Marketo’s Evolution: Integrating and Overcoming Modern Marketing Challenges

A Long-Term View: Marketo from 2012 to Today

Lauren Aquilino has been using Marketo since 2012, starting her journey with the platform while working at Highland, where she helped implement it. She observed the early days of marketing automation when tools were often isolated and used primarily for direct campaign management.

As she transitioned to roles in companies like GE Lighting, she noticed how Marketo and marketing automation, in general, began to adapt to broader business requirements.

Lauren explains, “What everyone was doing with the system 12 years ago is very different from what’s happening today, especially when it comes to integrations.” This change reflects Marketo’s journey from a standalone marketing tool to a platform that integrates deeply with other technologies, fulfilling the growing need for interconnected systems in the marketing ecosystem.

The Power of Integration: Marketo’s Open API Advantage

One of Marketo’s integration strengths lies in its open APIs, a feature Lauren praises for its ability to facilitate data integration. She points out that marketers often need to access data beyond the standard reporting tools within Marketo. “The best thing about Marketo is how open their APIs are,” Lauren says.

This openness allows businesses to connect Marketo with other tools and extract data for custom reporting, making it a versatile choice in a crowded market.

However, this integration capability also introduces complexity. Lauren remarks that marketers now focus not just on Marketo itself but on how it interacts with other tools. This interconnectedness requires both technical expertise and strategic planning to ensure seamless data flow and effective campaign management.

Navigating Data Challenges in Marketo

Marketo provides powerful data integration features, but for SaaS companies with large user bases, it can become a challenge to manage all the records within the platform. Lauren points out that “it doesn’t really make sense to put every single one of those records into Marketo…that would bog down the system quite a bit.” This is where the Marketo experts for SaaS come in.

By leveraging their expertise, they help SaaS companies navigate these challenges, using strategies like data segmentation and custom workflows to keep the platform running smoothly while ensuring essential data is captured and used effectively. It’s about balancing the power of the tool with the specific needs of a growing SaaS business,

This situation has led many companies to explore using supplementary tools or even alternative platforms to manage large datasets. Lauren’s insights suggest that while Marketo remains a powerful tool, companies need to carefully consider how to balance its use with other technologies in their marketing stacks.

The Role of Data Hygiene: Marketo’s Strengths and Limitations

Marketo’s flexibility in data management is one of its key advantages, as Lauren highlights. She emphasizes that Marketo offers users the ability to update records through Smart Campaigns or APIs, a feature that supports robust data hygiene practices. “Marketo gives users such access to update records…that part out, users cannot do. Even the ability to change, for example, like someone’s country, it’s kind of a big deal,” Lauren points out.

However, she also warns that managing data hygiene requires more than just platform capabilities. Lauren advocates for having a solid data governance plan, stating, “I would have a data governance plan to archive old records because I don’t want to be cleaning stuff that’s bad in the first place.”

In her view, data cleaning should be proactive, focusing on removing outdated or irrelevant records to avoid excessive effort on managing poor-quality data.