888-ELOQUA4 (888-356-7824)
info@4ThoughtMarketing.com
Oracle CX Marketing Experts
4Thought Marketing4Thought Marketing4Thought Marketing4Thought Marketing
  • Home
  • Products
    • 4Comply Privacy Compliance
    • Oracle Eloqua Cloud Apps
    • Visual Segmentation – 4Segments
  • Services
    • Privacy Compliance Consulting
    • Strategic Services Offerings
      • Marketing Automation Plan (MAP)
      • Funnel Framework
      • Nurture Foundation
      • Segmentation Strategy
      • Lead Scoring (Advanced)
      • Data Capture Strategy
      • KPI Reporting & Analytics
      • Campaign Strategy
      • Marketing Automation Strategy – Measure & Improve
    • Campaign Services
    • Eloqua Data Services
      • Eloqua Data Services Overview
      • Data Cleansing
      • Deduplication and Company Matching
    • Eloqua Implementations
      • Eloqua Implementations Overview
      • Eloqua SmartStart Implementation Services
      • Net Promoter Score for Oracle Eloqua
      • Lead Nurturing
    • Eloqua Integration
    • Eloqua Health Check
  • Why 4Thought Marketing?
    • 4Thought Marketing Leadership Team
    • Clients
    • Testimonials
    • Partners
    • Careers at 4Thought Marketing
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

Event Integration Best Practices for Oracle Eloqua

    Home Marketing Automation Event Integration Best Practices for Oracle Eloqua

    Event Integration Best Practices for Oracle Eloqua

    By 4Thought Marketing | Marketing Automation | Comments are Closed | 3 September, 2020 | 0
    Event integration best practices

    Event Integration Best Practices for Oracle Eloqua

    With the dramatic increase in online and virtual events in 2020, it’s more important than ever to have a well-designed integration between your event management platform(s) and Oracle Eloqua.  Many meeting, webinar, and virtual event platforms offer native integrations to Oracle Eloqua.  But that is typically where the hard work begins.

    In today’s article, we’ll discuss some key questions and best practices we’ve used with our customers to ensure we meet all their requirements.

    Making the Connection

    When exploring an event management platform, a key consideration should be if they offer an out of the box (OOTB) Oracle Eloqua integration. Start by checking the vendors’ site for integrations, or try searching the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. The Marketplace may also include listings for 3rd party integrations.  And if a third-party solution isn’t available in the Oracle marketplace, integration platforms like Zapier are also available. Integration platforms may require a bit more planning and configuration. Also, they may not support every data element you hoped for, but it may be sufficient for what you need.

    Depending on your integration, your solution may offer built-in data mapping tools.  These tools are similar to field mapping tools in Eloqua for list uploads.  But not all integrations are customer-configurable.  For some, you must provide a list of fields and data types to the vendor, and they set up the configuration for you.

    Data and Process Mapping

    Once you’ve decided how to connect your systems, the next step is to explore the data available through the integration and how it maps to Eloqua.  Before we go further, it’s critical to consider the big picture.  While Eloqua may be the tool that connects and receives event data, very often, it’s not the only destination.  Eloqua may store the data as is, or it may perform operations and transform the data, and then pass it to your CRM or other systems.  Take time to understand the data, how it maps to Eloqua and other systems. If you have one, refer to your Data Dictionary, it should contain details on fields, formats, usage, and history.

    Required and Optional Data Elements

    Event data drives segmentation, lead nurturing, and other sales and marketing processes. Many integrations offer an extensive list of data elements available from the event platform.  However, it’s essential to evaluate each data point and determine if it’s necessary or is merely informative.  Required elements may include but are not limited to contact and company details, consent, event details such as event name, event id, campaign id, area of interest, and if they registered or attended.   

    Other elements may be useful, but you need to evaluate each based on how and who uses it.  For example, you might consider data available for the total event duration; time watched, Q&A questions asked, and their answers as useful but informative.  In this case, and your sales team wants this information added to a lead, you could combine them into a single text field and store it as a note in your CRM.  If a savvy salesperson reads the note, they’ll learn their customer or prospect attended the widget webinar and during the Q&A asked if widgets work with sprockets.  That information may be a great reason to follow-up and sell them more sprockets. Bring this topic up in your next meeting with sales, train them on the data they should look for, and where to find it in the CRM.

    Campaign Association and External Activities

    Many platforms offer fields to enable campaign attribution for events.  You simply need to configure it once, and all records should include a value for campaign id.  If you create external activities for your events, the data is available for automated lead scoring.  Someone who registers and attends or watches a replay could receive a higher score than someone who just registered.  Some platforms offer an attendee score, which may be useful in your lead scoring model.  It’s another data point to consider.

    4Thought marketing offers the Campaign Membership Cloud App, which streamlines the process of creating campaign associations and external activities automatically.

    Importance of Nurture Campaigns

    While your goal when hosting events is to generate new sales leads, not everyone who registers and attends qualifies as a lead.  A critical part of your event strategy should be a nurture foundation and topic-specific nurturing campaigns. While your event may provide almost everything the lead wanted, it may not be sufficient for them to MQL.  Nurtures continue the conversation automatically, providing additional details to help the customer as they evaluate your product.

    Conclusion

    Companies are increasingly marketing and promoting their products and services through virtual events and meetings, which demands quality integration between your event platform and Oracle Eloqua.  Many of these platforms directly support Oracle Eloqua. At the same time, some are available through 3rd party integration or via general-purpose integration platforms.  Connecting systems is just the start.  Mapping the data to your existing internal processes and data formats is vital.  And don’t forget to leverage campaign associations to track effectiveness.  And finally, support your virtual events and meetings with nurtures that further qualify leads until they MQL.

    Contact Us if you need help with your event integration. We’ve helped countless customers build robust event integration solutions that drive results.

    No tags.

    Related Posts

    • account based marketing

      Account-Based Marketing: The Future of Marketing?

      By Christina Steiner | Comments are Closed

      When most people think of marketing, what they’re really thinking of is conventional marketing: an approach that begins by generating as much attention as possible and narrowing down to potential leads based on that. ThisRead more

    • marketing channels

      Go Beyond Email Marketing with Oracle Eloqua

      By Christina Steiner | Comments are Closed

      Email marketing: all marketers use it. Eloqua’s functionality is built around it. But if you’re only leveraging Eloqua’s email system, you’re missing out. You can get even more from your Oracle Eloqua instance when youRead more

    • common sales and marketing alignment mistakes

      6 Common Sales & Marketing Alignment Mistakes in 2022

      By Christina Steiner | Comments are Closed

      Sales and marketing need to work together, yet they often struggle to play well together. In this blog post, we discuss six common sales and marketing alignment mistakes and potential solutions.

    • marketing automation platform migration

      Leading Financial Services Company Taps 4Thought Marketing for Platform Migration

      By Christina Steiner | Comments are Closed

      When a leading financial services company needed help getting their marketing automation platform migration project back on track, they turned to the team at 4Thought Marketing. In early 2021, their VP of Marketing initiated aRead more

    • customer nurturing

      Back to Basics: Customer Nurturing

      By Christina Steiner | Comments are Closed

      Businesses prioritize finding new leads and new business. The marketing department works overtime to attract interest, sales pushes to close the leads, and both celebrate their success at capturing new business. They then quickly moveRead more

    Recent Posts

    • Account-Based Marketing: The Future of Marketing?
    • Best-in-Class Marketing Automation with Oracle Eloqua
    • Cybernews Interview with 4Thought Marketing CEO Mark LeVell
    • Segmentation for Marketing is Still Relevant: Here’s Why
    • Manipulating Data in Oracle Eloqua Custom Objects

    4Thought Marketing

     4Thought Marketing

    We help Oracle CX Marketing Customers Accelerate Time to Value.

    Manage Your Subscriptions

    Contact Us

    Phone:
    888-ELOQUA4 (888-356-7824)

    Email:
    info@4ThoughtMarketing.com

    en English
    zh-CN Chinese (Simplified)nl Dutchen Englishfr Frenchde Germanit Italianpt Portugueseru Russianes Spanish

    Copyright © 2009-2022 4Thought Marketing. All Rights Reserved | Privacy

    • Home
    • Products
      • 4Comply Privacy Compliance
      • Oracle Eloqua Cloud Apps
      • Visual Segmentation – 4Segments
    • Services
      • Privacy Compliance Consulting
      • Strategic Services Offerings
        • Marketing Automation Plan (MAP)
        • Funnel Framework
        • Nurture Foundation
        • Segmentation Strategy
        • Lead Scoring (Advanced)
        • Data Capture Strategy
        • KPI Reporting & Analytics
        • Campaign Strategy
        • Marketing Automation Strategy – Measure & Improve
      • Campaign Services
      • Eloqua Data Services
        • Eloqua Data Services Overview
        • Data Cleansing
        • Deduplication and Company Matching
      • Eloqua Implementations
        • Eloqua Implementations Overview
        • Eloqua SmartStart Implementation Services
        • Net Promoter Score for Oracle Eloqua
        • Lead Nurturing
      • Eloqua Integration
      • Eloqua Health Check
    • Why 4Thought Marketing?
      • 4Thought Marketing Leadership Team
      • Clients
      • Testimonials
      • Partners
      • Careers at 4Thought Marketing
    • Blog
    • Contact Us
    4Thought Marketing