Adobe beat out fellow tech giants IBM and SAP in Forrester’s latest Wave Report for cross channel campaign management platforms.
The quarterly report placed Adobe’s Campaign platform in the “Leader” category along with SAS Institute, Infor and Redpoint Global’s cross channel campaign management offerings. Forrester defined these platforms as tools that enable companies to communicate with their customers and deliver consistent messaging across multiple channels.
There were some notable omissions from the report, mostly due to Forrester having very specific criteria for what constitutes a complete cross-channel campaign management platform.
Since not every customer has the ability to deploy a cloud solution (due to security or network restrictions,) Forrester excluded all platforms that did not have an on-premise software option. That would explain why cloud-based cross-channel marketing platforms such as ExactTarget, Marketo, Responsys, Eloqua and Silverpop didn’t get a mention in the report.
Platforms that didn’t support at least three offline channels (such as direct mail or call centers) in addition to digital were also not considered, which meant that digital first platforms such as Sitecore and StrongView didn’t get a mention either.
Adobe Campaign received high marks from Forrester for its unified platform, simplified consumer-based pricing model and integration with Adobe’s Digital Marketing Cloud. This is another win for Adobe, which recently topped the ratings for the first Forrester Wave report on digital experience delivery systems.
In particular, Adobe was recommended for advanced digital marketers at enterprise companies looking to unify their outbound messaging and offline communication channels. However, the report suggested that customers look elsewhere if they wanted tools for customer
insights and predictive modeling, as customers identified these as areas where Adobe needed to improve.
Along with Adobe, SAS Institute received a “leader” categorization based on its advanced analytics and complexity-handling capabilities. Other top scorers included RedPoint Global and Infor, whose clients were given credit for managing more channels than any other platform in the vendor list.
IBM’s ExperienceOne suite was classified as a “Strong Performer” based on its powerful analytics offering (through Coremetrics) and easy to use interface. However, IBM lost marks from Forrester’s analysts who reported that “overall satisfaction was below average for data management, message delivery across channels, and professional services.”
Other ‘Strong Performers” included Teradata (highly rated for email and SMS authoring and deployment) and SAP, which was recommended for marketers looking to combine campaign management with the commerce channel.
Forrester’s Wave report is available to download for free through Adobe (registration required.)
