Salesforce Reaches For Predictive Decisions In Marketing Cloud

Salesforce moves into predictive analytics Thursday, releasing Marketing Cloud Predictive Decisions as part of its cloud offering.

The Marketing Cloud integrates CRM and marketing data with contextual data such as activity from Web browsing or weather data from thunderstorms, using native predictive intelligence decisions to increase conversions and engagement from one application across a variety of channels.   

Room and Board has been working with predictive intelligence to extend the use across its platform using predictive content in emails, according to Gordon Evans, Salesforce VP product marketing.

Making the correct offer to an engaged customer at the perfect time creates the relationship and sale, per Kimberly Ruthenbeck, Room and Board director of Web experience. "That's when most conversions occur, and that's what we're doing with these new capabilities," she said. "We've seen great results. The direct conversion from customers who engage with predictive content and then click to buy within the predictive content module is 150% higher than the site average. And the average order value is 16% higher for web visitors who engage with predictive content versus those that did not."

Predictive means the technology gets better and better over time. The algorithms get better, and predictive influenced revenue keeps growing. Thirty-seven percent of Web visitors who engaged with predictive content have purchased from one of Room and Board's channels, either in-store, or on the Web. And 53% convert offline, per Ruthenbeck.

Room and Board isn't alone. Some 36% of marketers struggle to apply customer insights to improve customer experiences and 42% say they have difficulty analyzing data from all customer interactions, according to the August 2014 commissioned study, Refresh Your Approach to 1:1 Marketing, a study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Some 93% of marketers are investing in analytics tools, but 56% of these tools live outside of Salesforce, so the new features will more closely support marketers, per consulting service Bluewolf. The company publishes a State of Salesforce report annually, which analyzes responses from more than 1,000 users.

The Salesforce Workflow and Automation module plays a major role as a new feature. Marketers add a new item to their Web site. The technology identifies the information and makes the change to the catalog. The Workflow and Automation feature looks for changes in product descriptions when data gets uploaded into a catalog platform. It triggers marketing campaigns using data from all channels. Customer behavioral data is fed automatically into the Marketing Cloud platform, in real-time.

Then there's Predictive Decisions that predicts what content will result in the highest conversion rate offered. Drag and drop predictive content recommendations empower marketers with content modules delivered in real-time across marketing channels, tailoring each message or email to the individual. A retail marketer can now create email campaigns that include the previous items viewed by the customer, but also recommend the most relevant next piece.

Collect Beacon, an updated module, observes consumer behavior and integrates it into the platform to produce real-time updates.  Marketers will have an option to move beyond predictive product recommendations on their Web site, and expand predictive decisions to every piece of content, from white papers to videos.

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