One of my intentions for this blog is to help you find vendors for MPM projects. Let’s jump right in with software providers specializing in MPM systems. There are just a handful of these once you narrow the focus to firms that are:
- primarily software developers rather than consultancies (although all vendors provide some consulting to help you set up and use their products, and a couple of consultancies have slipped into the list below if I think their software can stand on its own)
- dedicated primarily to analyzing marketing results (as opposed to generic reporting systems or broader marketing management systems)
- work across multiple channels (as opposed to a single channel such as Web analytics or paid search management).
My current list is below, in alphabetical order. I plan to update this over time and welcome suggestions for additions. Each vendor is listed with a brief description taken from their Web site. I will post links to detailed reviews of individual vendors as I write them.
DecisionPower
- My take: builds simulations using ‘agent-based modeling’, a specialized approach that is very powerful and efficient. These can be used to create the equivalent of a traditional marketing mix model.
- Company quote: “The cornerstone of DecisionPower™ products and services is agent-based modeling (ABM) technology. ABM gives you the power to simulate real-life consumer behavior in real-world markets — in real time.”
- My review (from 2006)
- My take: provides tools to build and analyze databases of point-of-sale and syndicated data.
- Company quote: “Decisions Made Easy, a global business service of The Nielsen Company, provides software and services for consumer goods manufacturers and retailers focusing on direct data. Clients use our solutions to efficiently extract insight from point-of-sale (POS) and related data, and create actionable information for use across the business.
- My take: analyzes program results based on online consumer surveys. A limited but interesting approach.
- Company quote: “Leading Brands provides a system of continuous marketing measurement that captures the effects of specific marketing tactics as they happen via online consumer surveys. Brand effects are measured according to accepted research methods, analyzed with sales data, and reported when and how you need them (for planning, execution, optimization, and modeling.)”
- My review (May 2008)
- My take: not MPM specialists, they have a flexible technology for cross-system process measurement which was originally for call center performance management.
- Company quote: “MPM takes a self-service approach that allows you to define, drill and analyze in real time, your own dashboards, scorecards, reports and alerts on any moving part of a campaign. What’s even better is MPM allows you to drill down/up/sideways into any data source, anywhere in the enterprise to get the answers you need. ... HardMetrics is the industry’s FIRST and ONLY performance management company to offer a “codeless implementation’. That means your marketing organization can have a production ready system in hours/days and not have to wait weeks/months.”
- My review (June 2008)
Marketing Management Analytics Avista DSS
- My take: they’re really a consultancy with roots in marketing mix models, but they’ve productized their offering in Avista.
- Company quote: “Avista Decision Support Service provides marketers with an easy-to-use toolset that delivers on-demand insights about the effectiveness of marketing efforts. It combines the insights from MMA marketing mix models with the real time analytic power of industry-leading business intelligence to support fact-driven decisions – all drawn from a company’s integrated marketing data.... On-demand analytic tools support “what-if” scenarios, optimization, forecasting, portfolio allocation and media schedule optimization. Avista management dashboards support continuous tracking and diagnosis of marketing performance to help companies generate the maximum return from their marketing investment.”
- My Review (July 2008)
- My take: system combines modeling, planning and comparisons against actuals; can use models developed by the vendor or elsewhere.
- Company quote: “M-Factor provides marketing investment management solutions that keep analysis up to date and reveal choices with the best bottom-line results. Components include: Specialized reports that explain results as they occur; Scenario builder that predicts P&L impact from plan changes at any product and market level; Optimization engine that runs thousands of simulations within business constraints to maximize desired outcomes.”
- My review (June 2008)
- My take: real-time reporting and optimization, online channels only. [4/24/08 - The company tells me they are repositioning to specialize in identifying optimal landing pages for customer segments. Formal launch is expected in the 3rd quarter of 2008.]
- Company quote: “Our proprietary platform captures and processes all useful data in the customer acquisition cycle across every online media channel. Proprietary algorithms then use this response data to generate optimization rules which are applied to campaigns in real-time. Optimization of placement, creative and budget occurs both within a single channel as well as across multiple channels including paid search, contextual search, display and email. This complete solution provides real-time attribute level reporting giving the advertiser unprecedented insight and control of their marketing efforts.”
- My review (June 2008)
SAS Marketing Performance Management
- My take: a comprehensive performance analysis and simulation system; SAS calls it MRM because it has another product called MPM which is more straight reporting.
- Company quote: “MRM automatically links sales and other business results to the marketing investments that drive them....With SAS, it is now possible to continuously plan, measure and optimize the impact of marketing spend on revenue and profitability.”
- My review (May 2008)
- My take: they consolidate media plans and sales results and make the results available with some forecasting and analysis tools. But no marketing mix models here.
- Company quote: “UQube Marketing is comprised of a series of web-based applications that automatically consolidate and interlink all marketing campaign schedules and sales data from any source. Each UQube Marketing application provides Cross Channel Reporting and Dashboards, Forecasting and Analytics, and rules based, version controlled Media Plan Management. Applications can be purchased separately or fully integrated with one another, and with the UQube Call Center Application Suite.”
- My review (from 2005)
- My take: primarily an e-marketing consultancy but offers a powerful system to consolidate and report on marketing data across channels.
- Company quote: “Our Viewmetrix marketing-intelligence tool is an award-winning solution that lets you capture and correlate information from many sources – both online and offline. You can then analyze and present that information so you will make good business decisions now and secure new program resources for the future.”
- My review (June 2008)
- My take: gathers customer-level data from online media and transactions, produces detailed analysis of factors influencing customer behavior.
- Company quote: “Visual IQ is one of the few marketing intelligence solutions capable of normalizing and integrating syndicated data, planning data and actual results from your campaigns - across multiple disparate data sources....[IQ] Reporter provides agencies and marketers the full data capture, integration, basic analysis and accurate reporting you need to make informed decisions and investment. IQ Envoy combines all of the features of Reporter with sophisticated media channel intelligence, customer transaction data, and high definition cookie-level analysis. Intuitive, customizable dashboards present intelligence in the formats most useful to your team. IQ Sage takes customer intelligence to its highest levels through the use of predictive modeling, scenario building, and simulation.”
- My review (April 2008)
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