eBay Enterprise has introduced the Commerce Marketing Platform, an enterprise marketing suite that combines many functions of customer relationship management platforms like Marketo and Adobe Marketing Cloud with eBay’s media planning and programmatic buying tools.
The platform combines a new CMS platform, Customer Engagement Engine, with media planning and strategic optimization tools, as well as built-in programmatic media buying with eBay’s demand-side platform (based on FetchBack, which it acquired in 2011). The new platform relies heavily on a strategic partnership with FICO, a big data analytics and software company.
Although there has been much speculation about Adobe or Salesforce adding programmatic media buying to their repertoire, so far that hasn’t materialized. EBay Enterprise hopes its one-two-three combo of CMS plus media planning and programmatic will give it a significant lead in enterprise media management.
The platform combines many of the services already offered by eBay Enterprise, like its DSP, with new software built in partnership with FICO. Marc Fleishhacker, eBay Enterprise’s head of product, said one of the platform’s biggest selling points is its attribution engine, which models campaign effectiveness across channels and determines which ads are relevant at what points of the consumer journey. Based on this analysis, marketers can shift their campaign spend to align with objectives on an ongoing basis, inside the platform.
“Really knowing the the performance of each channel, relative to the others, in the customer journey – we believe that’s table stakes for marketers,” said Fleishhacker. “Adding these media planner capabilities into it is the next level of analytically driven optimization.”
And since marketers can also buy display inventory on desktop and mobile with eBay’s DSP, now called the Display Engine, media plan changes are automatically executed. Similar to independent DSPs, eBay’s buying tool allows marketers to buy media either within eBay’s network of sites or on external exchanges. Programmatic direct is also an option.
FICO, which specializes in data analytics for business and marketing, developed the statistical models and software used by CMP’s Attribution Engine. It also worked on CMP’s customer relationship management product, Customer Engagement Engine, which is similar to Marketo’s Customer Engagement Marketing product or Adobe’s Master Marketing Profile. Using the product, marketers can profile individuals and audiences, and target them with personalized messaging through email and other channels.
Fleishhacker said that one of the platform’s biggest draws will be its extensive audience data gleaned from eBay.com, PayPal and Kijiji. “With the tremendous reach of the eBay assets, we have an inherent advantage, because we know more about customers that are in that commerce purchasing cycle than software companies do — because we’re both a software company and a commerce company,” said Fleishhacker.
