SoftwareOne Automated Global Marketing Reporting with 3X ROI

SoftwareOne manages software licenses and cloud subscriptions for over 65,000 clients in various sectors in over 90 countries. With ambitious growth goals, the company needed to modernize its marketing data infrastructure to track campaign performance better and demonstrate marketing's impact on the business.

This case study shows how Improvado helped SoftwareOne improve its marketing analytics capabilities and achieve significant ROI through automation and centralization.

Manual Excel-based reporting hampered global marketing efforts

SoftwareOne's marketing efforts span over 90 countries, with substantial investments in Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and content syndication. While global marketing associates supervise campaign strategies, local offices each handle 10 to 20 regional marketing campaigns annually. 

At some point, SoftwareOne faced three critical challenges that hindered their marketing effectiveness:

• Manual data handling: Marketing teams spent excessive time importing and exporting data from spreadsheets, creating inefficiencies and collaboration barriers.
• Historical data limitations: Accessing and analyzing past performance data was difficult, preventing trend analysis.
• Attribution gaps: The company couldn't effectively track and associate marketing activities with leads entering their sales funnel.

These issues made it difficult to optimize campaign performance across the company’s global operations or demonstrate marketing's true business impact.

Finding the right solution for global marketing analytics

Before choosing Improvado, SoftwareOne evaluated several alternatives from well-known marketing intelligence platforms. Their selection criteria focused on three key factors:

• Comprehensive data centralization: The ability to streamline data movement from multiple sources across all regions.
• Customizability: Support of unique business requirements and adding new API integrations upon request.
• Robust performance monitoring: Campaign reporting capabilities to drive better marketing ROI.

Matt Meske, Revenue Intelligence Director at SoftwareOne, found that Improvado best matched these requirements.

Marketing data from different regions and channels now flows into a single, accessible location

At implementation, the Improvado platform supported approximately 80% of SoftwareOne's marketing sources out of the box, with the flexibility to add custom connectors for the remainder. When they needed a Marketo connector, Improvado also developed and added it.

The current marketing data setup looks like this:

Transforming marketing with a data-driven approach

After implementing Improvado, SoftwareOne transformed its marketing analytics capabilities:

• Automated reporting: By eliminating manual data entry, SoftwareOne automated its entire marketing data stack, generating reports in minutes instead of hours
• Complete visibility: The company gained valuable insights into ad performance, campaign results, and marketing's direct influence on lead generation
• Real-time dashboards: Teams accessed PowerBI visualizations with up-to-date performance data across all channels
• Global measurement: Marketing impact became measurable across all regions, enabling better resource allocation

Scaling marketing analytics from North America to global operations

When SoftwareOne expanded their marketing analytics from North America to global operations, they needed a data solution that could scale alongside their growth. This expansion required adapting to various regional requirements and integrating diverse data sources.

Improvado collaborated with SoftwareOne throughout this scaling process, providing guidance during security reviews and helping implement consistent data practices across regions. Their flexible approach ensured that SoftwareOne maintained data integrity while expanding into new markets.

Achieving 67% cost savings compared to in-house development

SoftwareOne conducted a detailed cost-benefit analysis when deciding between building their own solution or implementing Improvado. The analysis revealed that Improvado delivered a 3X ROI during the implementation phase compared to in-house development costs.

This calculation factored in several components:

• Developer resources that would have been required to build and maintain custom connectors
• Ongoing engineering costs to keep pace with frequent API changes
• Opportunity cost of delayed implementation

Even beyond the initial setup phase, SoftwareOne continues to see approximately 2X ROI with Improvado's solution.