Eloqua Rookies often look like Homer Simpson using Eloqua in a Nuclear Plant. Here are 10 common Eloqua Rookie Mistakes.
1. Not utilizing any Eloqua training resources
The Rookie Eloqua User who hasn’t undergone any training is going to face more snags when doing very basic tasks in Eloqua. Such users will struggle since they most likely have no marketing automation background. This User will open a lot of support cases and need other people to step in to do their work for them.
How do you solve this challenge?
- Require new Eloqua users to complete training before gaining access to Eloqua.
- Make sure Eloqua Rookies tier 1 and tier 2 supports are identified.
- Topliners.com is a very good resource for Eloqua, have them create an account there.
- Join Eloqua University if they will use Eloqua Hands-on regularly (if you have budget)
- Make your own short training videos or guides to share with your team or company.
2. Not using topliners.com or the community to look up solutions and documentation.
Topliners is a very good place to look up answers and find best practices on Eloqua. Eloqua Documentation in topliners will be helpful when you run into an issue while trying to do something in Eloqua. If you have a Eloqua question you can ask the topliners community. Another resource is the Eloqua Help Center, which is product documentation that is helpful for searching answers to your questions.
3. No Naming Convention used with assets and folder structure
Naming Conventions make assets easier to find and helps when reporting with Eloqua Insight. Without naming convention you will have trouble finding your assets in Eloqua and things will turn into a mess. Make sure all stakeholders in your company are aligned for naming convention and you share the naming convention documentation. If you are an advanced user you can create your own naming convention calculator. Find Naming Convention How-to-Guidelines here
4. Improper planning while trying to execute a campaign
Building a Eloqua Email Campaign can take 10 to 40 hours, or more if you are just starting out in Marketing Automation, which includes a few minor hiccups that you need to iron out. Not allocating enough time and scrambling to push out a campaign will lead to errors.
5. Not testing in sandbox before production
Testing in Sandbox before production will protect you from disasters
If you are going to run a update rule on millions of contact, or make a big change in your Eloqua system, you should first test in sandbox. This way, you can make any mistakes in the test environment instead of production.
6. Using Simple Send Instead of Campaign Canvas
Simple Send is a good tool, but a little too simple as it was just released recently. In Simple Send troubleshooting is also difficult. Using Campaign Canvas is a best practice and you should avoid using Simple Send till this feature gets more fine-tuned.
7. Not using Firefox while using Eloqua
Eloqua works best in Firefox version 30.00+. Avoid using Eloqua with Google Chrome, Safari or other browsers for best user experience. For example, Eloqua pop ups do not work in Google Chrome and old versions of Firefox give random error notices. Read more about Eloqua Certified Browsers here
8. Testing Email Campaigns Before Activating
This will prevent errors in your email campaigns. Mistakes can include broken hyperlinks, sending the wrong email to a segment, typos and much more.
Testing the Campaign, and having your teammate double check is advised when clicking Activate on a Eloqua Campaign unless you are a seasoned veteran. This will save you the grief of having to send out an apology email or damaging your company’s reputation.
9. Only using Eloqua to send emails
Eloqua can do a lot more than send emails – that is why Eloqua is called “Marketing Automation” and is the leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. Yet some companies or people only use their marketing automation tool for sending emails.
Eloqua can do Lead Management, Social Media, CRM, Closed Loop Reporting, Content Marketing, Contact Washing Machine, Landing Pages, Query Strings, advanced multi-channel campaigns and more. To get the most out of Eloqua you need utilize the system to the best of your ability. Only using Eloqua to send emails is “manual marketing” and if you are going to do this there are cheaper alternatives available.
10. Creating Bad Data Quality in Eloqua
Bad Data Quality will make segmenting, targeting and sending personalized content to the prospect very challenging.
“An organization with a strong commitment to data quality can produce nearly 70% more revenue than a company with only average data-quality procedures.”
Sirius Decisions
When Managing data, ask yourself these questions to ensure you are meeting high data quality standards
- Are all marketing automation admins following best practices and do you have documentation about procedures? Is the process systematic?
- Are all important contact fields in prospect database filled out?
- How do I identify incorrect data?
A few ways to improve your Data Quality are
- Use normalized picklists in your Eloqua Form instead of free text fields
- Do not upload offline leads into Eloqua without cleansing or data with missing information
- Build a Contact Washing Machine
- Have systematic processes and documentation share among Eloqua Admins.
Learn more about data management here
What rookie mistakes have you made in the past or see others making now? Which do you fear the most?
