Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    MarTech Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech
    Mission
    Staff
    Newsletter
    Search Engine Land
    Third Door Media

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Performance Marketing » Oracle Fusion Marketing reduces the role of traditional CRMs

Oracle Fusion Marketing reduces the role of traditional CRMs

Larry Ellison: "What we want to do is build systems that help you sell more." Updated.

Kim Davis on September 20, 2021 at 7:00 am

Oracle today announced the launch of Oracle Fusion Marketing, part of Oracle Advertising and CX. The new product tracks account engagement with both email and advertising channels, uses AI to score leads and predict opportunity for sales engagement, then delivers the qualified opportunity to any CRM system. The offering seeks to automate the B2B lead generation and qualification process and push the outcomes directly into the systems used by sales representatives.

“Salesforce automation has left sellers behind and has become about salesforce automation,” said Nate Skinner, Global SVP of Marketing for Oracle Advertising and CX (referring to CRM across the board, not just — but clearly including — Salesforce.com). “Very few traditional CRM systems actually help sellers sell. They help them track their contacts, but they don’t do things that help them get back to selling.”

Where’s the automation? Modern marketing compels engagement with many different solutions within the marketing stack, and for many marketers not everything is automated. “We have to create segments manually, we have to supply content for our sellers manually, depending on the technology we often have to route leads manually,” said Skinner. “Meanwhile sellers are receiving way to many unqualified leads.”

In a world where most of the buyer journey takes place as self-service, the pressure on B2B marketers to identify and deliver qualified leads only increases. “Salesforce as a category was intended to automate the work for sellers; it’s become administration. I have never met a seller that likes to use their salesforce automation system — they see it as an oversight tool for their managers. We’ve got to give them product that powers their ability to sell.”

Oracle Fusion Marketing tracks email and advertising channels. Courtesy: Oracle.

Across email, ads and social. Fusion Marketing tracks campaigns across not only email but the full range of advertising channels including social. Buyer behavior drives automated identification of qualified leads and delivers them into the CRM as opportunities, together with a view of the actions (clicks, downloads) which qualified them.

“We have an Oracle CRM product, but of course lots of people use Salesforce, and that’s fine. Whatever that system is, automating the lead generation and qualification of opportunities is what happens before they becomer something your sellers have to manage.”

This new offering delivers leads based on behavior across email and advertising, two major B2B channels, but omits webinars, for example, and in-person events when they return. “That’s a leading question,” said Skinner. “This is the first deposit and there are more coming.”

It’s just computers. At a virtual meeting following the announcement, Oracle founder, Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison explained the motivation for the new offering. “A sales automation system has value. It keeps track of your opportunities, keeps track of your contacts, and it allows you to communicate with management and say, I expect these deals to close in the quarter. It’s really a management tool for individual sales people and their bosses.”

But the sales system does not increase or automate sales, he continued. “It automates sales forecasting and improves communication. What we want to do is build systems that help you sell more. It’s that simple. We realized we couldn’t do just a second generation sales automation system, we had to also include the precursor to selling, which is marketing — to generate and, most important of all, to qualify leads.”

The lead generation and qualification, he emphasized, is fully automated. “It’s just computers.”

The future of CRM? Even if the perfectly qualified opportunity lands in a CRM with all the supporting information, there’s surely CRM admin left over to do for the sales reps? “Of course they need to close the opportunity, generate a quote, do the CPQ stuff. It’s the system of record for opportunities and forecasts. We’re trying to eliminate the tasks and mundane activity that has to occur before you even get to the stage where you can close an opportunity.”

Why we care. Does this step on the feet of Salesforce — and we mean Salesforce.com with a capital “S”, not just all those salesforce admin systems out there? Yes, and it’s plainly intended to. If successful, it pushes CRMs into being a system of record for the last lap of the sale, the quote and the closing. It takes the spotlight off of the CRM as a key sales enablement solution.

At the same time, it’s not yet clear whether it provides a clear alternative to stacks which stitch together sales enablement solutions (and there are many) with CRMs. But as Oracle is saying, there’s more to come.


New on MarTech

    How clean, organized and actionable is your data?
    Replacement Survey: The top 5 solutions replaced
    What’s the biggest hidden secret in Google Ads?
    Native video tops social media in brand awareness study
    Worsening economy has more shoppers getting online info before making in-store purchases

About The Author

Kim Davis
Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.

Related Topics

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)Performance MarketingSales Enablement

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Agencies: Grow Revenue Streams Through Web Accessibility & Compliance

Protect Your Paid Advertising Spend Against Ad Fraud and Invalid Traffic

Build an Integrated Search Strategy Across Google, Amazon and YouTube

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

Site Search 101

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.