Uploading data into marketing automation systems like Oracle Eloqua can quickly become complicated. As marketers know, there’s far more to the contact list upload process than just clicking a button. Some data might be in the wrong format and need to be converted. Other data might overwrite important information when uploaded and requires creating additional columns for processing. Any and all uploaded data must meet your pre-established standards.

Manually reviewing the data can catch most of these errors. Unfortunately, this is not always a practical solution. Manual review is a time-consuming and error-prone process and requires the attention of a pre-trained professional. Only they can correctly manage pre-validations and pre-processing requirements. If you’re required to import several different files, from different vendors, in different formats and the problem grows exponentially.

You need a solution that automates all of the manual pre-processing and allows people minimal training to successfully upload the data. Fortunately, we have a solution: the Eloqua Upload Wizard.

The Upload Wizard from 4Thought Marketing is my new best friend. It reduced the time required to process new leads from days to minutes and to get them into the hands of sales much faster.

Brinette Holdren, Sr. Marketing Specialist – Operations & Campaign Management, Catalent

What is the Eloqua Upload Wizard? 

The Eloqua Upload Wizard is a custom Eloqua cloud app that allows any trained user to upload contact lists to Eloqua.  Based on your unique requirements, it can be configured to enforce policies and validations before the data goes to the marketing automation system. We have also seen our customers successfully use the Eloqua Upload Wizard in several different ways, including:  

• Reposting validated records to an internal system for tracking before uploading
• Creating templates for future uploads 
• Enforcing custom upload notifications and error reporting 
• Automating uploads through the validation rules and processing via SFTP  
• Allowing internal users to upload data to the marketing automation system without the need for a license for each resource
• Allowing subcontractors or partners to upload data to the marketing automation system without providing access to the system and the data

Eloqua Upload Wizard Dashboard: Tracking your Uploads for Quantity & Quality 

You’ll want to ensure that all the data you upload to your marketing automation system meets your internal quality standards. The Upload Wizard dashboard allows managers to track this and more, including:

• The number of records processed in a given time period
• How many uploads each user has performed
• The number of records rejected, bounced, or updated
• The number of newly added records

Enforcing Privacy Laws in Uploads 

Privacy-conscious companies can also configure the Eloqua Upload Wizard to enforce requirements based on the country and region of the records to be uploaded. For example, for records from the EU, the Upload Wizard can trigger additional validation to ensure the corresponding consent information is included in the upload. Any records that don’t meet these requirements would be marked as an error due to consent issues. This helps to protect your company from accidentally violating a relevant privacy law and potentially incurring a fine.

Save Yourself Some Time

With the Eloqua Upload Wizard, you and your team can enjoy a streamlined upload process, spending significantly less time on manual quality control. Interested in hearing more? Contact us today for more information on our suite of custom-built cloud apps.

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Every marketer knows the value of reaching the right people with the right message – at the right time. As a modern marketer, you also know the downside of sending too much information – or the wrong message at the wrong time, especially when your target audience has moved on to the next stage of their buying cycle.

Eloqua nurture campaigns gently nudge buyers by responding to interests and telling a compelling story about a product or service.  These campaigns are staples of marketing automation platforms,  offering robust solutions for building and managing nurture campaigns.  However, creating robust nurtures comes with complexity, especially when the buyer indicates they’re ready for the next step and they become a marketing qualified lead (MQL). When they reach this stage, you should remove them from the current nurture.  No one wants to continue receiving emails from marketing when they’re already chatting with sales.

Think about your current nurture campaigns: You’ve probably spent a lot of time and energy to make sure you have the right audience for each campaign. You might have a campaign for new contacts – people who are just finding out about your company. You may have several different campaigns, each targeting potential buyers based on the interest they have expressed in one product over another. Being savvy, you also provide a different message for people who are farther down the buying process, maybe they reached out to you via form submits or downloaded specific whitepapers.

Each of these nurture campaigns usually consists of 3 or 4, or maybe 5 different emails – all designed to keep the potential buyer engaged and help guide them on their buying process. There’s a lot at stake to do this well, so how do you make sure your nurture campaign members are kept up to date?

Option 1: Going Old School

Decision Steps for Each Stage in Your Campaign

At each stage of a campaign, you’ll need to check to see if the person still meets the criteria for that campaign. Have they expressed interest in a different product? Have they reached MQL qualification, and are ready for a more direct message? Maybe they made a purchase, so now need customer information instead of prospect messages?

When building your campaigns in Oracle Eloqua, you could insert decision steps before each email to make sure that the right message is getting to the right person at the right time. This means that every single one of these decision boxes needs to be updated whenever you have new exclusion criteria.

If you have 1 or 2 simple nurture campaigns, each consisting of just a few emails, then this approach may be your ideal route.  However, if you have a growing number of nurtures, each with many steps, this method isn’t sustainable.  There is a better solution that uses a cloud app.

Option 2: Remove Contacts Automatically

Use the the Campaign Contact Remover Cloud App

If your nurture program involves multiple campaigns, each consisting of several emails, then maintaining a multitude of decision steps is time-consuming and rife with a chance for error or omissions.

There’s a simpler way to manage and maintain all of the various criteria for one or more campaigns: our easy-to-use Campaign Contact Remover.

With the Campaign Contact Remover app, you can manage all decisions in one program simply by creating a filter with the exclusion criteria. The app then determines which contacts should be removed from one or more of your campaigns.

It’s even easier to do it than to explain it– Get a 10-Day Free Trial and check it out for yourself.

So, there you have it! If your business is just getting into lead nurturing or if you don’t have various campaigns to maintain, then doing manual iterations to update your send lists may work great for you. On the other hand, if you’re moving toward nurturing program scalability and resource efficiency, then this is the right time to save yourself some time with the Campaign Contact Remover App.

Interested in seeing the Campaign Contact Remover app in action? Contact us for a demo.

Contact Feeder is revolutionizing how Oracle Eloqua users manage leads by addressing the crucial need for speed in B2B marketing. The ability to quickly capture, process, and act on leads can be the difference between closing a deal and losing a potential customer. For Oracle Eloqua users seeking to enhance the platform’s capabilities for real-time lead management, Contact Feeder offers a powerful solution.

The Contact Feeder app is a cloud-based solution designed specifically for Oracle Eloqua users. It enhances Eloqua’s capabilities by enabling the continuous and near real-time import of contact data into program canvases. This eliminates the delays associated with standard Eloqua listeners, allowing marketers to act on new leads and updated information with significantly greater speed and agility, directly impacting campaign responsiveness and overall marketing effectiveness.

Enhancing Eloqua to Meet New Challenges

Oracle Eloqua is a powerful marketing automation platform, but its standard feeders have a situation: they typically run only once a day. This delay can hinder rapid lead response and prevent marketers from capitalizing on time-sensitive opportunities.

Introducing the Contact Feeder Cloud App: Real-Time Eloqua Enhancement

The Contact Feeder cloud app addresses this challenge by enabling Eloqua users to feed contacts into program canvases multiple times daily, even at minute-by-minute intervals. This functionality unlocks a new level of agility and responsiveness.

Key Benefits:

• Accelerated Lead Response: Instantly move leads into sales pipelines or nurturing campaigns.
• Event-driven Marketing: Trigger campaigns based on immediate contact actions.
• Enhanced Data Synchronization: Maintain consistent and up-to-date contact data within Eloqua.
• Precise Targeting: Utilize Eloqua’s segmentation and filtering to control which contacts enter program canvases.

Who Benefits Most?

This app is particularly valuable for:

• B2B marketers focused on real-time lead processing.
• Those managing large contact databases.
• Marketers who frequently need to import and update contact data.

Data Security and Compliance:

Data security and compliance are paramount. The ‘Contact Feeder’ app operates within the secure Oracle Eloqua environment, leveraging Oracle’s robust security infrastructure. 4thought Marketing also offers tools like 4Comply, which helps organizations maintain data privacy standards. This includes features for managing consent, handling data subject access requests, and ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. The app adheres to stringent security protocols, including encryption for data in transit and at rest, and regular security audits to mitigate potential vulnerabilities. 4thought marketing understands the importance of protecting sensitive contact information and prioritizes data integrity and confidentiality.

Watch the video below for a quick overview of using the Contact Feeder Cloud App in Eloqua.

Conclusion:

Eloqua users need to capture leads in real-time and turn them into meaningful marketing results. Delays in lead processing can lead to missed opportunities and underperforming campaigns. The Contact Feeder cloud app, combined with the expertise of 4Thought Marketing, empowers Eloqua users to process leads instantly, boost conversions, and run more effective campaigns.

The Contact Feeder Cloud App makes it easy to add contacts from a segment or shared filter into your Eloqua program canvas at any time. To sign up for a free 10-day trial or request a demo, contact us today.

If you need to clean up your Eloqua Custom Data Objects and remove data for specific contacts, the Mass CO Deleter Cloud App from 4Thought Marketing is the perfect solution.

Watch the 1-minute video below and learn how the Mass CO Deleter Cloud App helps you keep your Eloqua system clean.

Learn more about the Mass CO Deleter Cloud App and request a 10-Day Free Trial here.

Need to keep your Eloqua Custom Object records up to date when a field or fields change on the mapped contact record or want to add or update static values to all mapped contact records?  You can with the new Update All COs Eloqua Cloud App from 4Thought Marketing.

Watch the video below for instructions on installing and configuring the app. If you’re interested in a demo or free trial, contact 4Thought Marketing today.

The Contact CO Deleter Cloud App makes removing custom objects mapped to contacts easy using either the program or campaign canvas.

To use the app, drag and drop the cloud action into the campaign canvas and connect it to the appropriate elements. Next, double-click on the Contact CO Deleter cloud action to configure the app. Specify the custom object from which to remove records and the contact email address field. And with that, you’re done. Watch the video below for a quick walkthrough of this process.

Contact us to purchase a license or sign up for a free trial for the Contact CO Deleter Cloud App.

Credit unions earn money in several different ways, but customer loans tend to be their biggest source of revenue. First Tech Federal Credit Union is no exception. And while they continue to see strong growth, they also saw abandoned applications as an opportunity to increase conversions. Here is their story.

The Problem: Incomplete or Abandoned Applications

The problem the team at First Tech faced was not an uncommon one. Consumers regularly start online processes which they later abandon and never complete, and credit unions see this happen especially frequently. As the First Tech team explained, “loan applications require information that applicants may not have readily available, such as two years’ worth of bank statements.” At that moment, the applicant may decide it’s not worth the trouble to hunt for the documents and just abandon the application. Another customer may go looking for the documents they need, but run into delays or just never get around to finishing the process. Neither party stops the application because they changed their minds. Rather, they were simply unprepared.

For the First Tech team, each abandoned loan application was a lost source of income. They needed to allow customers to have enough time to find the information they needed and easily pick back up in the application process.

The Solution: Personalized Reminder Emails & New Evergreen Strategies

Using Oracle Eloqua, the First Tech team developed a series of reminder emails for users with abandoned applications. The first email arrives two days later after the user closes the application, with a gentle reminder and a resume application link generated by a custom Eloqua Cloud App developed by 4Thought Marketing to pick up where they’d left off. A similar email arrives five days later. These emails are designed to ensure the loan is not forgotten forever.

But the team also knew that emails that “look automated” are not likely to be opened. To improve their open rates, First Tech team used Eloqua custom objects to personalize each email. Consumers would no longer receive an email that looked like a robot wrote it. Instead, they would receive a personalized, branded email tailored specifically for the type of loan they had applied for and addressing them directly. Better yet, the emails are signed by “Kyle”, an actual human employee of the credit union working in consumer lending. First Tech’s care and attention to detail makes their reminder emails feel more like notes from a colleague than automated messages from a computer.

The Results: Significant Improvements in Open Rates and Revenue

The results were evident very quickly. Email open rates increased by 8-10% after the campaign launched. More customers returned to finish their incomplete applications. And most importantly, the credit union’s revenue increased along with completed loan applications. A few small changes made all the difference.

First Tech Credit Union’s Success Story

Personalized reminder emails demonstrably improved First Tech’s customer retention and revenue. By taking the time to personalize their customer engagement communications, the credit union made their customers feel more comfortable continuing the loan application process. The result was a win-win situation. The First Tech team could continue to rely on an automated email system to boost customer retention, and the customers could enjoy personalized reminders to pick up where they’d left off in their application.

Eloqua’s remarkable email capabilities are just one of its many features designed to increase customer interest. Want to see what it can do for your company? Get in touch with us today and find out.

You’ve just spent days crafting the perfect marketing email. You’re proud of the content, the design, the personalization, and everything else in this message. You schedule it to send at the correct time and sit back to wait for the results.

But instead of a spike in sales, you see exactly what you didn’t want to see: a spike in email unsubscribe requests.

Why Do Customers Unsubscribe from Marketing Emails?

There are a variety of reasons customers might unsubscribe, but the vast majority are ultimately based on one of these two points:

• They feel they’re receiving too many emails
• They feel the emails they’re receiving aren’t relevant to them

Both reasons stem from a desire for control. Customers want to be able to control how often they receive marketing emails from you, after all, and they also want to control (to an extent) what those emails say. The more successful companies’ invite their customers to choose their topics of interest, and make it quick and convenient on their subscription management page.

Offering Your Customers More Choices

Instead of giving your customers an all-or-nothing choice on communications, encourage them to refine their preferences. Offer choices such as:

• Method of communication: Some customers prefer emails, while others prefer text messages. They’re far more likely to check messages from you when they’re sent via the preferred method of communication.
• Topics: A home chef will appreciate a message about a sale on cooking supplies far more than a message advertising a pair of expensive speakers. Ask your customers what they want to hear about, and then do your best to provide.

Crafting an Appealing Email

To reduce email unsubscribe requests, make sure you send emails that are timely and relevant to the recipient. Look at every part of your current marketing email template. Where can you improve?

• Subject line: This is the first part of your email that a customer sees. Make it engaging and intriguing! An intrigued customer will open your message. You may even be able to put their name in your subject line
• Greeting: A generic “Hi!” won’t cut it here. Instead, address the email recipient by name.. This simple step goes a long way.
• Email body: Make this too short and you risk not getting your point across, but make it too long and you risk a quick “Nope” and trip to the trash bin. Do some experimenting to find the perfect middle ground.

• Message: The customer may not want to make a purchase right now, but if they feel like the email is relevant to them or their lifestyle, they’ll feel happy you thought of them. And happy customers are more likely to continue receiving emails and consider future purchases from you. Once again, Custom Objects can help you personalize the message to each recipient.
• Call to Action (CTA): The CTA is the most important part of your email—from your point of view. For the customer, the CTA guides them to the next logical step as your customer continues their journey.

Conclusion

Customers already receive a staggering number of emails, both solicited and unsolicited, from a variety of sources. Emails from your competitors may be in their inbox too. That’s why it’s so absolutely critical for your emails to stand out, both in appearance and content. Showing your customers that you take the time to appeal to them specifically puts you ahead of any competitors more concerned with sending as many emails as possible.

Ready to start sending personalized messages that get results and reduce email unsubscribe requests? Contact us today to learn how 4Comply and Eloqua can help.

Email marketing is a tried-and-true strategy of the modern business world. But there’s more to it than just sending a generic email to someone’s inbox. Taking the time to personalize emails and offer the recipient something they actually want, instead of a general message, goes a long way. Customers appreciate a touch of familiarity. And with Custom Objects, Eloqua users can increase conversion rates.

What Does It Mean to Personalize Emails?

A personalized email goes beyond greeting the recipient by name. While you can technically stick a person’s name into a generic marketing email and call it a day, a truly engaging message provides the customer with something they would appreciate based on their past behavior. Maybe you could include a limited-time discount on a product they’ve shown interest in, or showcase a product that supplements something they already own. You could even offer a special coupon on their birthday. Whatever you choose, make it meaningful. A truly personalized marketing email will go a long way.

Is It Possible to Personalize Automated Emails?

Short answer: Yes!

Eloqua’s email automation system allows users to personalize emails, but it does require a little extra work. Let’s say you’re designing an email with a follow-up offer related to a previous purchase. First, you’ll need to set up Eloqua to monitor for new purchases. When the customer buys something new, it can trigger a new sequence of events. For example, a program can check the customer’s purchase history for a record of their most recent purchase, check if they own another complimentary product, and then use the CO to Contact Updater Cloud App to update the contact record with the data necessary to personalize an email offer. Eloqua merges this data with information from the customer’s contact record to create a personalized email offer. Finally, the email will be sent off. That’s it! 

How to Avoid Mistakes When Personalizing Emails

We’ve all received at least one marketing email with a clearly failed attempt at personalizing the message. One of these failed emails might open with “Dear FNAME”. In particularly amusing cases, the email automation program might assume the first half of the email address is the recipient’s name, leading to greetings like, “Dear bluediamond334”. Both are huge turnoffs to customers. So how can you avoid making this same mistake yourself in Eloqua?

There are two primary strategies to keep in mind here:

• Collect high-quality data and check your records regularly to scrub garbage data. This way, you won’t send a personalized email to someone who provided you with an obviously fake name like Superman.
• Create a pre-campaign checklist for email marketers to use. Ensure that they know exactly what the email will say and how it will look before sending it off.

Conclusion

Even in a world where we recognize the vast majority of marketing emails are automated, having one addressed specifically to us still feels special. Taking the time to personalize an email goes a long way toward maintaining or improving customer relationships. And with the right tools in Eloqua, it’s easier than ever. Get in touch with us today to learn more about our cloud apps.

 

The Embed CO Records in Email Table Cloud App allows you to easily construct a multi-row table in your emails using data from custom object records. Your finalized table will neatly list the specified data from matching custom object records in an easy-to-read format your customers will appreciate.

It’s easy to use. Watch the 2-Minute Overview