Salesforce didn’t waste much time building out Datorama, the AI-powered analytics platform it acquired in July 2018 that is now part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. On Jan. 23, the CRM giant announced a major update to Datorama, including more connectors to a variety of data sources to give enterprises a more comprehensive view and insights as to how their marketing efforts are faring.
Datorama includes a broad library of marketing APIs and AI-powered connectors that can be used to capture, interpret and classify marketing data (as well as other influential data types like sales, weather or economic information) from hundreds of marketing technology solutions. By connecting all these data sources, marketers gain a unified view they can use to measure, analyze and report on campaign performances.
“Our new Marketing Cloud Connectors will be welcome news to all marketers today who are asking to integrate their paid, owned and organic marketing data into one view –simply and seamlessly,” Jay Wilder, head of product marketing at Datorama, told eWEEK. “We’re able to accelerate innovation in marketing intelligence, measurement and analytics to enable smarter decisions across all Marketing Cloud data and all other marketing data. This is unique in the market.”
Streamlining Access to Data Sources
The move to streamline access to data sources comes at a time when there are nearly 7,000 marketing technology solutions in the field that aren’t always easy to integrate or cross-reference.
“If I was a Marketing Cloud customer, this is what I’d need,” Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, told eWEEK. “Every time we talk to marketers, they all say they have multiple solutions and developed different pieces they need to untangle. It’s a nightmare.”
The new Datorama Marketing Cloud connectors give marketers the ability to import data from Marketing Cloud with a click of a button and see how campaigns are performing next to other significant metrics. Salesforce said it’s also given the new connectors enhanced reporting, insights and analytics. Marketers can use the Marketing Cloud Social Studio connector to see how industry trends, brand health and competitive messaging on social media are impacting overall marketing performance within Datorama, as well as metrics from paid social media, paid media, web analytics, sales data and other marketing or advertising data.
New Developer Features
Also new is a Datorama Developer Portal that lets IT professionals and developers build custom integrations and solutions for unique marketing needs such as new connectors and creative visualization widgets.
“The Developer Portal enables organizations to drive transformation by creating next-generation solutions for their business by combining the strengths of marketing and IT,” said Wilder. “Every marketer today is also asking for speed to connect insight to action across all of their different channels and campaigns, so again this too will be welcome news across the joint customer base.”
Wilder said custom connectors could be developed immediately or take days depending on the size and scope of the project. “We give full documentation and access to the APIs for our customers to use so it’s a one-stop shop for supporting custom development,” he said. “Once custom connectors or visualizations are built, for example, customers can immediately put their solutions to work.”
Among other features, the Developer Portal gives developers the ability to build custom scripts that automate tasks, such as provisioning new users and permissions, updating governance policies and global data connection settings or KPI formulas, and creating personalized workflows to match business processes. In terms of visualization, Datorama now gives marketers more options for viewing how their campaigns are performing and lets them use a range of coding languages to create custom visualizations or widgets within Datorama.
Last summer, Salesforce announced a deal to integrate Google Analytics 360 with Marketing Cloud; a solution that continues to be available to customers.
