Recommendations for Selecting Digital Marketing Platforms

Survey from Oomiji finds 25% of marketers want better platform integrations

Companies selling digital marketing platforms have a long way to go before they satisfy their customers. Earlier this year, we sent out a survey about marketers’ level of satisfaction with their marketing platforms. Only 8% of U.S. marketers said they’re happy with their digital marketing technology. The study, which examined more than 200 responses from American marketers across industries, also found that 38% of respondents judged their platforms to be too expensive.

We conducted the survey using our customer insights platform. It enables marketers to analyze audience segments and customize outreach based on responses to both closed- and open-ended questions and language processing analytics. The survey found that:

• The largest group (two-thirds) was somewhat satisfied with their platform, with 20% stating that platforms need to be more intuitive, and 25% indicating the need for improved integration with other platforms or functions.
• Of those who were completely satisfied, the majority (almost all) expressed dissatisfaction with costs, followed by insufficient integrations.
• Cost and customer support were issues for those who were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their platform.
• Approximately 15% felt their platform was merely adequate for their needs and one-eighth cited a lack of integration as the reason.

Aside from costs, these results indicate that marketing engagement platforms are not perceived as intuitive enough to use and are not well integrated with other platforms. At the same time, users complained that they don’t learn enough from the platforms about their customers’ needs.

Our platform AI prompted respondents to share their thoughts in their own words in response to some of the questions. Some noteworthy responses from the business audience included:

• “There’s too much learning time required. Our platform gave us 45 steps to be able to use the platform proficiently. That’s way too much.”
• “It’s intuitive if you just want to send emails but any of the higher level functions take more time to learn.”
• “If it was simpler to learn and use, they would have training conferences for clients.”

The key takeaway is that marketers should look for platforms that are simple to operate and offer abundant integrations, Customer service and functionality are also essential, and marketers should exercise abundant discretion when choosing their technology providers. Platforms, in order of frequency, mentioned by respondents included Mailchimp, Hubspot, Salesforce, Constant Contact, Klaviyo, Oomiji, Sharpspring, Zoho, Campaign Monitor, Commerce7 and LeadResolution.

Partly in response to what we learned from the survey, Oomiji will soon be announcing integrations to more than 20 different platforms. Easy to use, simple to learn. Let’s schedule a demo if you’re interested in learning more.