Best Marketing Automation Features of Marketo

With the launch of marketing automation software, marketers and organizations are turning more powerful with new tools and methods to boost their campaign success. One of the most widely banked upon and used automation platform is Marketo.

Its LaunchPoint ecosystem consisting of 550 software solution provider partners makes it the most compatible with all major software, platforms and digital marketing tools.

Its periodic release notes introduced plethora of new features to improve user experience and clients’ campaigns, extend support for newer browsers, channels and other tools and software related to digital marketing activities – but, are marketers using all its features and making the most of the marketing automation platform?

Here are 4 Marketo features you need to start using today to augment your marketing campaign success:

1. A/B testing

Email A/B testing is one of the most prominent features Marketo that brings users with the capability to do A/B test various areas of marketing campaigns. Marketo allows testing email-from and to address, subject lines, timing and frequency of email campaigns, content of the email copy, images used in the mail, calls to action (CTA), etc. and also various parts of the landing pages and form assets associated to the email campaigns.

These tests help measure effectiveness of different elements of email campaigns and see what works and what needs alteration to maximize open rates and conversions. Thus, these A/B tests help drive optimal results and increase success rates. Another advantage of A/B tests of Marketo is the ability to schedule, segment and send mass email messages at the right time to all intended leads across different time zones.

2. Engagement Programs

Marketo’s Engagement Program is another power arm most marketers use to enhance engagement and listening. Using the Engagement Engine of Marketo, customers can get to listen, analyze and optimize emails when their audience is not engaging enough with their email messages.

Marketo allows tweaking the schedule when the targeted audience is online and see what they are reading the most and nurture them with the right content and offers they want to make the engagement thrive.

With numerous leads segmented for diverse engagement programs and campaigns that are scheduled for as long as one year or even more, Marketo allows marketers to schedule and segment the right leads and buyers to the right campaigns, with relevant content and information they seek, and ensures delivery at the right day and time.

If you are looking for an automated system to avoid a single misstep in your multiple engagement programs running simultaneously, then Marketo Engagement Engine is what you need.

3. Lead Generation

Marketo offers a plethora of lead generation functionalities including program management, event marketing, cloning, program import and export. Program management lets you manage campaigns and programs of diverse types including video campaigns, social media campaigns, email campaigns, landing page campaigns, events [such as webinars and auctions] and any online ads by optimizing assets related to those efforts.

Marketers can optimize emails, landing pages, lists and campaigns, as well as track and assess results and costs. The events let you manage invitations, registration, attendees, follow-ups, reminders and other assets.  It also offers analytics to track attendees and registration.

Clone helps marketers with cloning multiple existing programs to help save valuable resources and time with easily editable program parameters and update assets involved in those programs. Additionally, program import and export brings a collection of programs which can be exchanged within multiple users.

4. Lead Management

Marketo eases the lead managing process with a wide range of lead management functionalities which include marketing lead database (that records all important assets, contacts, data on website visits, updates, history, email clicks and many more), segmentation (to micro-segment campaigns with leads and contacts and filter as per different attributes), lead nurturing campaigns (that schedules drip marketing campaigns to send messages with the right content at the right time), lead scoring and grading brings ability to score and qualify leads based on preset criteria and factors to assess the lead’s interactions and interests), automated sales alerts (which bring the ability to create and set sales alerts on tasks to emails and RSS.), lead lifecycle (this allows integrating CRM platforms with the leads, updates lead status and scores, lead routing and rules), sales intelligence (tracks lead’s behavior, their interests, where they click and they focus on to help sales representatives analyze their prospects.) and revenue cycle modelling (to track how leads engage in different revenue cycles, from one stage to another).

Social Marketing is another powerful feature of Marketo which brings functionalities such as social listening and tracking tools, social sharing and campaigning, social profiling, social engagement and promotions, and social analytics. Now, it’s your turn to share which Marketo features you love the most – drop your thoughts in the comment section below.