Report:

Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs

Top Vendor Products for Multichannel Marketing Hubs in 2023

• Adobe
• Braze
• Salesforce

Multichannel Marketing Hubs Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

• Adobe - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Modern platform, evolved packaging: Adobe has revised its MMH packaging approach, and it now includes basic capabilities found in Real-Time CDP, Customer Journey Analytics and Experience Manager Assets. Adobe does offer full-featured versions of these modules that are built on the same platform.
  • First-party profile hub: Adobe released a new Real-Time CDP feature called Segment Match to enable activation of data shared from business partners into Journey Optimizer destinations. This bolsters advertising and insight capabilities while mitigating privacy concerns.
  • Healthcare support: Adobe's Healthcare Shield ensures HIPAA compliance for its cloud-native products, including Journey Optimizer, Customer Journey Analytics and Real-Time CDP.

  Cons:

  • Generative AI follower: Despite investments in Sensei AI features dating back to 2016, Adobe's MMH is playing catch up in the generative AI race, taking an enterprise approach compared with more agile pure-play startups. Although its Journey Optimizer supports AI-driven offer prioritization, generative AI applications for text content are not yet available in the MMH, and generative segmentation and engagement planning are on next year's roadmap.
  • Adobe Campaign ambiguity: Adobe's MMH investments are split between the cloud-native Journey Optimizer and legacy Adobe Campaign, creating a complicated upgrade story. Feature parity between Journey Optimizer and Campaign for advanced multidimensional segmentation and engagement approaches is due in 2024.
  • Limited prescriptions: Rather than a guided or prompted approach that brings anomalies to the marketer's attention, Adobe's anomaly detection features are largely self-serve. Analysts must start with a report, select an underperforming group and then configure a response to intervene.


• Braze - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Modern architecture: Braze builds upon a stream processing architecture, similar to a CDP, that services both traditional campaigns and orchestrated journeys in a single solution for customer engagement. Braze integrates with CDPs, though it doesn't require one, and this year introduced data transformations, potentially enabling users to rationalize martech stacks.
  • Market momentum: Braze is among the fastest growing providers in this evaluation, evolving into an attractive brand that appeals to organizations of all sizes, and expanding capabilities rapidly relative to others. Pricing is straightforward, based on monthly active users, and the company's proactive services garner high praise from Gartner Peer Insights reviewers.
  • Messaging innovation: Braze introduced generative AI integration late last year, ahead of other providers in this evaluation. Users can create text and images, then store outputs in Braze's asset library. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers praise Braze's personalization capabilities and the ease of use of its journey builder, Canvas Flow.

  Cons:

  • Technical skills: Braze offers a slick UX, but some capabilities may require technical skill sets for optimal operation. Data transformations currently rely on coding logic, and messages often need Braze's Liquid code for advanced personalization. Prospects should anticipate the need for trained staff to fully utilize the platform's advanced capabilities.
  • Limited prescriptions: Braze's Canvas Flow simplifies journey building, yet Braze trails other providers in offering prescriptive advice to teams that maintain journey assets. Agile marketing teams should be advised that Gartner Peer Insights reviewers cite the difficulty of monitoring the overall efficacy of active campaigns and journeys.
  • Analytics and reporting: Braze lags other providers in its analytics, especially when generating complicated segments, optimizing recommendations or customizing reports. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers' most frequent complaint is the need to supplement Braze's dashboards with third-party reporting tools.


• Salesforce - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Cross-cloud CRM data: The goal of Salesforce's CDP, Data Cloud, is to centralize customer data across Salesforce's many clouds, potentially helping users better understand customers and orchestrate experiences. Marketing Cloud Engagement users stand to benefit from richer customer insights and more relevant journeys, improved by better connectivity with insights stored across its broad marketing, service and sales portfolios.
  • Partnership expansions and integrations: Salesforce continues to expand innovative, zero-copy integrations with cloud data warehouse services, such as Snowflake, AWS and Google BigQuery. Data Cloud users can view audience insights, such as demographics and content affinities, from Google Marketing Platform, enhancing campaign planning and targeting for both acquisition and customer retention.
  • GenAI reach: Over the past year, Salesforce offered moderate but valuable enhancements to Marketing Cloud Engagement, like WhatsApp integration. Its roadmap for generative AI holds more promise for multichannel marketers. With its large presence and Trailblazers community, Salesforce could help marketers harness GenAI use cases as much as providers offering more marketer-focused innovation for journey orchestration.

  Cons:

  • Fast, shifting innovation cycle: Data Cloud for Marketing is a new name for Salesforce's CDP. Gartner client inquiries reveal customer confusion around product positioning shifts. Last year's push for Slack as the UI for all clouds and the announcement of NFT Management seem to have been placed on the backburner as Salesforce introduces the AI Cloud, risking further confusing customers.
  • Consumption-based pricing: As Salesforce strengthens the value proposition for a multicloud investment (e.g., sales, service and marketing), Data Cloud introduces consumption-based pricing that is difficult for marketers to forecast. This model may recoup its costs and investors' profit demand, but buyers must navigate uncertain costs and potential overages for data storage and processing.
  • Solution variance: Salesforce's multiproduct solution supports multiple ways to build a program like an event-triggered email, potentially requiring users to migrate or rebuild programs as they purchase additional components, like Personalization. Buyers should anticipate migrations among Marketing Cloud components as they seek more sophistication in segmenting audiences, triggering communications and analyzing data.


• Acoustic - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Client experience and support: Gartner Peer Insights users confirm that the platform is easy to use when creating campaigns and that the platform quickly integrates data from external sources. Acoustic provides strategic and operational support through dedicated customer success directors assigned to each customer (excluding dedicated technical support).
  • Infrastructure transitions supporting cost-effectiveness and speed: Acoustic completed a major upgrade to Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, adding reliability and scale to its channel execution capabilities. The company also rolled out new partner integrations, such as Snowflake for enhancing data access and Looker for insight reporting.
  • Templated journeys and reporting: Acoustic offers a journey program library with configurable journey templates. These journeys include packaged analytics and runtime reporting, so that marketers can see in real time where specific contacts are in the journey. They can see how many contacts are still active, have been removed or have exited the journey in the same canvas.

  Cons:

  • Limited support for AI: At the time of evaluation, Acoustic did not show that generative AI (GenAI) will be part of its future plans. Generative AI messaging has an immediate value add, but Acoustic only focuses on traditional use cases, such as predictive analytics. The tool offers no way for marketers to understand or manipulate the AI, and no consent or preference automation — only forms.
  • Dependence on existing solutions and API connections: Many capabilities (such as paid media management, probabilistic identity resolution and next best offer/action content) require marketers to already have vendors for these solutions or an API connection with partner services. Acoustic's open architecture relies heavily on innovation from other solutions to enable its product's effectiveness.
  • Limited prescriptive capabilities: Acoustic's roadmap focuses heavily on data integration, and its investments in orchestration will primarily focus on infrastructure enhancements. While existing users will benefit from these modernization efforts, its lack of native prescriptive analytics (e.g., data monitoring and recommended marketer actions) hinders marketers' ability to manage priorities and maintain an increasing volume of journeys.


• Acquia - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Web-centric orchestration: Acquia's MMH builds on its DXP platform, enabling clients to build digital journeys through Campaign Studio, aligning content with consumer search history or preferences for personalized experiences. Organizations that rely heavily on Acquia's DXP should consider its Marketing Cloud to scale orchestration.
  • AI model management: Acquia Machine Learning, included with its CDP, gives users visibility to AI-optimized models and campaigns. Acquia enables model life cycle management and provides insights into active models. Acquia Machine Learning also helps marketers explain the decisions made by models in order to boost adoption within personalization programs.
  • Channel and content preference: In addition to drag-and-drop features for personalization, the platform supports running more segmented campaigns simultaneously. With Acquia DAM Insights, users can identify the best channels to drive performance and select content based on past campaign performance or customer preference.

  Cons:

  • Tiered pricing: Acquia offers three modular pricing tiers for Acquia Marketing Cloud. Prospects are advised to plan for potentially significant cost increases as they scale usage of campaign management, personalization, analytics and content management.
  • Advertising ecosystem integration: Acquia's solution focuses on owned channels like website and email, offering only limited integration with ad networks. Acquia does not offer broad support for native walled garden integrations, and prospects may need to supplement Campaign Studio with its CDP to orchestrate experiences across the full customer life cycle.
  • Scale and strategic insights: Acquia has improved AI capabilities in its CDP platform for data quality, but only offers limited support for identifying best-performing content and journeys at scale. Acquia Campaign Studio's relatively basic dashboards and reporting capabilities will likely require organizations to adopt and resource its CDP for ongoing insights into performance and campaign optimizations.


• Cheetah Digital by Marigold - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Email marketing focus: Cheetah Digital enables Marigold to extend its technology portfolio and services to large enterprises, leveraging the collective insights drawn from its large client base. Marigold is focused on building shared platform services that help it bring innovations to market across its portfolio, such as adjusting reporting to filter out the impact of Apple's Mail Privacy Protection.
  • First-party engagement: Cheetah Experiences, an optional module, enables marketers to deploy templated journeys aimed at driving engagement or collecting data through surveys. The product's low-code environment helps teams rapidly deploy new engagement strategies, then use collected customer insights to build more targeted segments or personalization.
  • UX workflow improvements: Marigold enhanced Cheetah Digital's user experience, adding actionable error messages. Users are notified and provided with links to resolve issues like data merge errors. Marigold also plans to more deeply integrate its Liveclicker product in its message composition workflow.

  Cons:

  • Email specialization: Marigold was formed last year from the merger of Cheetah Digital and CM Group. Assembled from the merger of five email platforms, Marigold offers comprehensive email marketing capabilities for companies of all sizes. Marigold's strategy forces its engineering resources to focus on developing shared infrastructure for these tools, resulting in a roadmap with little innovation for multichannel marketers.
  • Portfolio strategy: Cheetah Digital as a brand is widely recognized from its long history, yet its net new implementations and revenue retention are low compared to other MMH providers. This may lead Marigold to consolidate clients onto a single platform. Prospects are advised to assess Marigold's commitment to Cheetah Digital, especially over a multiyear contract term.
  • Limited prescriptions: Cheetah Digital supports journey operations through Cheetah Messaging, which can include assets developed in Cheetah Loyalty and Cheetah Experiences. Yet Cheetah Messaging offers limited prescriptive recommendations to help marketers maintain these elements. Organizations that use both Messaging and Experiences could struggle to optimize performance as the number and complexity of journeys grow.


• HCLSoftware - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Simple journey templates: HCLSoftware added a journey library that is specific to industries such as banking, hospitality, pharmaceutical, retail and telecommunications. This enhancement allows marketers to quickly accelerate the creation of their campaigns, which can help with efficiency in execution and agility in planning.
  • Ease of use and flexibility: Unica long ago established many UX innovations, like the journey canvas, that power campaign workflows. HCLSoftware users note that campaign creation and management are simple to execute with the product. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers report that they appreciate the flexibility of the solution.
  • Collaboration: HCLSoftware allows marketers to execute project planning, enabling users to collaborate with stakeholders from other business units and functions to determine the best tactics for future campaigns and journeys. Unica Plan helps marketers forecast budgets, track spending across programs and manage busy marketing calendars.

  Cons:

  • Integration pain: Unica is primarily deployed on-premises, and integration often requires customized connections, which may add costs. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers state that many individual software parts are required to integrate the system, and that it is difficult to integrate with other platforms outside of HCLSoftware's environment.
  • Journey orchestration: Unica, long a fixture in database marketing, sustains its clients through segmentation and next best offer arbitration. HCLSoftware has yet to invest in advanced journey orchestration, only supporting basic real-time events, such as event triggers. HCLSoftware's CDP adds recommended actions and content but lacks prescriptive analytics to help teams scale journey orchestration.
  • Issue resolution and customer experience: Service and support response times are a top-of-mind issue for users, and poor response times can negatively impact marketers' campaigns. Gartner Peer Insights and client inquiries suggest that issue resolution time has increased. Marketers should consider the additional cost of adding HCLSoftware's Premium Support to their potential investment.


• Insider - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Modern, tailored UX: A clean interface across the platform streamlines the work of creating A/B tests, optimizing journeys and authoring content across the platform. Brand and product content can be easily reused across programs through industry-vertical templates that customize data models, triggers and journeys.
  • Data management: Customer profile management options include flexible customization, including support for multibrand identity resolution rules when a customer has a relationship with brands in the same parent company. Its app marketplace contains a range of external platform integrations, such as Zendesk, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and cloud data warehouses.
  • Journey analytics: Insider provides clear journey analytics that inform users of customers' progress toward marketing outcomes. Within a journey, notifications from its AI-driven optimizer module are cohesively integrated into the interface, recommending which journey assets, like triggers or eligibility rules, need attention to meet performance goals.

  Cons:

  • Journey prioritization: As firms orchestrate more of the customer experience, users need help picking the best of many possible journeys. But Insider provides only limited support for real-time prioritization. Prospects considering Insider should conduct a proof of concept (POC) test to assess if Insider's capabilities can support an NBA strategy.
  • Limited prescriptions: Despite diverse predictive analytics and scoring capabilities, Insider isn't yet automating the work of campaign design, message creation or optimization of journeys after performance anomalies are detected. Agile marketing teams that need prescriptive monitoring should assess Insider's ability to help automate journey operations.
  • North American presence: Insider recently completed a substantial funding round to help it expand globally. Prospects in the Americas and Japan are advised to assess Insider's local, in-market services, given the company's historic focus on large global brands located primarily in EMEA and APAC.


• Iterable - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • AI integration: Iterable's high-contact engagement model features three AI integration areas that include predictive action goals, audience insight tools and prescriptive analytics, like send-time optimization. Iterable has made the tool more adaptive since last year to help users more easily prioritize campaigns and offers in real time.
  • Audience insights: Audience sizes adjust during campaign building based on inclusion criteria that marketers select. The audience-building tool helps identify opportunities to target niche segments of users and ensure that large campaigns communicate with a variety of consumers. Iterable provides dedicated customer success resources to help marketers better understand segmentation insights that can be used for send-time and personalized-content optimizations.
  • Low-coding and back-end data requirements: Iterable allows marketers with limited IT support to onboard and activate MMH campaigns faster via Snowflake integration and drag-and-drop workflows. Iterable offers no-code requirements for organizations with lower levels of IT maturity or that are new to first-party data collection, enabling an easier ramp to MMH maturity.

  Cons:

  • Profile management: Iterable requires manual data matching for its platform, presenting challenges to onboarding data and unifying profiles. Organizations seeking to link data sources may require data management resources or a CDP to support profile management.
  • Limited channel options: Iterable's strength lies in large-scale email and SMS execution. However, this focus challenges marketers who need deeper profile management and flexible identity resolution to link customer activities across channels or functions. Multichannel marketers are cautioned that Iterable requires manual configuration in order to add channels.
  • Reporting: Organizations moving from traditional campaigns to journey orchestration may encounter challenges with Iterable's segmented campaign dashboard. Reporting performance still requires manual processes and skilled resources in order to evaluate macro-level marketing performance versus at the individual campaign level.


• Optimove - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Prescriptive prioritization: Optimove can set manual or automated prioritization and exclusion criteria for each campaign through AI-based smart orchestration capabilities that manage journey eligibility. Its multichannel send-time optimization strengthens the algorithm's predictive power.
  • User experience: Optimove's UX/UI improvements include a streamlined navigation bar and Mission Control dashboard to view and act on AI-assisted recommendations within the Mission Control UI. Gartner Peer Insights users cite its user-friendly interface and UX/UI that help easily identify opportunities and issues.
  • Analytics and AI support: Optimove's Mission Control tools and AI assistant Optibot aim to help marketers remain proactive and agile through predictive and prescriptive analytics that improve personalization, journey orchestration and real-time decisions. It provides marketers with five out of the box (OOTB) predictive models to track audience behaviors and trends such as risk of churn.

  Cons:

  • Algorithmic journey operations: Optimove's vision involves a substantial commitment to algorithmic or always-on marketing, impacting traditional planning and revenue management practices. Marketers must consider their ability to use prescriptive analytics with, or as a replacement to, the traditional, top-down approach to campaign planning.
  • Engagement focus: Optimove best supports data-centric businesses that market to customers who engage frequently for repeat purchases. Businesses with customers who don't require or seek high-frequency contact should consider its utility over more traditional campaign-oriented programs.
  • Self-service data modeling: Optimove has enhanced marketers' access to Snowflake data shares, but Optimove's data model and autosegmentation capability still require professional services for customization. Brands with specialized needs may find Optimove's approach more restrictive than other vendors'.


• Pegasystems - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Workflow management: Pega's 1:1 Operations Manager allows marketers to manage and assign work to specific individuals and brand teams. It provides a single point of control, enabling marketing teams to triage and manage rapidly shifting assignments effectively.
  • NBA recommendations: Pega's CDH helps marketers scale journey orchestration by offering advice to enhance customer journeys. Data filters help marketers align this advice to their business and brand strategies. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers cite appreciation for fewer repetitive suggestions.
  • Customer profile UI: Pega's CDH offers a robust customer profile manager that shows marketers a unified view of the profile that extends beyond deterministic data. It allows marketers to see the multiple customer journeys that a profile is in, and allows them to suppress actions, such as content that shouldn't be shown or sent to a profile.

  Cons:

  • Specialized data skills: Pega's Prediction Studio enables advanced analytical monitoring and modeling, but analytics expertise is required to realize the full value of the tool. Prospective clients should invest time in fully exploring a POC to evaluate ease of use and determine if advanced features justify the additional effort needed to operate them.
  • Support for new enhancements: Pega released two products in 2022, requiring organizations wanting to stay current to reassign teams, reset roadmaps and retrain users to absorb these updates. Some Gartner Peer Insights reviewers cite challenges with rushed or little training support for the rollout of new enhancements.
  • High cross-CRM costs: CDH provides robust capabilities that service sophisticated teams working in analytical model development and algorithmic journey orchestration (NBAs). However, Pega's CDH is among the costliest on average of all vendors evaluated, suggesting that CDH is best for large, sophisticated enterprises that are seeking to centralize their customer journeys across multiple business units.


• Redpoint Global - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Orchestration in demanding environments: Redpoint's strength lies in enabling multichannel marketers constrained by IT policy to host or perform in on-premises and cloud operating environments. Its focus on analytics, data quality and data monitoring capabilities helps marketers who are otherwise unable to purchase SaaS-only MMHs implement journey orchestration and improve NBA programs.
  • AI enhancements: rg1 offers the ability to embed machine learning capabilities in marketing programs. Data scientists and analytics professionals can either import or develop custom predictive models within the suite. It also provides packaged models that score customers for behavioral propensities, optimized send time and channel preferences.
  • Containerization and integrations: Redpoint focused 2023's product development on adding flexible deployment options. It completed a containerization project, expanding support for deploying the tool in public and private cloud environments. The company also added content management and channel integrations.

  Cons:

  • Competencies and complexity: Redpoint's modular approach helps it address precise needs, but it ups the need for skilled resources that can integrate and operate such mixed tech stacks. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers cite the product's learning curve and complex setup.
  • Content operations: Content remains a challenge for Redpoint, which relies on technology partners for content management and channel execution. Prospects pursuing journey orchestration, which tightly links content operations with multichannel execution, should assess whether it can support content-oriented workflows needed to support orchestration.
  • Technical resourcing required: rg1 at its core is a customer data platform, which optionally adds channel execution through the CDP's integration with other tools, like mobile platforms. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers express concern over the engineering resources needed to maintain integrations with third-party tools and channels.


• SAP Emarsys - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Front- and back-office integration: SAP Emarsys's differentiation lies in supporting organizations, like manufacturers and retailers, that seek competitive advantage in go-to-market and supply chain coordination. Multichannel marketers benefit from reliable MMH capabilities that support marketing profitability measurement through ERP integration. SAP's roadmap for Qualtrics integration may further help marketers deliver end-to-end journey orchestration, leveraging customer feedback to inform marketing decisions.
  • Customer profile management: SAP Emarsys improved its native SAP Customer Data Cloud and SAP Customer Data Platform to support enterprise-grade consent management across channels and customer profiles. It enhanced data unification to help sales collaboration and customer support throughout the customer journey.
  • Implementation and onboarding: SAP expanded Emarsys' Global professional services to new industries and geographies, offering a blend of strategic and operational services and training, and helping clients unify CRM and ERP workflows and data. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers praise the ease of onboarding, crediting SAP's focus on customer needs and its breadth of consulting partnerships.

  Cons:

  • Market segment: Although SAP Emarsys' capabilities are attuned to the needs of the retail, CPG and manufacturing industries, it offers limited industry-specific product configuration capabilities outside of these verticals. Prospective buyers seeking to configure product capabilities tailored to a noncore sector should validate use against its offering.
  • Limited prescriptions: SAP Emarsys' support for prescriptive recommendation trails other providers in offering prescriptive advice to teams that maintain journey assets. Prospective buyers seeking sophisticated algorithmic journey operations should evaluate SAP's ability to help small teams scale customer journey orchestration.
  • Little innovation for orchestration: SAP Emarsys is best tailored for customer profile management and campaign management, not journey orchestration. Prospective buyers seeking to move from campaigns to always-on journeys should evaluate its roadmap to ensure that future needs are met.


• SAS - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Analytical power: SAS's breadth of data capabilities benefits firms with deep investments in skilled resources. It excels at solving complex, data-centric problems, such as predictive model development, offer optimization and marketing attribution.
  • Profile management: SAS's CDP provides a range of ways to link customer data across touchpoints and identifiers, enabling marketers and publishers to detect relevant events and build real-time audiences from mixed data sources. It enables access to private cloud and on-premises data sources, integrating sensitive data for segmentation and personalization.
  • Attribution and measurement: In addition to using built-in, algorithmic multitouch attribution to assess the impact of specific tasks, marketers can explore key drivers of customer lifetime value and calculate NBAs. Integrations distribute real-time customer insights to other systems, such as Salesforce Sales Cloud, to aid account executives in sales processes.

  Cons:

  • Skilled resources demand: SAS's strength is its statistical horsepower, so buyers should first assess their ability to operate technology. Such power may prove overwhelming without advanced training or access to SAS's professional services. Gartner Peer Insights reviewers note the need for statistics and engineering talent to attain full value from the solution.
  • Flexibility and complexity: SAS's ability to solve marketing challenges in a variety of ways adds complexity. Its user interface varies broadly across different product modules, adding flexibility but possibly complicating marketer workflows. For all the platform's intelligence, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 does not provide prescriptive advice to help users optimize flagging or underperforming journey assets, like triggers.
  • Analytics focus: While SAS is a large provider with a long history in the analytics market, few multichannel marketers place it in their shortlists. Marketers need a robust data pipeline, yet SAS's low penetration, even after many years in the MMH market, suggests that the market as a whole has not gravitated to SAS's vision for multichannel marketing.

Reference

• Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs, 26 September 2023, ID G00776372

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