After 6 or more years using Marketo, I can say Marketo is starting to dissapoint. Every release is slimmer than the previous, or out of focus.Why I am saying this?Basic missing features that for years are being requested are still missing. In the era of AI you can't even evaluate a date token without calling a webhook.The reporting is outrageous, many promisses but nothing happens, we are still with a 2000 style reporting.Sky... ohh Sky, many years of promises and it is still an useless interface with little or none advantage.We are still dependant on smart lists based on stored data or triggers, not in future inference or likelihood.Still the eternal problem of duplications...I can go on and on ... but Marketo, its time to wake up!

Level 5

Question

Marketo is lagging behind

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
July 15, 2019
18 replies
42051 views

After 6 or more years using Marketo, I can say Marketo is starting to dissapoint. Every release is slimmer than the previous, or out of focus.

Why I am saying this?

Basic missing features that for years are being requested are still missing. In the era of AI you can't even evaluate a date token without calling a webhook.
The reporting is outrageous, many promisses but nothing happens, we are still with a 2000 style reporting.
Sky... ohh Sky, many years of promises and it is still an useless interface with little or none advantage.
We are still dependant on smart lists based on stored data or triggers, not in future inference or likelihood.
Still the eternal problem of duplications...

I can go on and on ... but Marketo, its time to wake up!

Marketo

Raymond_Johnson

Level 3

and to rub a little more salt in that wound even small enhancement are becoming paid add-on's, the enhancements for events in the last release are actual a paid add-on from what support has been telling me.

Chris_Jacko

Level 2

Agreed. How they can justify charging extra for HTTPS landing pages is entirely beyond me.

Sean_Richards

Level 4

Yeah this one really shocked me. When SSL is now free, how can they charge us for it. We provide all our customers SSL for free, in a fully automated way.

Sean Richards

Colby_Dix

Level 4

not to mention that the automatic increase in cost on an annual basis with no actual improvements to the product are a near-constant slap in the face.

even if you try and remove some feature that you added on a la carte, they'll tell you that it breaks your package and you'll end up spending even MORE for LESS. brutal.

ooooh shiny.

KanakoTone

Level 4

I'm curious,,, does anyone feel the quality of tech support deteriorated last few months or so as well? I've been using Marketo and these days they don't respond to me with viable solutions or resolutions within a few days...

Raymond_Johnson

Level 3

I normally have to spend at least 4-day convincing support that the problem I'm having is actually a problem, then another 2-days before it get escalated to someone that can address the problem.

Mikes_Jones

Level 7

Also, I really wish Marketo had a better 301 routing system, so many valuable links I've bookmarked over the years that are now dead, and it's hard to find some of that info again.

And I agree, I don't know what the point of Marketo Sky is? I think it would have been better to release something more complete than trickling it out, though I understand that the Adobe acquisition may have something to do with it.

Marketo needs a makeover big time, but I hope that doesn't come at the expense of usability (like Salesforce Lightning, which is a pain to navigate).

Josh_Hill13

Level 10

Lagging behind compared to what? Like, everyone complains but what would the next gen system look like? Are there competitors you think do this better?
Idea List is long and yes, very few critical User Ideas have launched in years. Sky does cover some of these, but it's a long slog for some reason.
Ideas - post them! They are looking. Sometimes they are easy to fix.
Reporting - what kind of reporting? I'm not disagreeing with your thought, but what would something better look like? Should Marketo do that, or should a third party integration do that?
AI - what do you believe it would do for you? I see a lot of talk at Marketo about AI and other firms promising this, but very few real world examples in B2B. Are your programs sophisticated enough to even use AI? Could you hack influence, inference, or next best asset in other ways? There are a ton of ideas and Marketo has some add ons for this. I'd rather Marketo spend resources in other areas than worry about AI.

Something to consider is that Marketo was originally built for Marketers to make their lives easier. Now we're all MOPS/Tech people who want it to be much more and offer deeper tools.

Diego_Lineros2Author

Level 5

I know some people like you are real advocates, thats fine Josh, and its good to see you back here after a deserved break, but it's also good leave passions behind and think what are you getting for your money. Your answer supports what I said, "very few critical User Ideas have launched in years", "long slog for some reason", "I'm not disagreeing with your thought". But I just want to clarify the "lagging behind..." it's lagging behind itselt and what it used to be 5 or 6 years ago. Are the competitors doing any better? I don't know and perhaps I should start looking into it, but I can tell you that someone will do it if Marketo won't offer better value for money.

Amy_Lepre

Level 6

To add insult to injury, they reneged on the promise of all customers getting ABM for free. Now they are offering it at a "significant cost reduction" instead. Abhorrent business practice.

Josh_Hill13

Level 10

How are we defining Marketo's ABM? The last time I really looked it was essentially a special smart list.

Amy_Lepre

Level 6

I am referring to the paid add-on feature that has existed for a number of years that was then promised to all Marketo customers free of charge at the Adobe Summit. We've never had the feature so I've never used it, so I can't speak to how it works (if it's essentially a special smart list).

Alyssa_Meyer

Level 2

Ever since Adobe acquired Marketo, they've been increasingly difficult to work with. It feels like they are trying harder than ever to squeeze every possible penny out of their customers.

Grant_Booth

Level 9

Our experience has been the opposite, and I think this may simply vary by your CSM and/or their manager. When Marketo was owned by Vista, we felt like our CSM was very aggressive and we were being arbitrarily squeezed, where as our current CSM seems more focused on building a healthy long-term relationship with us. My impression was that while Vista was focused on flipping the company for sales (as venture capital firms tend to do), Adobe is more focused on the long-term health of the product. But acquisitions are chaotic, and it could take years to see the fruits of that.

AnneMarie_C

Adobe Employee

@Diego Lineros‌

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns regarding Marketo. We understand how frustrating it can be to have these concerns, and as a customer-obsessed company, this kind of feedback is critical to continuing to improve and create an exceptional customer experience. Because our service has not met your expectations, we will work with you, and other customers who have provided feedback in this thread, to address these comments directly.

We are currently reviewing issues brought up within this thread and will be responding in more detail. If you have any additional concerns that are not part of this thread, please email me directly at acovelli@adobe.com, and I will either answer your questions or connect you with the right point of contact to ensure we evaluate your feedback as part of this effort.

Our ultimate goal is to provide an exceptional level of customer service and that our product consistently meets or exceeds your expectations.

Best regards,

AnneMarie

Marketo Customer Support

Kevin_Schultz

Level 2

If anyone actually receives a response to their concerns here that actually addresses their concerns to a level of satisfaction - it would be great to know that, so come back and share with us how Marketo solved your problem!

Recently I had one of my many days where Marketo makes me question my sanity and I made a post like this one, got a nice mea culpa comment like this one with a suggestion that we take the conversation to email (out of public view) and the result were a few phone calls where we talked in circles and no real action was taken.

I find it comical that you'd describe Marketo as a "customer-obsessed company" - whatever it is you're obsessed with, it's very surface level.

Justin_Cooperm2

Level 10

Kevin,

I echo the sentiments from AnneMarie. I've been at Marketo for quite some time and can assure you that, during this entire time, the product team has always read and engaged with customers publicly in these forums (like I am right now ). I have personally looked through Oracle, Salesforce, HubSpot (and other) communities and do not see their product leadership engage at the level we do (if at all). I am proud of that and it's what makes Marketo special.

We come to work every morning to make our customers happy and to deliver a fantastic product. We're also not oblivious to the fact that there are times when customers get frustrated. I hear this loud and clear and we all take this feedback very seriously and try to put it into action. Your input matters and it will 100% be read...the more thoughtful you are about it, the better the results will be. Of course, not everything can be done overnight but we gain so much from the invaluable insights of our customers.

Justin