Commentary

IBM Buys Into Madison Avenue: Tales From A Unica Customer

Wigle-B

Breanna Wigle received a heads-up from her Unica rep early this morning that IBM would acquire the analytics firm. The CRM manager relies on Unica to support marketing automation and campaign management on Military.com, a division of Military Advantage.

When it comes to marketing automation and campaign management, Unica can handle processes, she says, but the Web analytics platform remains a bit new to the process. The company did, however, base the platform on the same principles as traditional database marketing, one of Unica's strengths.

On a call with analysts and media this morning, Craig Hayman, general manager of IBM Industries Solutions Group, made it clear IBM will build out services and solutions that track and analyze campaigns far beyond launch and execution to assist companies determine the return on investment (ROI). He repeatedly used the term "Madison Avenue," referring to companies that support online advertising and marketing campaigns in the ad space.

"It will be interesting to see how IBM goes about this because there are many more conversion touch points in agency solutions, and there's much more heavy lifting to integrate the pieces, but that's really where IBM comes in with additional strength," Wigle says.

Online analytics packages need to support a variety of "touch points," which refers to multiple conversion databases filled with backend data, providing a complete picture across multiple marketing channels such as search engine optimization, paid search, display, rich media, video, and a variety of other ad channels and attribution.

The technology exists. IBM just needs to piece it together. Analytics has become "mission critical" because campaigns need to be "accountable and measureable," Wigle says. "It's also quantifiable, which allows marketers to defend the project in budgeting conversations about the direct ROI. That's the difference for direct response and direct marketing."

So much of marketing has become direct, a conversation, and provable when C-suite execs say "show me the results" and "I'll show you the money."

The Military.com site supports about 10 million members and 5 million unique visitors to the Web site monthly looking for information on career services, educational opportunities, VA benefits resources and other advantages earned through military service. Military Advantage, which owns the site, should remain a key account for Unica, according to Wigle. Monster acquired Military Advantage in 2004.

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