Product Management Insight

The Experience Cloud ID service consists of many solution integrations which I've written about in the past. The true value of the Experience Cloud ID service come to the fore with the various integrations that exist helping client really realize the true value of their investment in Adobe technology. A relatively newer addition to the Experience Cloud ecosystem is Marketo which was acquired by Adobe a few years ago for its rich cross-channel activation and marketing automation capabilities primarily in the B2B space but Marketo can be leveraged for B2C use cases as well. 

I know that doesn't do justice to how powerful Marketo really is so here's a high-level overview of some of its capabilities especially around marketing automation:

To start off, let's start by understanding what marketing automation is. It is a technology that automates the measurement and orchestration of omnichannel marketing initiatives. It simplifies lead management & nurturing, event marketing, personalization, regular & triggered emails or SMS. I have worked extensively in the automotive vertical in the past and know how crucial it is for automotive companies or any other company to manage their leads throughout the customer journey starting from awareness to purchase. Marketo is the perfect system to do that and if you combine it with the power of the Adobe Experience Cloud, you are truly able to orchestrate and measure the customer journey from start to finish.

In this post, I will walk through the integration of Marketo with other Adobe Experience Cloud solutions focussing more on Audience Manager but the general process is the same for Adobe Analytics and Target. Please note I'm specifically referring to Marketo Engage but will call it Marketo in this post.

Use Cases

Let's start with some common use cases that can be executed with this integration: 

• Cross-device media activation of leads (B2B or B2C data from Marketo activated in Audience Manager leveraging the device graph)
• Event-driven (signups, abandonments etc.) user messaging (in Marketo based on user behavioral data from Analytics)
• Cross-channel and cross-device personalization (via Target and Marketo based on onboarded data, user behavioral data from Analytics leveraging the device graph in Audience Manager)

Prerequisites

Architecture

This is a slightly detailed architecture diagram which shows the bi-directional integration between Marketo and Audience Manager and the general process is the same for Adobe Analytics and Target (currently it's only Marketo -> Target audience sharing). 

• One thing to note in this architecture is that the Marketo to AAM integration is currently manual but the AAM->Marketo integration is automated where AAM audiences are refreshed in real-time with a backfill done every 24 hours. Step #4 is explained in more detailed in Marketo's official documentation.

• Another thing to note is that in Marketo, there will be an option to either "Send to Experience Cloud" (hashed email ids) or "Sync from Experience Cloud Audience" (ECIDs) to send and receive segments respectively. For Target, it's currently a one-way sync from Marketo.

Other Facts

• Any email lead data from Marketo to Audience Manager must be hashed (handled automatically from Marketo if these are captured).
• There is already an integration between AEM and Marketo where Marketo can receive assets from AEM to embed in emails. More information can be found here.
• An integration between Ad Cloud, Real-Time CDP and Marketo is also possible. I have not worked with it directly but will share once I learn more.
• This integration is not PHI compliant but can be used for any other customer not mandating PHI compliance.