
Eloqua cited reseller exclusivity as the reason for the divorce. “It's essential to note that reseller exclusivity is not a policy; it's a priority,” said Joe Chernov, Director of Content Marketing, Eloqua. “It's higher priority with regard to resellers in the demand generation space than it is for our global systems integrator partners, of course.” Chernov said all of Eloqua’s resellers are aware of the company’s committed priority of exclusivity.
“We believe that exclusivity is in the best interest of the customer, because there is no room for opacity in the vendor selection process,” he said. “For the most part, resellers have pre-committed to a vendor before sitting down with a prospect, so to that end, this notion of vendor neutrality doesn't always hold up in the real world.”
In The Pedowitz Group’s press release, CEO Jeff Pedowitz emphasized the disconnect between the two companies’ business models. "The Pedowitz Group is 100% focused on the customer," he said. "Eloqua is focused on ensuring that all channel partners sell their products and services exclusively. We insist on retaining the freedom to leverage all marketing automation platforms to best serve our customers — not just the offerings of one vendor.”
Pedowitz told DemandGen Report that the agency believes in a “greater good” philosophy about expanding and fueling the growth of the automation market. “We believe that intellectual property is developed and shared around customers, partners, vendors, analysts, community at large,” he said. “The space is still young and growing. Customers are best served by having a collective knowledge across a wide variety of technologies and know-how. That’s how we help them be successful.”
Eloqua’s SVP of Business Development, Robert Brewster, took to Eloqua’s blog last Friday to comment on the company’s concern for the sharing of its intellectual property.
“Over the last year, TPG undertook a strategy to be an agency that represents multiple competing brands in our space. This approach is inconsistent with our vision for Eloqua’s channel because we are concerned about sharing our intellectual property (IP) with any company that works closely with our competitors. When you get right down to it, Eloqua is an IP company,” Brewster wrote. “”What differentiates us is not only the technology we supply to clients, but also our vertical knowledge, best practices acumen, and our insights into the demands on marketing which change as one moves from the SMB sector up through the enterprise. Reseller exclusivity allows us to share this IP — as well as our technology roadmap — with partners, confident that the knowledge transfer will benefit only Eloqua users. If our partners know our most important ideas, they can better serve our customers. We did not want to stop sharing those ideas.”
TPG has worked with Eloqua over the past three years, and at last year’s Eloqua Partner Summit, TPG was recognized as Eloqua's top revenue provider and ranked highest in customer service among the company's 40+ partners. Pedowitz actually served as VP of Client Services for Eloqua during its formative years.
Though TPG will no longer serve as a distribution partner for Eloqua, Pedowitz said they will continue to actively support over 350 Eloqua customers, providing full support services. Moving forward, the firm will continue working with its other leading marketing automation partners, which include Marketo and Genius.
Marketo also chimed in on the debate on its blog. CEO Phil Fernandez wrote that he found the “’IP company’ rationale to be somewhat odd. Software companies have a long history of partnering closely with integrators and service providers large and small, and the vast majority of successful partnerships of this sort are non-exclusive.”
