How Bloomreach Proves Marketing’s Impact with HockeyStack
The team at Bloomreach needed to paint a clearer picture of marketing’s value and use data to validate spend. And they could do this more effectively at Bloomreach if they knew exactly how their experiences led to sales. That's when they decided to bring on HockeyStack.
The Who
Bloomreach offers SaaS solutions for ecommerce brands. Its AI-powered approach uses real-time customer and product data to create personalized marketing strategies that allow companies to boost engagement and sales.
Juraj Horný is the VP of Marketing, EMEA and Growth, at Bloomreach, and Amanda Cole is Bloomreach’s Chief Marketing Officer. Their focus is on attracting and retaining B2B clients.
The Problems
Bloomreach’s marketing team knew when and via what sources audiences turned into customers, but only through the lens of last-touch attribution. They were eager to expand beyond a single attribution model to better understand and track the stories their marketing efforts were telling. Ultimately, they wanted to invest in the right channels for continued growth.
“We had a lot of data — the question was, what to do with it? We were looking for something where we can act upon the data tomorrow, today, or in the future," said Amanda. Where Juraj was also focused on solving the issue at hand, how to optimize spend by channel. "The first piece is that company marketing contribution, and I mean not just how much pipeline was created by marketing, but literally how does this translate into different channels, and also how to optimize the specific channel based on that?”
Amanda also hoped a new analytics partner could paint a clearer picture of marketing’s value. Marketers, she said, “use data to validate the spend.” And they could do this more effectively at Bloomreach if they knew exactly how their experiences led to sales.
Finally, managing multiple contacts in multiple accounts at once required a more detailed and tailored method.
“So we’ve got to understand every single interaction of those 20 contacts, and then somehow report the value of all of the things that we’re doing with those 20 contacts…and then make decisions on how to invest in marketing and tell our CFO that we need a bunch more money. None of the tools [we had at the time] were going to solve that for us."
The Requirements
Bloomreach needed a fuller map of all its marketing efforts and potential consumer base. This meant that their next data tool had to offer:
- A complete view of the customer pipeline and relevant touchpoints from first touch to closed deals
- More segmented data around account contacts and source engagement
- Information on previously hidden channels such as paid social
- An easy-to-follow visualization for anyone on the team to use
Cole sees major potential for AI to remove bottlenecks and tech challenges in analytics so “humans can connect with humans.” For this reason, she was excited by HockeyStack’s AI assistant Odin and other ways the company might help with streamlining processes. Her and Horný’s wishes for the move to HockeyStack included:
- Creating room for ideation, creativity, and strategic thinking
- Automating day-to-day tasks that bog down marketers
- Speeding up and refining software integration
- Personalizing the B2B customer journey on a granular level
- Scaling and optimizing spend
The Alternatives
Before HockeyStack, Juraj and Amanda only had insights into last-touch attribution and conversion data through tools like Align.ly. This can be incredibly limiting for marketing teams as it only shows value at the point of sale, where in fact a lot of value comes from exposure and engagement that led to that point. Without proof that certain channels brought in customers — or could bring in customers in the future — these marketing leaders had a hard time getting internal stakeholder’s buy-in and motivating their teams to keep at it.
HockeyStack also offered hands-on support that Bloomreach lacked in the past. The team is able to check in weekly, and can reach a HockeyStack engineer for last-minute QA or data requests anytime.
“HockeyStack is really, truly invested in the growth of the company — not just that [the] technology works, not just that the data is providing insights.”
The Insights
Amanda said she was shocked by how much HockeyStack’s offering changed the way they approached marketing — when she really only expected it to give her access to more data. Their team now better understands their customers at an account level, as well as at an individual level, so they know how to connect with, engage, and convert various personas.
“We invested in HockeyStack…simply believing that we just needed some data to show the value of marketing. We didn’t actually think it would change how we do marketing. And what we’ve found is the opposite: With the investment from [HockeyStack’s] team, we’ve been able to really, truly understand our customers at an account level — so how many customers are engaging with us, and on what channels, and with what messages — and at an individual level, so that we know based on the persona how we engage and interact and actually convert this persona in this kind of account.”
In addition, the marketing team was able to gather insights for optimizing each of their current channels and measure their success more holistically.
The Results
Paid social was one big sticking point for Amanda and her team because it did not show up in last-touch attribution models they had used previously. Frustrated that she couldn’t see the value of this strategy, she turned to HockeyStack for guidance.
Now, her dashboards provide ample data around paid social activity. This information is immensely useful for Cole to advocate for budget, as well as feel more like her team’s work is making a real impact.
Another result of these expanded insights is a shift toward LinkedIn promotion. “You just see LinkedIn’s logo everywhere on this account view, and it was fascinating,” she said. “Channels like LinkedIn [are] becoming even more important in our strategy,” she added. This was a major win for Juraj, particularly when Amanda noted:
“I had been complaining a little bit about our paid social strategy because we were using last-touch attribution, and paid social was not showing up in last-touch attribution. And Juraj opened an account with you in HockeyStack and said, ‘Look at all of the paid social activity that’s happening at this account before they ever convert.’”
Since they began working with HockeyStack, Cole said, the team is acting smarter as marketers and sales professionals: “You can’t ask for a better partner.” And at the end of the day, truly understanding what is working and making an impact in marketing is the goal.
“We’re able to not just on a converted contact do the tracking but also see what happens before they actually convert as a contact. That has really opened up our teams to feel like what they’re doing is having an impact.”
Learn more about how HockeyStack helps marketing, revenue, and sales teams surface and action insights by playing with the interactive demo or booking a demo with our team.