Summary: LoopFuse has extended its system to capture more Web traffic data, which lays the foundation for future analytics.
LoopFuse recently released its latest enhancements, which it somewhat grandiosely labels as making it “the First and Only Marketing Automation Solution with Inbound Marketing”. In fact, as the subhead to their press release states, what they’ve really done is somewhat more modest: add “real-time Web traffic intelligence” by providing features to capture search terms, referring sites and page views, and link these to individual visitors.
The new release also adds real-time social media monitoring (directly for Twitter and Facebook, and through Collecta for blogs, YouTube and other sources).
These features are certainly useful. But my idea of "inbound marketing" is more along the lines of HubSpot, which provides search engine optimization, paid search campaign management, social media monitoring and posting, blogging, and Web content management. Although LoopFuse might eventually add those functions, it hasn't yet and isn’t necessarily moving in that direction.
Accepting their labels for the moment, let’s look at what LoopFuse has added:
- “content marketing” is a set of reports that tracks Web traffic related to different assets. Users get a list of the assets ranked by number of page views. They can then drill into each item to see a graph of traffic over time and to see details such as the number of visitors, views per visitor, and referring domains and pages. Because the views are tied to individual visitors, users can also click on the referring domain to see what other pages people from that domain visited. This is essentially the same information as provided by...
- “inbound marketing”, which shows visitor sources by category (direct links, paid search ads, organic search) and details within each category (specific messages, ads or keywords). As just noted, users can drill down to see which Web pages were viewed by visitors from each source.
- “social monitoring” provides real-time monitoring of user-selected terms on the various social Web sites. Unlike the other Web traffic data, this information isn’t stored within the LoopFuse database and isn't tied to specific individuals. LoopFuse plans to provide some trending reports in the future. Of course, the real trick would be linking social media comments to lead profiles.
All of these are valuable reports. Having them within a single system is particularly helpful for the small businesses targeted by LoopFuse, where all channels are likely to be handled by a small department and possibly the same individual. Otherwise, the users would need switch among several systems to do their job. In larger firms, where different people would be responsible for different channels, each channel can be managed by a separate system without requiring anyone to use multiple products.
Saving effort is nice, but the real value of a unified marketing database is being able to coordinate marketing messages and relate all marketing contacts to sales results. LoopFuse hasn’t publicly revealed its approach to marketing performance measurement but definitely has something in the works. I’m particularly hoping they'll use the detailed behavior information to relate outcomes to specific marketing messages, rather than just looking at movement through purchase stages. Although stage data by itself can project future revenues, it must be tied to specific marketing programs to measure those programs’ value.
In case you’re wondering, LoopFuse is storing the new Web traffic data in denormalized tables that are separate from the operational marketing database. This enables much quicker response to ad hoc queries and, should eventually support the time-based views needed for trends and stage analytics.
For those of you keeping score at home, LoopFuse’s Roy Russo also told me that the company stores each client’s data in a separate database instance. Russo said this has proven more scalable and cheaper than the textbook Software-as-a-Service approach of commingling several clients’ data in a single instance. So far as I know, most (but not all) marketing automation vendors use same approach as LoopFuse.
Russo also said that all data in the system is accessible via standard API calls, something that’s also not always possible with competitive products. In fact, Russo said LoopFuse’s entire interface is built on using the published API, which means that technically competent clients could build alternative interfaces to embed LoopFuse data and functions within other systems. If nothing else, this gets them Geek Style Points.
Of course, no discussion of LoopFuse is complete without mentioning its freemium offer, launched last June amid considerable controversy. The company says that nearly 1,000 accounts have now signed up for this, which is impressive by any standard. No news yet on how many have converted to paid.
One side effect that I hadn't anticipated – although LoopFuse apparently did – is that agencies and consultants use the freemium to service new clients, who convert to paid when their volumes grow. This gives LoopFuse an edge in the competition for channel partners. The value of that edge is a bit uncertain, though, since an increasing number of service firms – including Pedowitz Group, Annuitas and LeftBrain Marketing – are now working with multiple marketing automation vendors.
Showing posts with label loopfuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loopfuse. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
LoopFuse Offers Free Marketing Automation System: Another Step Towards Industry Consolidation
Summary: LoopFuse has launched a free entry-level version of its marketing automation system. It's one example of how vendors are now competing to attract new users. Only the winners will survive industry consolidation, which may be here sooner than you think.
LoopFuse today promised to “transform” the marketing automation industry by offering a free version of its system. Although LoopFuse and others already provide free trials, this is indeed different: while most free trials expire after 30 days and often have limited functionality, LoopFuse’s FreeView can be used for as long as you like and provides pretty much the same features as the paid version of the system. The critical constraint is that volume is limited to 2,500 prospect names, 5,000 emails and 100,000 page views per month. In practice, this means that only very small companies will actually be able to use the free system as their primary long-term marketing system.
LoopFuse knows that, of course. When they briefed me last week, they said the main purpose of the new system is really to entice trial among companies just starting with marketing automation. They’ll make their money when users see the value they gain and pay for higher volumes and add-on features.
Personally, I’d argue that the really significant news out of LoopFuse is their newly tiered pricing structure. The entry point of $350 per month (for up to 10,000 prospects with unlimited emails and page views) is much lower than the $1,000 to $2,000 starting price of most full-function marketing automation systems. Prices at higher volumes are also much lower than competitors. This will put substantial pricing pressure on vendors who, in many cases, are already struggling to reach sustainable margins.
Here’s where the free system comes back into play. To make a free product viable, LoopFuse needed to engineer as much cost as possible out of the entire client life cycle. This means it had to be possible for clients to purchase and configure the system, learn how to use it and resolve support issues with next to no involvement by LoopFuse staff. Once this was accomplished, LoopFuse was in a position to charge lower fees to its paying clients as well. Other vendors – notably Pardot – have followed a similar cost-removal strategy. But LoopFuse may have been more focused than anyone else.
This doesn’t mean that LoopFuse’s success is guaranteed. Other vendors have similar price points for the small business market (see my list of demand generation vendors) although I suspect their internal costs are higher.
More important, price is just one factor in picking a system. Features, ease of use, and support from the vendor and business partners are usually (and rightly) the main considerations. The free product should increase the number of companies that try LoopFuse first, which will gain it paying customers down the road. But I think that most buyers will recognize that they are likely to stay with their first system and conduct a careful evaluation before they start.
For evidence that a free entry-level product does not automatically drive out higher priced systems, consider the hosted CRM market. Salesforce.com easily dominates despite the presence of surprisingly capable free products like ZohoCRM and FreeCRM .
Whatever the result for LoopFuse, the new offering is part of a larger pattern within the industry. Marketing automation (more precisely, B2B marketing automation) has now passed beyond the pioneer stage where fundamentally different approaches compete for acceptance. At this point, we all pretty much know what a marketing automation system does and, truth be told, the major systems are functionally quite similar.
Competition now shifts from building a technically better system to surviving the inevitable industry consolidation. This requires finding ways to attract masses of new customers as they enter the market.
LoopFuse’s price-driven approach is one such strategy. But many vendors have recently taken others:
- Eloqua, Silverpop, True Influence and at least one other vendor I can’t name are planning new interfaces that they believe will substantially improve ease of use, which they see as the critical barrier blocking many potential buyers. I’m skeptical that truly radical improvements are possible but am certainly eager to see what they come up with.
- LeadLife has embedded best practice hints throughout its system, another way to support adoption by users who lack marketing automation knowledge.
- Infusionsoft has repositioned itself as “email 2.0” rather than marketing automation. They believe this makes it easier for their target customers (under 25 employees) to see them as the next logical step beyond standard email.
- Genius.com added a new Demand Generation edition that falls between its basic Email Marketing and full-blown Marketing Automation products. This is another way of easing the transition from basic email marketing.
- LeadForce1 launched a solution that uses advanced text analysis to measure user intent, and thus provide much better guidance to salespeople than conventional behavioral analysis. Although their approach is based on superior technology, it's still a way to attract customers by offering radically greater value than competitors.
- Marketo now calls itself a “the revenue cycle management company”, giving equal public weight to lead management, sales insight and analytics. They still haven’t briefed me on this or their features to support large enterprises, but they seem to be seeking larger, more sophisticated clients who will presumably provide higher profit margins. Given how many other vendors are targeting small businesses, this certainly makes sense. But Marketo will also find itself competing with established marketing automation vendors like Aprimo, Neolane and Unica. who are entering this market from a different direction. It will also be competing with Eloqua, Silverpop and, perhaps most dangerously, the Market2Lead technology recently purchased by Oracle.
The Market2Lead-Oracle deal raises the other major question facing marketing automation vendors: what role CRM vendors will play? In addition to Oracle, CDC Software (owner of Pivotal CRM and MarketFirst) recently invested in Marketbright.
Of course, the really big question is whether Salesforce.com will make a similar move. There have been off-and-on rumors along those lines for months, followed by stout (if not necessarily credible) denial from Salesforce.com that it has any interest in that direction. I’ve tended to take them at their word, but Oracle and Salesforce.com are blood rivals, so Oracle’s move could easily prompt a Salesforce.com reaction.
Oddly enough, no seems to consider whether Microsoft will enter the game. That's surely a possibility, and would move towards a certainty if its two big on-demand CRM rivals both added marketing automation products. We might even see Google and Intuit participate: both already sell to small business marketers.
My fundamental conclusion is that the B2B marketing automation industry is about to enter the long-predicted stage of vendor consolidation, and that this will move quite quickly. The survivors will serve particular market segments: primarily small vs. large businesses, plus possibly some vertical industry specialization. The window for new entrants is rapidly closing, so any new player will need a major differentiator that creates a clear advantage and distinct identity.
LoopFuse today promised to “transform” the marketing automation industry by offering a free version of its system. Although LoopFuse and others already provide free trials, this is indeed different: while most free trials expire after 30 days and often have limited functionality, LoopFuse’s FreeView can be used for as long as you like and provides pretty much the same features as the paid version of the system. The critical constraint is that volume is limited to 2,500 prospect names, 5,000 emails and 100,000 page views per month. In practice, this means that only very small companies will actually be able to use the free system as their primary long-term marketing system.
LoopFuse knows that, of course. When they briefed me last week, they said the main purpose of the new system is really to entice trial among companies just starting with marketing automation. They’ll make their money when users see the value they gain and pay for higher volumes and add-on features.
Personally, I’d argue that the really significant news out of LoopFuse is their newly tiered pricing structure. The entry point of $350 per month (for up to 10,000 prospects with unlimited emails and page views) is much lower than the $1,000 to $2,000 starting price of most full-function marketing automation systems. Prices at higher volumes are also much lower than competitors. This will put substantial pricing pressure on vendors who, in many cases, are already struggling to reach sustainable margins.
Here’s where the free system comes back into play. To make a free product viable, LoopFuse needed to engineer as much cost as possible out of the entire client life cycle. This means it had to be possible for clients to purchase and configure the system, learn how to use it and resolve support issues with next to no involvement by LoopFuse staff. Once this was accomplished, LoopFuse was in a position to charge lower fees to its paying clients as well. Other vendors – notably Pardot – have followed a similar cost-removal strategy. But LoopFuse may have been more focused than anyone else.
This doesn’t mean that LoopFuse’s success is guaranteed. Other vendors have similar price points for the small business market (see my list of demand generation vendors) although I suspect their internal costs are higher.
More important, price is just one factor in picking a system. Features, ease of use, and support from the vendor and business partners are usually (and rightly) the main considerations. The free product should increase the number of companies that try LoopFuse first, which will gain it paying customers down the road. But I think that most buyers will recognize that they are likely to stay with their first system and conduct a careful evaluation before they start.
For evidence that a free entry-level product does not automatically drive out higher priced systems, consider the hosted CRM market. Salesforce.com easily dominates despite the presence of surprisingly capable free products like ZohoCRM and FreeCRM .
Whatever the result for LoopFuse, the new offering is part of a larger pattern within the industry. Marketing automation (more precisely, B2B marketing automation) has now passed beyond the pioneer stage where fundamentally different approaches compete for acceptance. At this point, we all pretty much know what a marketing automation system does and, truth be told, the major systems are functionally quite similar.
Competition now shifts from building a technically better system to surviving the inevitable industry consolidation. This requires finding ways to attract masses of new customers as they enter the market.
LoopFuse’s price-driven approach is one such strategy. But many vendors have recently taken others:
- Eloqua, Silverpop, True Influence and at least one other vendor I can’t name are planning new interfaces that they believe will substantially improve ease of use, which they see as the critical barrier blocking many potential buyers. I’m skeptical that truly radical improvements are possible but am certainly eager to see what they come up with.
- LeadLife has embedded best practice hints throughout its system, another way to support adoption by users who lack marketing automation knowledge.
- Infusionsoft has repositioned itself as “email 2.0” rather than marketing automation. They believe this makes it easier for their target customers (under 25 employees) to see them as the next logical step beyond standard email.
- Genius.com added a new Demand Generation edition that falls between its basic Email Marketing and full-blown Marketing Automation products. This is another way of easing the transition from basic email marketing.
- LeadForce1 launched a solution that uses advanced text analysis to measure user intent, and thus provide much better guidance to salespeople than conventional behavioral analysis. Although their approach is based on superior technology, it's still a way to attract customers by offering radically greater value than competitors.
- Marketo now calls itself a “the revenue cycle management company”, giving equal public weight to lead management, sales insight and analytics. They still haven’t briefed me on this or their features to support large enterprises, but they seem to be seeking larger, more sophisticated clients who will presumably provide higher profit margins. Given how many other vendors are targeting small businesses, this certainly makes sense. But Marketo will also find itself competing with established marketing automation vendors like Aprimo, Neolane and Unica. who are entering this market from a different direction. It will also be competing with Eloqua, Silverpop and, perhaps most dangerously, the Market2Lead technology recently purchased by Oracle.
The Market2Lead-Oracle deal raises the other major question facing marketing automation vendors: what role CRM vendors will play? In addition to Oracle, CDC Software (owner of Pivotal CRM and MarketFirst) recently invested in Marketbright.
Of course, the really big question is whether Salesforce.com will make a similar move. There have been off-and-on rumors along those lines for months, followed by stout (if not necessarily credible) denial from Salesforce.com that it has any interest in that direction. I’ve tended to take them at their word, but Oracle and Salesforce.com are blood rivals, so Oracle’s move could easily prompt a Salesforce.com reaction.
Oddly enough, no seems to consider whether Microsoft will enter the game. That's surely a possibility, and would move towards a certainty if its two big on-demand CRM rivals both added marketing automation products. We might even see Google and Intuit participate: both already sell to small business marketers.
My fundamental conclusion is that the B2B marketing automation industry is about to enter the long-predicted stage of vendor consolidation, and that this will move quite quickly. The survivors will serve particular market segments: primarily small vs. large businesses, plus possibly some vertical industry specialization. The window for new entrants is rapidly closing, so any new player will need a major differentiator that creates a clear advantage and distinct identity.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
LoopFuse Offers No-Frills Demand Generation
Summary: LoopFuse offers attractive but limited demand generation functions at an easy-to-swallow price.
It’s been nearly a year since I took my first close look at the LoopFuse OneView demand generation system. I didn't write about them because the vendor was planning some major improvements and it made more sense to publish a review after these in place. We reconnected in December and the product is now ready for its close up.
The resulting picture is much prettier than before because the main changes in LoopFuse have been improvements in the user interface. It is now an attractive system with wizards to drive major functions and extensive in-line help messages to clarify next steps. The help functions are built with Helpstream customer support technology, which also provides a knowledge base and online community.
The process to set up multi-step campaigns (which the vendor calls “lead flows”) is now quite straightforward. Users first create the lead flow and link it to recipient and suppression lists that will determine who enters the flow. They then define the flow itself by following prompts to add nodes for activities, conditional decisions, waiting periods and retrial periods. (A retrial resembled a waiting period except that the system keeps retesting the previous condition. For example, the retrial node might check every hour to see whether someone has responded to a previous email. Come to think of it, it would probably make more sense to build the retesting into the conditional node itself.)
Esthetics aside, however, the actual capabilities of the lead flows are still somewhat limited. The only direct action available in an activity node is to send an email; all other options involve updates to the CRM system such as adding a lead, changing data, or assigning an activity. This leaves out other tasks that I consider basic, such as updating data within the LoopFuse database, removing the lead from the flow, or adding the lead to a list. (In the case of data changes, the omission is intentional: Loopfuse argues that such changes should be made in the CRM system and replicated into Loopfuse).
The conditional nodes make up some of the deficit. For example, failure to meet the node condition can remove the lead from the flow. (An activity to remove leads from a different flow will be available around next April.) The conditional nodes can check for several specific conditions, such as email responses, Web page visits, CRM lead status, data values and lead scores. These probably serve most purposes, but some users may be frustrated by the inability to combine several conditions within a single node or to specify more than two branches as outcomes.
Leads enter LoopFuse lead flows when they join the associated recipient list. Lists can include leads with specified data values on the lead record, that originate from a particular Web site or form, or that visited a particular Web page. Several conditions can be combined and lists can be static or regularly updated. But lists can't be selected based on lead scores, email response or activity levels. Again, processes that depended on these would need to incorporate them through conditional nodes in the lead flows.
Lead scores themselves can be based on data values in the lead record, email response or Web pages visited. However, the system cannot base scores on activity patterns such as "three Web site visits in the past week". The system stores one score per lead. Scores are recalculated every hour, which does not support immediate reaction to score-changing events.
LoopFuse provides a graphic email designer that can generate both text and HTML versions. Emails can be personalized with data from the lead record, including the assigned salesperson if available. But data from account or opportunity tables is not available, even though it’s imported from CRM. Nor does LoopFuse support any type of A/B testing, either in the email definition or its lead flows. Each email is tied directly to just one email “campaign”, although the email campaigns themselves can be reused in multiple lead flows.
Unlike most demand generation vendors, LoopFuse does not host landing pages or Web forms for its clients. Instead, the vendor provides a wizard that reads existing, externally hosted forms and generates modified versions that will post data into the LoopFuse database. Another wizard helps users to generate HTML forms from scratch. Either way, the new forms must be copied into pages hosted outside of LoopFuse.
LoopFuse will also provide tags that can be placed on other pages on a client’s Web site to track and report on Web page visits. It lets it generate some page-oriented Web analytics reports similar to Google Analytics.
Reporting is another area that LoopFuse has significantly strengthened in the past year. In addition to Web analytics, it provides detailed reports on Web site visitors, including reports that link anonymous visitors to their company through their IP address. The system also tracks lead movement through sales funnel based on a combination of its own data and information imported from CRM. Other reports show results from email campaigns and lead capture forms.
LoopFuse also gives salespeople a report showing recent activities by their assigned leads, allowing them to drill into each lead for details. A “company dashboard” report lets both sales people and marketers see all visitors from a particular company, again based on IP address. The report shows both known and anonymous visitors and lets users connect directly with external databases including Hoovers, Jigsaw and Zoominfo to look up additional information. LoopFuse can also alert salespeople by email when high-priority accounts perform specified activities captured in the system.
LoopFuse does a particularly good job with CRM integration. Because its sales process depends heavily on free trials, the company has developed a self-service wizard that guides users through the process of connecting to Salesforce.com, including an automated check for whether LoopFuse has been granted access permissions in the client’s Salesforce.com installation. (Apparently this is a very common omission.) Users have field-by-field control over how data conflicts between the systems are resolved. In addition to Salesforce.com, the vendor has a standard integration for SugarCRM.
Pricing in LoopFuse is based on email and Web page volume, with no limit on the number of names in the system database. This is unusual but not unique: Pardot and LeadLife take a similar approach. (See my recent list of demand generation vendors for an overview of competitive pricing.) Rates are quite aggressive: $750 per month for 50,000 emails and page views combined, or $1,250 per month for a much more generous 250,000 total.
LoopFuse was founded in 2007 although it was largely in stealth mode through early 2009. The company currently has more than 50 paid clients.
It’s been nearly a year since I took my first close look at the LoopFuse OneView demand generation system. I didn't write about them because the vendor was planning some major improvements and it made more sense to publish a review after these in place. We reconnected in December and the product is now ready for its close up.
The resulting picture is much prettier than before because the main changes in LoopFuse have been improvements in the user interface. It is now an attractive system with wizards to drive major functions and extensive in-line help messages to clarify next steps. The help functions are built with Helpstream customer support technology, which also provides a knowledge base and online community.
The process to set up multi-step campaigns (which the vendor calls “lead flows”) is now quite straightforward. Users first create the lead flow and link it to recipient and suppression lists that will determine who enters the flow. They then define the flow itself by following prompts to add nodes for activities, conditional decisions, waiting periods and retrial periods. (A retrial resembled a waiting period except that the system keeps retesting the previous condition. For example, the retrial node might check every hour to see whether someone has responded to a previous email. Come to think of it, it would probably make more sense to build the retesting into the conditional node itself.)
Esthetics aside, however, the actual capabilities of the lead flows are still somewhat limited. The only direct action available in an activity node is to send an email; all other options involve updates to the CRM system such as adding a lead, changing data, or assigning an activity. This leaves out other tasks that I consider basic, such as updating data within the LoopFuse database, removing the lead from the flow, or adding the lead to a list. (In the case of data changes, the omission is intentional: Loopfuse argues that such changes should be made in the CRM system and replicated into Loopfuse).
The conditional nodes make up some of the deficit. For example, failure to meet the node condition can remove the lead from the flow. (An activity to remove leads from a different flow will be available around next April.) The conditional nodes can check for several specific conditions, such as email responses, Web page visits, CRM lead status, data values and lead scores. These probably serve most purposes, but some users may be frustrated by the inability to combine several conditions within a single node or to specify more than two branches as outcomes.
Leads enter LoopFuse lead flows when they join the associated recipient list. Lists can include leads with specified data values on the lead record, that originate from a particular Web site or form, or that visited a particular Web page. Several conditions can be combined and lists can be static or regularly updated. But lists can't be selected based on lead scores, email response or activity levels. Again, processes that depended on these would need to incorporate them through conditional nodes in the lead flows.
Lead scores themselves can be based on data values in the lead record, email response or Web pages visited. However, the system cannot base scores on activity patterns such as "three Web site visits in the past week". The system stores one score per lead. Scores are recalculated every hour, which does not support immediate reaction to score-changing events.
LoopFuse provides a graphic email designer that can generate both text and HTML versions. Emails can be personalized with data from the lead record, including the assigned salesperson if available. But data from account or opportunity tables is not available, even though it’s imported from CRM. Nor does LoopFuse support any type of A/B testing, either in the email definition or its lead flows. Each email is tied directly to just one email “campaign”, although the email campaigns themselves can be reused in multiple lead flows.
Unlike most demand generation vendors, LoopFuse does not host landing pages or Web forms for its clients. Instead, the vendor provides a wizard that reads existing, externally hosted forms and generates modified versions that will post data into the LoopFuse database. Another wizard helps users to generate HTML forms from scratch. Either way, the new forms must be copied into pages hosted outside of LoopFuse.
LoopFuse will also provide tags that can be placed on other pages on a client’s Web site to track and report on Web page visits. It lets it generate some page-oriented Web analytics reports similar to Google Analytics.
Reporting is another area that LoopFuse has significantly strengthened in the past year. In addition to Web analytics, it provides detailed reports on Web site visitors, including reports that link anonymous visitors to their company through their IP address. The system also tracks lead movement through sales funnel based on a combination of its own data and information imported from CRM. Other reports show results from email campaigns and lead capture forms.
LoopFuse also gives salespeople a report showing recent activities by their assigned leads, allowing them to drill into each lead for details. A “company dashboard” report lets both sales people and marketers see all visitors from a particular company, again based on IP address. The report shows both known and anonymous visitors and lets users connect directly with external databases including Hoovers, Jigsaw and Zoominfo to look up additional information. LoopFuse can also alert salespeople by email when high-priority accounts perform specified activities captured in the system.
LoopFuse does a particularly good job with CRM integration. Because its sales process depends heavily on free trials, the company has developed a self-service wizard that guides users through the process of connecting to Salesforce.com, including an automated check for whether LoopFuse has been granted access permissions in the client’s Salesforce.com installation. (Apparently this is a very common omission.) Users have field-by-field control over how data conflicts between the systems are resolved. In addition to Salesforce.com, the vendor has a standard integration for SugarCRM.
Pricing in LoopFuse is based on email and Web page volume, with no limit on the number of names in the system database. This is unusual but not unique: Pardot and LeadLife take a similar approach. (See my recent list of demand generation vendors for an overview of competitive pricing.) Rates are quite aggressive: $750 per month for 50,000 emails and page views combined, or $1,250 per month for a much more generous 250,000 total.
LoopFuse was founded in 2007 although it was largely in stealth mode through early 2009. The company currently has more than 50 paid clients.
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