More powerful targeting and segmentation capabilities, robust dashboards and a wizard for building email campaigns are some of the key highlights in the latest version of the Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud.
“Having spent a little time with it, I would have to say they are hitting all segments of their customer base, from the power user to the casual user, with some strong capabilities,” Tom Svec, Solutions Architect at DemandGen International, told Demand Gen Report.
The ability to tap external databases, such as customer and financial records, is an important upgrade for B2B marketers, Svec explained. “The ability to query across multiple objects enables more powerful targeting and segmentation. A customer may have a trial or a subscription that is up for renewal, for example, or perhaps they have purchased some products and not others. This feature enables marketers to target those specific accounts.”
The new suite of dashboards also are attractive for B2B marketers, Svec explained. New revenue dashboards provide campaign velocity, value, reach and ROI metrics to track the impact of marketing on revenue. “I’m glad to see them focusing on reporting and analytics, which are such key drivers for marketers. That is going to make a difference for the clients that we work with who have closed loop reporting implemented.”
Integration with paid advertising and social media channels is also a critical component of this release, observers noted “Most of the big new stuff in the Oracle release is about integrating with paid advertising, including social,” said David M. Raab, Principal, Raab Associates.“It’s an important trend we’re seeing throughout the industry.”
Eloqua also made improvements on campaign governance by allowing a list of approvers who can control if and when a campaign goes live, explained Jon Russo, Founder and CEO of B2B Fusion Group. “Individual campaigns can be customized so they can meet brand or privacy policy guidelines — likely more relevant for countries with strict privacy laws like Germany. No more accidental blasts of sensitive material if someone makes a mistake.”
Svec said that the wizard-based email campaign builder makes it easy to develop one-time campaigns that don’t involve complex campaign workflows. “The ability to put a quick email campaign together is helpful for many marketers, as are the reports that come with them.”
Svec noted that the updated Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud also provides more support for third-party developers. “They have really made an investment in building out the developer’s framework.”
