We often get questions about how to develop the best Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing automation integration. Dynamics is a product that is here to stay, so it is important to identify all the potential dynamics crm marketing automation solutions out there over time as they mature.
In short, and unlike Salesforce (with Pardot) or Oracle (with Eloqua), Microsoft doesn’t really have a go-to marketing automation / email platform to connect with their own CRM product in Dynamics.
So, what are the “native” marketing automation integration options for MS Dynamics CRM?
A “native” marketing automation integration is defined as needing no third-party software to connect any marketing platform to a given CRM (such as Bedrock or Scribesoft).
The following marketing automation platforms do not require a third party for Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration
- Net-Results –
Net-Results is the only marketing automation tool we’ve found that that covers all the integration bases for Dynamics CRM. It is a nearly real-time integration (occurring every 5 minutes or less) that is completely free to setup and maintain. In addition to being real time and free, you can see critical details like webpage viewing history and email history directly from a Dynamics contact record using the Net-Results integration. - Pardot –
Pardot is owned by Salesforce, so we didn’t expect the world from the integration Pardot held with Dynamics CRM. It appears that much of the attention that was made in creating this integration was done before Pardot was owned by Salesforce (now, there’s a shocker). Still, Pardot is a serviceable integration for Dynamics, but we don’t see it as maintaining this position in the long term. - Act-On –
Act-On is a nearly real-time Dynamics CRM integration. That being said, it is void of a few features we think are critical to using the CRM as a marketing mind. The biggest feature missing is the Act-On Activity History view-able within contact records. It is much more difficult to get a holistic view of webpage and email history this way. We give it the edge over Salesfusion simply for ease of use, but we can’t say it is a better integration than Net-Results. - ClickDimensions –
ClickDimensions is perhaps the least-powerful tool capable of being connected to Dynamics. That being said, it is a fully “native” (and free) integration to the platform. At tCognition, we consider ClickDimensions more of an email-only tool instead of full-on a marketing automation engine. That being said, ClickDimensions is the most affordable tool of any platform on this list. - Salesfusion –
Salesfusion touts itself as having the only native marketing automation integration to Dynamics CRM, but we’ve seen this has obviously changed (just look at the other four listings here). What we can say is that Salesfusion is not the best-looking tool aesthetically, but it is the only tool having a fully-real time integration to Dynamics CRM.
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