Ditch the Integration Between Dynamics 365 and 3rd Party Marketing Applications
Digital marketers and salespeople understand the importance of having a database with correct and up-to-date information. Sending an email to an invalid inbox or calling a phone that is no longer associated with a prospect can waste valuable time and even hurt your domain sender score in the case of sending to inactive emails.
Traditionally, CRM and marketing applications have stayed separate making it difficult to manage data effectively between systems and teams. Sure, integrations can be built to allow sales and marketing systems to speak to one another, but these integrations are often patched together and sync limited amounts of information. By utilizing and together, all data is stored in the same database meaning no integration is necessary.
Unified Contact Data
The contact entity in Dynamics 365 is accessible and editable from both Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Sales. This means if a salesperson updates a contact’s address in Dynamics 365 Sales, that address change can be seen from the contact record in Dynamics 365 Marketing. Shared data between Sales and Marketing is especially helpful for marketers that need to maintain marketing lists. Typically, marketers will need to export contact lists from their CRM system into whichever marketing application they are using to send emails or other campaigns.
The issue with this process is that unsubscribes, bounces, opens, link clicks, and other analytical data never sync back to their associated contact records in CRM. Having a system that can conduct all digital marketing campaigns while also maintaining contact data for sales and marketing is a game changer.
In Dynamics 365, the contact record stores all consent information related to marketing activities conducted from Dynamics 365 Marketing. When a contact unsubscribes via the subscription center page, the “Email: Do Not Allow” field on the contact record is updated to reflect that they no longer want to receive emails.
Tracking Marketing Insights
Marketing analytics should be used by both marketing and sales teams, but frequently that data is unavailable to salespeople in CRM. Dynamics 365 stores marketing analytics within the Dynamics 365 Marketing app, but also showcases marketing data related to individual contacts right on the contact record. The contact Insights tab of the contact record includes tables for email interactions, website interactions, event interactions, form interactions, and even email open times. Below is an example of the high-level insights breakdown chart included for each contact.
This data is useful to salespeople who need to see how engaged their prospects are with the company. If a salesperson sees that a prospect they have been speaking with opens every email campaign and visits the website once a week, they know that the prospect may be in a good place to convert to a sale. A sales team can also easily implement a lead scoring model in Dynamics 365 Marketing that tracks contact engagement with marketing efforts and assigns scores based on interactions. Learn more about creating lead scoring models in Dynamics 365 Marketing here. For marketers, tracking contact preferences like unsubscribes means they no longer need to tediously check their marketing list before each email send.
Get started with Dynamics 365 Marketing
Not sure where to start with Dynamics 365 Marketing? Our team can work with you to develop a step-by-step implementation plan to get started quickly, but not overwhelm your team. If you have contact data stored in a 3rd party system that you would like to sync with Dynamics 365 contacts, we can build an integration to sync that data and ensure it is clean moving forward.