it_user585 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Operations at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
The metrics and reports are what marketing people want

What is most valuable?

amazing interface, simple to integrate with SFDC, Love the metrics and analytics- that part completely blows away the other vendors including eloqua. They understand how marketing needs to deliver business data.

What needs improvement?

They should share best practice implementation- because there's so much variation in how you can set it up- you can do it wrong. So setting it up right the first time would be ideal. This solution also doesn't scale for the large enterprise- a huge downside for them.

What other advice do I have?

This is the best marketing automation solution out there, for the ease of use, the amazing metrics, the integration to SFDC, and the price.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user600 - PeerSpot reviewer
CSO at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Marketing Automation that lives in Sales force

Valuable Features:

Marketo gives me the toolset necessary to create automated drip email campaigns to my customers and prospects. HUGE ROI! Great customer service and still (relatively) nimble dev team always willing to help, even in special, or "one-off" scenarios.

Room for Improvement:

UI is a little dated. Pricing. It is NOT cheap, given the functionality of the product. Feels like I could be paying less. Still the results I get from it more than justify the price. Could also do with some better WYSWIG editors for landing page configuration. I also wish that they provided more testing capability and other metrics, like open time, in addition to the metrics they are currently providing. If you're in B2B sales, and are using Salesforce, you NEED Marketo! They provide a comprehensive toolset, that when configured properly, widens the sales funnel in its entirety. You can cut back on SDRs and improve the productivity of each one, which is perhaps another reason of why they charge what they charge. I would highly recommend that if you are considering a Marketo deployment (or similar), you go through the steps necessary to make sure the system is well implemented. Spend time planning out your workflow prior to the implementation. Lead scoring, in conjunction with marketing automation, make for POWERFUL TOOLS. Marketo is no exception, but we made the mistake of doing a partial implementation in the first go round, and it was not until I saw another company's deployment that I realized how much we were leaving on the table.

Other Advice:

Use case that would be extremely relevant for a Marketo Deployment: Interested parties submit information requests. They are stored into Marketo, based on what actions they take (how long they spent on the site, looked at these white papers, etc). They will then get follow-on emails to help qualify the opportunity. Once they respond, and certain criteria is met, the system will pass the lead off to a Sales rep, significantly cutting down on higher touch "pre-qualified" communication.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Marketo
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Marketo. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Marketing at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Extensive integration w/ 3rd party tools makes Marketo really stand out.

Valuable Features:

Marketo has a great UI that's both easy to use and navigate.Set-up took a while but Marketo support offers extensive training for new users, both on-demand videos and a 4-day live training session online.I adopted Marketo after using Pardot for lead management and email automation and was very pleased with how easy it was to integrate 3rd party tools. The extensive integration with GoToWebinar and SFDC saved me tons of time following online events.Additionally, the Marketo Community offers extensive information as well as the ability to suggest and vote for new features. If I couldn't find my answer in the Community, the support team was always very helpful.

Room for Improvement:

The design studio offers limited out-of-the-box features and we had to work with a developer to create new landing pages etc.Changing a campaign in progress (i.e. changing the wait period between emails) is unnecessarily complicated. We would have to create a new, nearly identical campaign, pull all leads out the initial campaign and move them to the new one just to change a wait step!The support team in Ireland is very helpful and always goes above and beyond. I wish I could say the same of the US based support team - when I spoke with them, it felt like the rep was reading a script and not listening to my question at all.

Other Advice:

Overall - I am very pleased with Marketo for email automation and lead management. I recommend it as a tool but don't disregard the initial training they offer to new users. Not all features are intuitive and training sessions point you in the right direction.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Digital Transformation specialist at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Useful features, drives sales, gives qualified leads, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The smart campaign looks quite interesting and useful."
  • "Adobe, the parent company, needs to improve on getting more information published to allow users to educate themselves on how to use the solution."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for marketing automation such as email marketing and lead aggregation.

What is most valuable?

The smart campaign looks quite interesting and useful. My experience is in sales, though we use Marketo for marketing it has more strength for sales. They have a very good lead force system when somebody views our website or clicks on something, I notice a strong interest. I am able to understand what is the customer is looking for and what is the feature, or function that they care about. This solution gives me a qualified lead, it will drive your sales even faster. This is the beauty I found out about Marketo.

What needs improvement?

Adobe, the parent company, needs to improve on getting more information published to allow users to educate themselves on how to use the solution. You cannot find much information about Marketo on the Adobe website. I had to Google around and go to websites to get familiar with the system. 

For an upcoming release, the UI could improve.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for four months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not had any issues with the stability of the solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution has shown to be scalable. We have several users using the solution on a daily basis.

How are customer service and technical support?

We did not have issues to use the support.

What about the implementation team?

The maintenance of the solution is done internally.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is expensive compared to others.

What other advice do I have?

When it comes to sales I think this solution is more suitable but if you want a solution for marketing I believe Salesforce is better. Look at your companies culture, and into the teams to see which one has more influence, the sales, or the marketing team, then decide from there.

I rate Marketo an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user