What Is Dynamics 365 Marketing?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing is an end-to-end marketing solution. It handles everything from email campaign automations to campaign cost and revenue attribution.

This article will explain D365 Marketing’s most important features, main use cases, and how it’s licensed (differently than most other Dynamics 365 apps). It will also cover the limitations of this application, and when you should consider other solutions to fill your needs.

Let’s start with a quick overview table.

 
Note: Marketing is one of the five different Dynamics 365 apps that serve various CRM needs. In some contexts, you may also see those products referred to as “Customer Engagement” or “CE” apps.

Features of Dynamics 365 Marketing

The key features of Dynamics 365 Marketing are all about delivering highly targeted and timely communications and events, retaining and increasing loyalty, and providing cost and revenue attribution.

Customer Journeys is one of the most important features of Dynamics 365 Marketing, providing a drag-and-drop designer for the entire customer lifecycle, including powerful automations. Learn more about Customer Journeys.

Dynamics 365 Marketing also includes:

• Leads, Accounts, and Contacts
• Customer Journeys
• Advanced Segmentation Tools
• Campaign Automations
• Dynamic Nurture Drips
• Online and In-Person Event Management
• Email, Form, Survey, and Landing Page Creator
• SMS and Social Media Integration
• Custom Workflows and Automations
• Interactive Reports and Dashboards
• Automatic Lead Scoring
• Connectors to Third-Party Tools

Dynamics 365’s website, social media, and communications tools ensure a consistent brand experience across all channels. Scoring models surface leads and customers who are more likely to engage or buy, ensuring time is spent on the most likely return. Campaign management offers cost and revenue analysis based on any breakdown and displays them, as well as success rates, on interactive dashboards.

Dynamics 365 Marketing Use Cases

Dynamics 365 Marketing is commonly adopted by companies that have clear marketing-led initiatives which entail a variety of activities: email and phone campaigns, website publishing, event management, and more. These companies have already invested in marketing strategy, planning, and labor, but they struggle with both their employees’ capacity and accurate revenue attribution.

Companies interested in boosting the marketing team’s abilities and capacities while maintaining the current team size will find Dynamics 365 for Marketing particularly fitting. The system allows users to create complex and personalized interaction models that can run without day-to-day oversight, but can also be paused or edited whenever needed.

These companies want proof that their marketing efforts are producing revenue that justifies their investment. They want brand and messaging quality control while maintaining their unique voice. And they need to consolidate disparate marketing tools such as social media and web page analytics into one fully integrated platform.

Pricing

Dynamics 365 Marketing is $1,500/tenant/month USD or $1,920/tenant/month CAD for up to 10,000 contacts.

However, you can get a discounted “attach” license for half that price if your business has at least 10 users licensed to other qualifying Dynamics 365 applications like D365 Sales, Business Central, or Finance & Operations.

 
The Standard and Attach licenses each include 10,000 contacts. Note that everyone to whom you send an email counts as a “contact” for this purpose. Additional contact packs can be purchased based on tiered pricing, as shown in the table below.

 
Based on the contract commitment, the per month price may differ from the price listed above. All pricing is subject to change without notice. Contact Encore for the most current product pricing and available contract options.

Limitations

The main limitation of Dynamics 365 Marketing is that, for smaller or simpler marketing organizations, Dynamics 365 may have more options and features than your team really needs. It is built for companies with medium to large-size marketing departments, a large pool of prospects to market to, and a complex customer lifecycle.

Furthermore, the fact that Dynamics 365 Marketing is highly flexible and configurable means that you’ll get the most out of the system only when it’s tailored to your needs by a skilled Dynamics Partner. D365 Marketing can take many routine tasks off your team’s workload through automation, but only if your Partner takes the time to learn your processes and configures the system to support them.

There are other options in the Dynamics ecosystem that are better suited to smaller marketing teams and simpler deployments. Check out our comparison between Dynamics 365 Marketing and ClickDimensions.

Integrations With Other Apps

Dynamics 365 Marketing shares data with all the other Dynamics 365 CRM applications, because they’re built on top of Microsoft’s Dataverse. This means marketers, salespeople, and customer service agents can each see the full history of your company’s interactions with each customer or prospect. And you can set rules in the system so that, for instance, you don’t send promotional emails to customers who have unresolved cases with your service department.

Dynamics 365 Marketing can also be integrated with your Dynamics ERP solution, connected to Outlook, and used together with Power BI and the rest of the Power Platform.

Your Dynamics Partner can also recommend third-party systems to extend D365 Marketing’s capabilities and reduce the need for customizations.

Implementing D365 Marketing

A successful implementation of Dynamics 365 Marketing requires configuring the interface, automations, and customer journeys to fit your target audience, strategy, and business processes.

Therefore, implementations need a thoughtful approach, to make sure the system is installed in coordination with your other business technologies and your marketing strategy. Working with a partner who has a proven track record in Dynamics implementation and integration is critical to ensure your system launches successfully the first time.

We often include D365 Marketing as part of a second or third step in a Dynamics 365 implementation plan that starts with ERP, Dynamics 365 Sales, and more.

To get specific advice about implementing, configuring, and integrating Microsoft applications for your business, please contact us.

To learn more about related applications or the process of implementing a solution successfully, check out the following:

• Comparison of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Marketing, and Sales
• Comparison of Dynamics 365 Marketing and ClickDimensions
• CRM Implementation FAQ