Aprimo Adds Support for Third-Party Data Sources to Marketing Automation Platform
- Published in Data Management
Aprimo reported new data-integration capabilities for Aprimo Relationship Manager (ARM), the company's suite of marketing automation tools designed to create and manage multi-channel marketing campaigns.
The new feature, called Extended Data Source (xDS), will be integrated with existing campaign management and analytics capabilities built into the ARM platform. Marketers can use xDS to pull information from third-party databases – including data from service desks, inbound and outbound call centers, and transactional systems – into a Teradata database that serves as a central data-storage repository. A marketing organization can then use this integrated data within new or existing ARM marketing campaigns.
Data Integration Poses Marketing Challenges
For many enterprises, data integration issues can limit their ability to create these types of integrated campaigns. According to a recent Gleanster survey of more than 300 companies, 79% said that achieving acceptable data quality was a major challenge to their marketing automation efforts – and pulling in data from third-party sources can be costly when it involves custom IT work.
Gonzalo Hidalgo, Aprimo Vice President of Product Strategy, illustrated this point in a company press release. “Let’s say marketing wants to include information from the call center in event-based upsell campaigns,” he said. “In the past they would have had to work through IT to obtain this data and integrate it.”
"With xDS," he added, "they can now import, access and analyze the data and decide how to segment the campaign at the click of a button, saving time and ultimately making the campaign more nimble and successful.”
According to Aprimo, the xDS solution will emphasize its ability to let marketers integrate multiple data streams into their campaigns without calling upon their IT departments. Once the user integrates a new data asset, they can then add to, copy, modify or reuse the data in future campaigns.
Aprimo was acquired by Teradata in 2010. The ARM solution is designed for firms that currently use or plan to adopt the Teradata data warehousing platform.
The company officially unveiled the xDS enhancement at this week's Aprimo 2012 Marketing Summit in Las Vegas.