Marketing Automation can lead to successful turnarounds if done right, and this whitepaper aims to highlight how Marketing Automation is subject to multiple points of vulnerability and what needs should be addressed when considering automation.

1. SUCCESSFUL
MARKETING
AUTOMATION
“A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique”
- Michael Porter

2. OVERVIEW
Marketing Automation has gained steady traction in
the priorities of Marketing Decision makers. While
there are numerous facts and figures that extol the
virtues and success of marketing turnarounds
enabled through automation, this whitepaper brings
to fore the importance of automation done right.
Marketing Automation can lead to successful turna-rounds
if done right, and this whitepaper aims to
highlight how Marketing Automation is subject to
multiple points of vulnerability and what needs
should be addressed when considering automation.
Typically, Marketing Automation is the last mile in any
CRM implementation. The term Marketing Automa-tion
itself has been misinterpreted to mean email
automation. And the web is full of references on
Marketing Automation being synonymous with email
automation; by definition this is too narrow and not
correct.
Email automation may be considered as marketing
automation for brands that do single outbound
channel (i.e.) email. True marketing automation is
about multi-channels and silos within single channels
being automated. The term marketing automation as
used in this whitepaper connotes such multi-channel
automation initiatives.
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IT’S HARDLY SURPRIS-ING
TO SEE THAT
MARKETING AUTO-MATION
HAS
BECOME PIVOTAL TO
THE SUCCESS OF
CRM INITIATIVES.
Manticore Technology
Signal
HubSpot HubSpot
Action
Eloqua
Eloqua
Eloqua
Manticore Technology
Silverpop
Manticore Technology
Manticore Technology
Signal
Signal
LeadLife
Unica
Unica
Unica
Unica
HubSpot
HubSpot
HubSpot
Action
Silverpop
Silverpop
TeraData
TeraData

3. Marketing automation complements CRM initiatives
and helps mechanize the logistics for base marketing
campaigns. It’s hardly surprising to see that marketing
automation has become pivotal to the success of
CRM initiatives.
A recent study by Merkle reveals that 63% of CRM
initiatives fail and we believe a major reason for this is
the inability of the brands to successfully automate
the marketing function based on the CRM initiatives.
Marketing Automation done right is a continuous and
overarching process that spans across the various
customer life-stages from consideration to usage and
beyond.
Given below are the key benefits that are expected
from any marketing automation project:
● Ability to increase marketing velocity facilitated
by multi-channel, multi-wave lights out
campaigns
● Ability to segment audience and reach out to
the right audience with right offer at the right
time through the right channel
● Ability to understand customer responses and
build predictive response systems to improve
campaign efficiency
● Ability to enable the marketing resources to
focus on strategic issues rather than concen-trating
on operational challenges
Having embarked on marketing automation, market-ers
face 3 broad phases:
● Identification
● Implementation and Configuration
● Stability and scale
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4. IDENTIFICATION
Regardless of the vertical, marketing goals and
technologies being considered, an extensive due
diligence and identification of the automation
platform is critical. Choice of the marketing platform
should take into consideration an understanding of
the marketing goals to be achieved, understanding of
existing systems in house, the type of data that is
generated and the compatibility between the existing
system and the new systems for a seamless integra-tion
without any disruptions to business continuity.
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03
THE RIGHT PARTNER
BRINGS NOT JUST A
SINGLE PLATFORM
EXPERIENCE BUT HAS
THE COMPETENCE
TO SPAN THE
CATEGORY AND HAS
DEMONSTRATED
COMPETENCE WITH
WORKAROUNDS IN
THE PAST.
While organizations go above
and beyond in identifying
functions and mapping them
to the business goals, but
choices made solely on these
capabilities fail to achieve the
desired outcomes due to
technology mismatches and
the expensive downtimes that
occur due to unforeseen
upgrades and maintenance.

5. Drawing from Xerago’s experience, a major Internet
brand in India had invested significantly in a leading
enterprise level marketing automation suite after
months of due diligence against the best of breed
competing alternates. As part of the roadmap at the
pre-implementation stage, database migration was
identified. Given the business continuity and cost/-
time sync the business case for automation was
under threat owing to the database migration.
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04
partner or vendor. The right partner brings not just a
single platform experience but has the competence
to span the category and has demonstrated compe-tence
with workarounds in the past.
The inability of the Marketing Automation
platform to integrate with the existing
database led to the logjam. Thankfully,
Xerago resolved the issue by tooling at
the configuration level, rather than a
database migration. The key takeout here
for organizations is to acknowledge that a
large enterprise wide marketing automa-tion
project has the potential to spring
surprises, and plan for mitigation of such
surprises by working with the right

6. IMPLEMENTATION AND
CONFIGURATION
The marketing automation implementation process
itself requires a credible partner whose strong
expertise in enterprise class implementations is a key
determinant of project success. Organizations must
choose implementation partners based on criteria
that would justify their presence in projects of such
scale.
A classic case of partner-client mismatch occurred at
a major Asian bank which chose a vendor with little
experience in enterprise wide implementation of
complex automation tools. The result was a failed
implementation with a test server instance of the
marketing automation platform. For an extended
amount of time, the marketing team at the bank was
not able to use the marketing automation platform.
Xerago’s appointment as a marketing partner for the
bank was primarily aimed at getting a Go Live status
on the incurred marketing capex. The CxO team at
the helm of the bank had almost written off the
investment in the marketing automation platform and
sought some recovery. Xerago not just got it to work
but also ensured a stable working model leveraging
all the features of the marketing automation
platform.
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ORGANIZATIONS
MUST CHOOSE IM-PLEMENTATION
PARTNERS BASED ON
CRITERIA THAT
WOULD JUSTIFY
THEIR PRESENCE IN
PROJECTS OF SUCH
SCALE.

7. .................................................
Hence, to make the marketing automation project a
huge success, organizations must look out for the
following while choosing marketing automation
implementation partner.
● MARKETING KNOWLEDGE
Though the implementation partner should be
strong in technology, understanding of market-ing
customer lifecycle is key for marketing
automation success. An implementation
partner with strong marketing background
would be able to foresee various marketing
campaigns that may be planned in the future
and would ensure the marketing automation
software is implemented properly to ensure
everything is configured properly and integra-tion
of various sources is complete to provide
required inputs for future campaigns.
● Analytics Experience
A partner with extensive multi-channel
campaign management experience and strong
expertise in marketing analytics would help
brands successfully continue the momentum
post implementation.
06
● TECHNOLOGY EXPERIENCE
The partner should have a strong knowledge on
tools, process, marketing automation technologies
and project management. A partner with hands
on experience in implementing and managing the
marketing automation for several brands would
be an indispensable guide during implementation.
● Domain Knowledge
The partner should possess a strong knowledge of
the client’s vertical and understand the various
intricacies and dynamics to ensure the investment
on marketing automation is completely leveraged.
A partner who understands the client’s vertical
would be able to understand various sources
where customer data gets generated, which could
well be used for analytics post completing the
implementation.

8. STABILITY AND SCALE
A common misconception among organizations consid-ering
or even in the midst of an automation implementa-tion
is that project success is defined by the go live or
production state timelines. While the time to go live can
be considered as an indicator of software implementa-tion
phase success, it is not indicative of the marketing
automation platform initiative success. It is not enough
that the tools and technologies are in place but an ability
to leverage the automation platform and derive maxi-mum
value is the true hallmark of success.
A marketing automation initiative should be considered a
failure if the intended marketing goals are not achieved.
Typically improving marketing velocity by x% or an ability
to execute closed loop automated campaigns is consid-ered
as end state. Unfortunately most of such failures
are contributed by factors outside actual implementation
of the marketing automation solution.
In our experience spanning over a decade we have seen
that every automation initiative brings about a change. At
times the change is radical and sometimes it is not so
radical, nevertheless change is imminent.
Given below are the key aspects where one witness
change
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A MARKETING
AUTOMATION
INITIATIVE SHOULD
BE CONSIDERED A
FAILURE IF THE
INTENDED MARKET-ING
GOALS ARE
NOT ACHIEVED.
● Process
Right from planning to execution and moni-toring
of marketing activities the process
undergoes change. With the introduction of
the automation platform the workflow,
methodologies and activities need change. It
is probably the best time for organizations to
usher in global best practices and streamline
the marketing process flows.

9. For example, a major Asian telco had successfully
implemented a campaign automation platform to run
multi-channel campaigns. Despite the campaign auto-mation
platform being available, the client was not able
to increase the velocity beyond a point. This was due to
non-standardized campaign processes and ignorance to
best practices. Post Xerago intervention, the client was
able to scale up its marketing velocity by more than 2X.
By re-engineering their processes and introducing best
practices, Xerago helped the Telco major realize the
untapped potential of its campaign automation
platform.
● Roles
As a logical offshoot of process change, the roles
and responsibilities of people within the market-ing
ecosystem undergo a change. Primarily this is
essential to ensure a working automation
platform.
● Chart / Structure
At an organization structure level changes are
imminent as they provide the executive sanction
for stable and continuing automation initiatives.
Every line and staff function within the marketing
ecosystem experiences change that brings about
parity in authority and responsibility which is
essential for the
Best practices on using the marketing automation
solution should be communicated to the end
users of the solution and this important asset
would be possessed by vendors and consultants
who have worked across generations of marketing
automation solutions.
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● Culture
Automation by definition improves the opera-tional
efficiency quotient, and is ongoing and
continuous. Organizations that embrace
marketing automation are culturally oriented
towards a change led improvement culture.
Entities culturally resisting change find it hard
to make marketing automation work, since
poor adoption directly impacts the success or
failure of marketing automation initiatives.

10. CONCLUSION
In conclusion we believe that marketing automation is
not about buying fancy software or tools. It’s an
enterprise wide impacting revenue maximizer which
done right leads to remarkable results. And at each
phase Identification, Implementation and Configura-tion
and Stability and Scale have their own set of
challenges which needs to navigate for organizations
to truly benefit.
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11. ABOUT
XERAGO
Xerago is a Customer Value Maximization company
that helps its customers maximizes the value they
derive from their customers. We help marketers
leverage investments in technology, creative and
existing marketing assets. Xerago touches over 500
Million customers every day with its marketing
interventions.
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