CRM - February 2008 - (Page 44)

No More Bumps for BlueRoads Marketo smooths out pay-per-click campaigns that were costing more (and producing less) than they should hen it comes to manag- 15 percent of its attention to BlueRoads. Then along came California-based ing partner relationships, BlueRoads drives in the marketing automation software profast lane. A provider of vider Marketo. “It was just good timpartner opportunity management solu- ing,” Watson says, “We weren’t doing tions, California-based BlueRoads aims to some big, open-evaluation solution for help its clients work with their distribu- paid search.” Nevertheless, he admits tion channels, focusing on accelerating that before implementing Marketo, the sales cycles, increasing close rates, max- paid-search agency’s “lackluster” performance made BlueRoads imizing close margin coneager for an alternative. “We tributions, and improving Cost-effectiveness has were the perfect prey for a cross-sell and upsell opporperfect solution.” tunities, explains Charles allowed BlueRoads to Deciding whether or not Watson, the firm’s vice presi- double its number of to replace a human with audent of marketing and sales. paid-search terms and tomation software was a Despite a devotion to capturing the “business of opportu- to expand market reach. no-brainer. But the real benefit? Marketo addressed the nity” in a collaborative effort with all partners, though, BlueRoads was dilemma that plagues many small and missing out on an opportunity of its own. midsize businesses: lack of resources. Like many businesses today, BlueRoads “Most of the tools out there allow you to relies on Google AdWords to help attract set it up, but you have to be the one who’s interest and hopefully increase conver- smart,” Watson says. BlueRoads’ staff sion rates. “We were paying what I con- doesn’t have in-depth knowledge about sidered to be average rates for paid search paid-search strategies, so Watson needed but the performance was [just] average,” a solution that would do it all. With Marketo, Watson was able to obWatson recalls. “I wasn’t being blown away.” BlueRoads had a paid-search ad- tain results that evaluated a variety of facvertising agency monitor the performance tors: the performance of keywords on of its keywords, but despite quarterly up- Google; the corresponding costs; the keydates and reviews, the account mana- words used by competitors; and the prices ger could really only devote 10 percent to those competitors were paying. By taking 44 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | FEBRUARY 2008 W all these elements into account, Marketo is able to offer valuable insight into appropriate spend allocations—and the best recommendation if a campaign needs to be changed. “They can go into our system and say, ‘We want to spend $6,000 this month on our pay-per-click,’” explains Jon Miller, vice president of marketing at Marketo. From there, the vendor’s analytics will determine how best to distribute the money across the full breadth of BlueRoads’ campaigns in order to produce the most-qualified leads. In just two days, the software was fully deployed, and BlueRoads was no longer fighting for attention. “Marketo does a constant reiteration, in midflight, [recommending] changes all the time—so it feels like someone’s got their hands on the steering wheel 100 percent of the time,” Watson says. Even more important, he says, is that BlueRoads now spends just a quarter of its original Google AdWords budget. Cost-effectiveness has not only allowed BlueRoads to double its number of paid-search terms, but also to expand its market reach. Traditionally, Watson says, BlueRoads focused its services on three technology industries: networking, storage, and security. With the money saved, BlueRoads has been able to invest in six other industries, such as industrial equipment manufacturing and office automation. Moreover, Watson credits Marketo with increasing qualified-lead conversion from 25 percent to 30 percent. Watson says he feels pretty fortunate to have stumbled upon the right product at the right time. “If Marketo had failed, or it had not given substantial improvement somewhere, I bet we would’ve looked at alternatives out there,” he says. But it’s been a smooth ride with BlueRoads so far: “We have no motivation to look for an alternative,” he says. —Jessica Tsai Since implementing Marketo’s software, BlueRoads has been able to: reduce pay-per-click spend by 75 percent; increase its presence from three different industries to nine; and increase conversion to qualified leads from 25 percent to 30 percent. www.destinationCRM.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - February 2008

CRM - February 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Loyalty Riddle CRM Drives Down-Market Out of the Gate: Marketers Rate ’08 Traits The Pulse Consultants Adapt to CRM’s Changing Landscape Required Reading Cover Story: CRM Gets Serious Contact Center Solutions Always On Rumble in the Office The Smallest Slice Tying Up Cable’s Loose Ends Burning Up the Paper Trail Sunny Skies for Knology No More Bumps for BlueRoads Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - February 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.