According to a 23 January 2015 report by analysts Kashyap Kompella and Theresa Regli from the Real Story Group, “Practically speaking, all of the current marketing clouds have been patched together based on acquisitions of several disparate products and technologies.” They also believe that marketing requirements are so diverse and varied that no one platform can lay any claim to do it all.
IBM Marketing Cloud, according to the Real Story Group analysts, continues to represent a medley of separate products and a not-so-coherent strategic road map. Oracle Corp., they believe, “is a late convert to the whole cloud model, but (not surprisingly) is now a fervent worshipper at the cloud altar”. The analysts also mention the Salesforce Marketing Cloud portfolio that comprises “several pieces, but it is centred on ExactTarget, which handles customer data, segment creation, and targeting. The social side of the aisle consists of Radian6 (listening and analysis), Buddy Media (social publishing) and Social.com (social advertising solution for agencies and brands)”, and Pardot, which is still sold separately for business-to-business, or B2B, marketing automation.
However, the analysts do acknowledge, though, that the Adobe Marketing Cloud “is ahead of its competition on this front, and offers a decent set of marketing tools under one roof”. But they add that companies must also build their teams’ internal capabilities to take advantage of the “new opportunities made possible by today’s data and marketing technologies”.
Read more about Marketing Platforms at realstorygroup.com.