Why integrated social suites are failing marketers

The argument for an integrated marketing suite has yet to be made, yet most marketers think a social suite is the way to go.

Most enterprise technology eventually converges into a suite, as it did with ERP. Integration hassles, management headaches and training challenges arising from a mishmash of best-of-breed solutions drive frustrated enterprise software buyers to the suite life -- but not in marketing tech, at least not yet.

Marketing tech suites have come under fire lately for failing to deliver on their promises. Less than half of enterprise marketing software suite customers are "totally satisfied," a Forrester report found. Now Forrester has taken dead aim at a specific kind of marketing tech suite: social suites from Adobe, Salesforce and Sprinklr.

These suites combine social listening, social reach, social depth and social relationship tools. Separately, though, the tools grade out poorly against their best-of-breed rivals. In a Forrester brief, analyst Nate Elliot didn't mince words, saying, "Adobe can scarcely compete in most social technology categories" and "Salesforce's once-impressive social tools have fallen behind" and "Sprinklr's suite contains just as many misses as hits."

In the world of enterprise tech analysis, that's a major slam. Suite vendors will surely counter that the great benefit of a suite is that the sum is greater than the parts. In other words, the benefits of integration outweigh the performance differences between individual tools. But social suites fail to deliver even on this promise, Elliot says.

Three social suites strikes

Elliot points out suite vendors' many integration missteps. He cites Salesforce's inability to integrate Buddy Media with Radian6 successfully, forcing Salesforce to pivot and build Social Studio from the ground up. Adobe customers found Adobe Analytics' integration with Adobe Social so poor that they turned to other analytics programs, he says. And Sprinklr customers complain that Sprinklr still hasn't integrated key features of Dachis Group software even though a year has passed since the acquisition.

Pouring more fuel on the fire, the central argument for an integrated marketing suite hasn't been made.

"Social tools don't benefit from integration with other social tools anyway," Elliot says. "Just because social ads, Facebook pages, and branded communities are all called 'social' doesn't mean they have much in common. Each targets different users on different sites with different messages to drive different behaviors."

The next ERP?

If a social marketer asks technical colleagues for advice, they'll probably get an earful about ERP as a shining example of the benefits of an integrated suite. Should ERP be compared with marketing tech? At this year's MarTech Conference in San Francisco, venture capitalist Neeraj Agrawal at Battery Ventures had this to say about the suite vs. best-of-breed debate:

"Marketing tech is actually a unique segment within all of enterprise software, in my mind. One of the unique aspects is, this market really favors best-of-breed. In all other software segments, there's actually a structural advantage to buying an integrated suite. You wouldn't go buy a general ledger system and an AP system from two different vendors. You wouldn't do that; it wouldn't make any sense; you need an integrated system. But in marketing, you want to buy the best social system, you want to buy the best AB testing. Why? That incremental conversion lift matters. It drives dollars."

Nevertheless, most marketers still think a suite is the way to go.

"More than two-thirds of avid social marketers believe it's more effective for them to buy all their social tools from a single vendor than to buy social point solutions from several different vendors -- but they couldn't be more wrong," Elliot says.

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.
Show Comments

Latest Videos

More Videos

More Brand Posts

What are Chris Riddell's qualifications to talk about technology? What are the awards that Chris Riddell has won? I cannot seem to find ...

Tareq

Digital disruption isn’t disruption anymore: Why it’s time to refocus your business

Read more

Enterprisetalk

Mark

CMO's top 10 martech stories for the week - 9 June

Read more

Great e-commerce article!

Vadim Frost

CMO’s State of CX Leadership 2022 report finds the CX striving to align to business outcomes

Read more

Are you searching something related to Lottery and Lottery App then Agnito Technologies can be a help for you Agnito comes out as a true ...

jackson13

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Thorough testing and quality assurance are required for a bug-free Lottery Platform. I'm looking forward to dependability.

Ella Hall

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Blog Posts

Marketing prowess versus the enigma of the metaverse

Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.

Liz Miller

VP, Constellation Research

Why Excellent Leadership Begins with Vertical Growth

Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?

Michael Bunting

Author, leadership expert

More than money talks in sports sponsorship

As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.

Simone Waugh

Managing Director, Publicis Queensland

Sign in