It’s the End of the Road for SAP Marketing Cloud

We’re sorry to say it, but SAP Marketing Cloud customers are now in a challenging position. With the sunsetting of SAP Marketing Cloud, they’re now being forced to find a new marketing solution. For SAP Marketing Cloud customers, the reason they are sunsetting the product does not really matter, so let’s instead stay solutions-focused and talk about the other options in the market.

Here at Vertify, we sit in the middle of and integrate with so many different marketing technologies. We have some opinions on who we think would be the best choice for SAP Marketing Cloud customers in 2023. Use this advice as just one factor in your vetting process, and ultimately, make the decision that you think is best for your business. You know best!

The time is now

Let’s start with one very important PSA…If you are an SAP Marketing Cloud customer, do not wait to start your hunt for your next solution. Time is not on your side. With the kill date being set for 2026, the time is now to start your exit plan. 

Use this guide to help narrow down your targets as you start your search. Consider all the pros and cons and, and above all else, start to build relationships with these potential vendors. It’s those relationships that will sustain your success long-term. 

But, start now. SAP will not be investing in this product over the next three years. This means that if you continue using it for six months to a year, you are going to fall behind your competition. Six months is a lifetime in the world of automation technology advancement. Do your due diligence and make a change with conviction quickly. 

Where do you begin?

First, look at Gartner’s 2022 Report on the Magic Quadrant For Multichannel Marketing Hubs. Let’s stay within the market leaders’ quadrant; after all, if you purchased SAP, you want to make sure you are at the very least moving to something as good or better for your enterprise business. 

Additional blogs that may interest you: The Future Wave from Eloqua to Marketo.

From our experience, Adobe and the entire Adobe Experience suite of groundbreaking marketing tools is the way to go. Experience driven growth is the future and Adobe is at the forefront. Sure, you could go the Salesforce route and try to purchase one solution for all things revenue automation, and that may very well be what is right for your business. But, we are big believers in pairing a best-of-breed solution for your organization with Vertify. Therefore, let’s focus on what we see as being the best option for those who are leaving SAP and are in search of bigger and better. 

Three reasons why you should choose Marketo Engage and the enterprise Adobe Experience toolset

1. Marketo is a top player in marketing automation for mid-market and enterprise companies. You could look at HubSpot, a top player for SMB and growth companies, but if you are a user of SAP Marketing Cloud, then you are likely a little further down the data maturity curve, precisely who Marketo was built for. Adobe and Marketo have now joined forces and are both leaders in the marketing automation space. With their powers combined, they give the marketer a competitive advantage. 

The Marketo application is robust, solving enterprise-level automation needs, while also being fairly easy to use. The onboarding is best-in-class and promotes a positive time to value for its customers. Additionally, the product team at Marketo is constantly innovating and working with its partners to deliver new functionality that is backed by the Adobe machine. 

Lastly, Marketo has built a robust partner ecosystem that helps make an already powerful platform even more impressive. From onboarding partners like Zirous and MAC, to solution-driven OEM partners like Vertify, they work in tandem to give their customers best-of-breed with no sacrifice. 

2. Marketo integrates with SAP through its near-native partner, Vertify. It is critical for you as the marketer to have your entire customer data ecosystem connected. Whether you have one CRM that needs to connect with SAP Marketing Cloud or you have five CRMs, a sales enablement platform and an ERP, it is critical that those systems are not siloed. 

Working with Marketo, you get the added value of the rich partnership that it has established with Vertify over the last five years. Vertify is sold on Adobe paper in partnership with their Experience ecosystem. During the sales process, you will have the Vertify team involved as data management and automation experts to ensure all of your data automation needs are taken into account. Adobe understands the need to be the marketing automation experts, while Vertify supports them as the data automation experts. This synergy allows for a rapid time to value after you purchase your Marketo platform. 

In addition, the Vertify workflow automation suite is as close to a native sync as you can get. There is no need for coding or technical resource involvement, even at the enterprise level. It is highly configurable for the enterprise business, while also giving the ownership of the customer data and customer data workflows to the business side of the house. Use it to migrate from SAP Marketing Cloud and then connect mission-critical sales, marketing, and revenue data across your revenue stack – including other SAP apps. 

3. Marketo can better support all of your marketing processes and workflows. The decision to switch platforms should not be seen as a sacrifice, but as an opportunity. You will actually receive more functionality with Marketo than what you had with SAP Marketing Cloud. With this pivot, you will gain features to support the work of your marketing team(s), such as:
   1. SEO enhancements
   2. Ad placements
   3. Social media tools
   4. Better email automation
   5. Unmatched CDP functionality
   6. GDPR support
   7. ABM functionality
   8. Website analytics
   9. And, as stated before, a plethora of integrations to broaden your horizon with the Vertify partnership. Lose nothing and gain plenty with Marketo. 

Take the next step

The time is now to begin the transition. Whether you are in retail, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, or technology, we truly believe that you should give Adobe Engage and the Marketo platform serious consideration. Don’t just take our word for it; look at every solution that is in the market to make the best decision for you and your business. The choice is yours. Start now! 

About the contributors: Vertify has been leading automated multi-platform integration for years. Our no-code, hub-and-spoke integration technology helps companies from large to small sort through their data less and start using it more. To achieve the inter-platform — and interdepartmental — cohesion your company needs to compete, get started with a demo today. We are more than happy to bring in the right Adobe teams to help address your marketing automation needs as well, just ask!