SoftwareOne Scales Marketing Efficiency Using Improvado

Industry:

Software and cloud technology

Location:

Wisconsin, United States

Company size:

5000+

SoftwareOne is a leading global software and cloud solutions provider offering a blend of software licensing, cloud, and technology services to help businesses manage everything in the cloud.

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The Key Takeaways

Improvado supported approximately 80% of the client's marketing stack, making it easier for SoftwareOne to seamlessly centralize their data and streamline their operations.
SoftwareOne estimated Improvado brought a 3x ROI during the implementation period, compared to building the equivalent services in-house.
SoftwareOne was impressed with Improvado's post-sales support, including successful scaling of their operations, addressing security concerns and constant engagement with the client on feature roadmaps and improvements.

Background

SoftwareOne, a global leader in cloud technology solutions, helps manage software licenses and cloud subscriptions for over 65,000 clients across various sectors and industries in over 90 countries. The company strives to further expand its network, attracting more prospects by offering them the most relevant solution at hand and smoothing out the rough edges of the customer journey.

With this goal in mind, SoftwareOne sought a tool to move away from manual time-consuming Excel-based processes towards a centralized marketing data architecture. With the aim of enhancing and automating its marketing reporting and data manipulations, the company needed its marketing teams to easily access historical data, visualize data through PowerBI, and improve marketing campaign tracking and performance.

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The Challenge

SoftwareOne marketing efforts cover more than 90 countries with an annual ad spend of a few hundred thousand. The company invested substantially in running campaigns on Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads, and also content syndication as its main promotion channels. While global marketing associates supervise the campaigns’ go-to-market strategies, local offices each handle 10 to 20 regional marketing campaigns per year. From there comes the need for a more sophisticated approach to handle its marketing data and automate marketing reporting.

Before Improvado, SoftwareOne's marketing teams were grappling with outdated data management methods, heavily reliant on Excel spreadsheets for their marketing data stack. Manually importing and exporting data was not only inefficient but also led to difficulties in accessing historical data and collaborating on the same records.

Another severe issue was discrepancies in tracking and associating marketing activity with leads or opportunities that entered the company’s sales funnel, which potentially obscured the impact of marketing efforts.

SoftwareOne’s Requirements for an Analytics Solution:

Comprehensive data centralization and automation capabilities to streamline the movement and processing of data from multiple sources across all regions.
Scalability and integration capabilities to accommodate the company's global growth and expansion into new regions.
Robust campaign performance monitoring and reporting capabilities to drive better returns on marketing investments.
Customizability to support unique business requirements and data needs, including adaptability to add new sources and API integrations.

The Solution

Before deciding on Improvado, SoftwareOne examined alternative marketing data analytics tools such as Supermetrics, Windsor.ai, and Hevo Data. However, Matt Meske, the marketing analytics manager in charge of the final decision, recognized that Improvado offered the best compatibility with SoftwareOne's needs, especially in terms of its extensive data sources, destinations, and thorough documentation.

Ultimately, the decision to go with Improvado came down to its customizability. At the time of implementation, the Improvado platform supported approximately 80% of SoftwareOne's marketing sources, with Marketo being a notable exception. Improvado offered the opportunity to add new custom data sources based on SoftwareOne's specific needs and wants, which became a significant factor in the final decision-making.

After the contract was signed, SoftwareOne was impressed with the ongoing support from the Improvado team, particularly during the process of scaling its marketing data stacks from handling only North America office operations to global regions. Additionally, Improvado's involvement in the overall roadmap, checkpoints, and customer success management reaffirmed their confidence in their choice.

Special Recognition

Throughout SoftwareOne's experience with Improvado, the outstanding customer support provided played a significant role in the seamless implementation and ongoing management of their marketing data strategy. SoftwareOne's marketing analytics manager highly praised Improvado's customer success manager for staying on top of support tickets and ensuring that Improvado was continuously adapted to fit the needs of SoftwareOne.

Improvado's customer support was key to navigating the various stages of scaling SoftwareOne's marketing data operations, from security reviews to expanding usage to global data. Furthermore, the support team exhibited excellent communication, making sure that new features and improvements were incorporated based on SoftwareOne's specific needs and requirements. This tailored approach to customer support allowed SoftwareOne to build a strong, long-lasting relationship with Improvado, and the results speak for themselves. — Matt Meske, Marketing Analytics Manager at SoftwareOne.

The Result

Benefits Coming from the Improvado Implementation:

Substantial cost savings from buying rather than building marketing analytics solution: SoftwareOne estimated Improvado brought a 3x ROI – during the implementation period, compared to building the equivalent services in-house. SoftwareOne expects ROI to decline, once the initial stage is over, which is still estimated to be 2X ROI. The ROl calculations take into account ongoing services to maintain API and build new connectors.
Automated marketing reporting: By eliminating manual data entry, SoftwareOne has automated its entire marketing data stack to get reports done and ready for analysis within minutes.
Tracking marketing influence: SoftwareOne has gained valuable insights into ad performance, campaign results, and visibility into marketing influence over lead generation.
Smooth and secure global scaling: In expanding its marketing activities, SoftwareOne faced a few challenges on the security side of things, which were promptly addressed with the help of Improvado’s support team.

Is it time for your company to advance its marketing analytics? Time and cost savings, sound decision-making, heightened efficiency and marketing attribution – all this comes with Improvado. Make your marketing teams data-driven and let them deliver exceptional value for your organization and its growth.