Marketing teams expect automation to make them more independent.  A marketer should be able to identify an audience, build a campaign, create a customer journey, make changes, launch it, and understand the results without opening a support ticket every time something changes.  For some organizations using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, the reality can be more complicated.  The issue isn’t that marketers can’t use Dynamics 365 marketing tools. Microsoft has built extensive functionality for segmentation, journeys, personalization, consent management, analytics, and more.  The question is how much technical […]

For years, Microsoft Dynamics 365 customers knew this change was coming.  Now it’s official: Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys’ Outbound Marketing module is gone.  Microsoft began moving away from Outbound Marketing years ago, stopped making it available to new customers, shifted investment toward real-time journeys, and ultimately removed the module from all environments in May 2026.  For marketing teams that built campaigns, journeys, forms, segments, lead scoring models, and other processes around Outbound Marketing, the question is no longer whether they need to adapt.  It’s what they should build around next.  Microsoft’s answer is Customer Insights […]

Text DEMO to learn more.  Reply YES to confirm.  Text EVENT to get the registration link.  Reply 1 for Product A or 2 for Product B.  SMS keywords look simple because, from the customer’s perspective, they are.  Someone sends a word or short response. Something happens.  But what happens next is where SMS keyword campaigns get much more interesting.  Instead of treating a keyword as nothing more than a way to send an automated reply, marketers can use that response as a signal of intent. It can trigger another message, update what you know about the contact, place someone into a relevant audience, or become […]

Organizations invest significant time and resources collecting customer data.  From lead sources and purchase history to product interests and event attendance, today’s CRM systems contain a wealth of information about prospects and customers. Yet many marketing teams only use a small fraction of that data when planning campaigns.  Instead of leveraging CRM data to personalize communications, automate customer journeys, or improve segmentation, they rely on the same email lists and one-size-fits-all messaging they’ve used for years.  The result is missed opportunities.  When marketing automation and CRM data work together, marketers can create more relevant experiences, improve engagement, strengthen relationships, and […]

Growth is a good problem to have.  As your organization grows, your marketing becomes more sophisticated. You’re managing more campaigns, engaging more audiences, coordinating with sales more frequently, and delivering more personalized customer experiences.  At the same time, expectations continue to rise.  Leadership wants better reporting. Sales wants higher-quality leads. Customers expect more relevant communications across more channels. Marketing teams are expected to accomplish all of it with the same resources and tighter deadlines.  For many Salesforce organizations, this is the point where marketing automation begins to feel limiting.  The challenge isn’t Salesforce itself. Salesforce provides a powerful CRM foundation. […]