Dive Brief:
- Salesforce addressed concerns about analytics and integration in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud by announcing two updates: one provides marketers with access to CRM data, and the second allows marketers to manage online ads across over 100 networks.
- The move puts Salesforce’s offering for marketers more in line with the reality of a data-driven, customer-centric marketing industry.
- A Forrester Research report from last year pointed out analytics and integration with Salesforce’s signature CRM data was a shortcoming with its marketing offering.
Dive Insight:
Salesforce.com has taken another step toward moving beyond being best known as a CRM SaaS provider and instead covering the entire spectrum of customer relationship management after announcing an update to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The new functionality includes an update to “Journey Builder,” a marketing dashboard that provides marketers with access to CRM data from on- and offline sources. Another update to Journey Builder allows marketers to manage digital advertisements on more than 100 networks.
In a Fortune article, Eric Stahl, senior vice president of product marketing of Salesforce's marketing business division, said, “We can use the CRM data to take the campaign down to an audience of one.”
Customer data points now available to marketers include purchase history and recent customer service interactions. This move to increase marketers’ visibility into the entire customer lifecycle recognizes and addresses the current data-driven marketing industry, and that marketers now work in a customer-centric environment. It also addresses a concern that analytics and integration was a shortcoming with Salesforce’s marketing offering expressed in a Forrester Research report from late last year.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud was previously known as ExactTarget before being acquired by Salesforce.com in 2013 for $2.5 billion.