Our Cloud Operations Team is currently investigating an incident that is impacting the sending of emails on POD 3. We do not currently have an ETA for resolution, the next update is scheduled for 6:00 PM EDT (UTC -4).

====================================

**Update**

Friday, October 24th, 5:00 pm EDT (UTC -4)

Our cloud operations team was able to resolve this issue as of 5:00 PM EDT (UTC -4) October 24th 2014.

Upon further investigation, the root cause of the incident was found to be the result of an event within the Customer's control authority. We recommend that the Customer work with Oracle Support to remediate the situation and put a long term corrective action in place.

The Recruiting Crisis in Wealth Management

I had the privilege of sitting down over lunch with Bryan Lieungh, VP in charge of new financial advisor recruiting at one of the world's largest and best known wealth management firms, Merrill Lynch, B of A.

We discussed the challenges all wealth management firms face these days around recruitment and onboarding of new financial advisors. Many of the challenges fall under the items my partner, Marilyn Cox, wrote about in her article How to Drive Financial Services Recruitment Results, but a few of the highlights from our conversation were:

• Financial advisors are getting old. The average age of a financial planner is 55 and nearly a third are over 60 (Jeff Opdyke, WSJ, 10/09/07).
• Firms are seeing fewer college students and grads choosing wealth management as a career. Many students and grads are targeting "cool" jobs in tech companies such as Facebook or Google.
• The market crash of '08 is still a recent memory and has soured many college students, grads and other potential prospects on the idea of working in wealth management. Millennials recall how much money their parents lost in the crash of 08 and all of the associated stress with those losses.
• The shrinking talent pool has pushed wealth management firms to find ways to improve recruiting efforts but it’s proving to be an expensive, time consuming process and unfortunately it’s not yielding the desired results.
  
  

So, what can firms do to overcome these challenges?

The solution to the first challenge seems rather obvious. Firms need to redouble their recruiting efforts and they need to jump on this immediately. But what about the challenge of this less-than-ideal perception of a career in wealth management? Wealth management firms need to convince prospective advisors that working in the financial industry can be fun, challenging and cool. No easy task.

Let's quickly address the least likely item to change quickly; company culture. Wealth management firms need to shed the perception of grandpa's place to work. The simplest (yet admittedly least likely to occur quickly) concept would be to lose the suits. Take a look at the daily attire of tech company icons such as Mark Zuckerberg or Evan Spiegel. They do not wear suits and ties. Even Steve Jobs who is held in the minds and hearts of millennials at a nearly deity status was known for his jeans and turtle necks. If wealth management firms want to shed this grandpa's workplace perception, they're going to have to lose, at the very least, the ties. *steps off soap-box*

In addition to the attire changes, to truly compete with these tech companies, firms really need to start acting more like them. Flexible work arrangements and much more fun, comfortable offices would be a great start. I can't tell you how often I've gone into the offices of these companies and thought, wow, this is remarkably like Neo's office building in the first Matrix movie. Very old, very depressing. Not so good for attracting a young, talented workforce who know what offices at google look like thanks to movies like The Interns.

Lastly, wealth management firms need to do a much better job at communicating one of the most compelling reasons to be a financial advisor – no fixed income ceiling. There are very, very few careers in the world that do not have a fixed salary cap. Wealth management advisor is one of those jobs. However, firms have done an abysmal job at communicating this to prospective advisors.

Now, we all realize making these changes at these major firms can be difficult (if not downright impossible if senior leadership isn't all on board) but a far easier task would be to simply work on the perception (even if that perception doesn't quite meet reality) that your firm is the best place anyone could work. How? Yep, you guessed it, marketing!

Firms can leverage today's marketing cloud technologies to build automated campaigns that target perspective advisors through all of the digital channels in which they interact. These campaigns could involve something as simple as drip/nurture email campaigns to display ads on Facebook or even leveraging ATMs on college campuses to deliver key messaging to prospective advisors. Without a huge investment in technologies and personnel, firms can launch these campaigns in a highly focused effort, targeting only the best prospects.

However, just like anything else, these firms have to want to change. For better or worse, over the next decade, the firms who embrace this change will be strong players in the market and the ones who do not will at the very least, struggle. The key characteristic of the successful firms will be those who start treating their recruiting just like their other best practice marketing campaigns.

What challenges are you seeing around recruiting at your firm? What innovative processes or technologies are you leveraging to meet these challenges?

Although we hate creating 1 off email campaigns, the simple email campaign canvas is an awesome addition to Eloqua. Totally unique spin on the traditionally campaign canvas! What's everyone think about the Simple Campaign Wizard?

I see old posts on this, but no resolution.  How can I exclude all of the test form submissions from my Form reports in Insight?

We have forms that are tested hundreds of times before and after launch date so while I set the "start" date for the report in Insight to exclude as much testing as possible there is still testing going on after launch.  We are working with an external consultant on building a filter using our Analyzer license to exclude my company's email domain so at least internal employees testing out forms get excluded, but that only solves part of the problem.

Any tips on how to minimize testing data in form submissions and/or eliminating it from reporting?  Can I manually delete those entries so they don't show up in reporting continually?

Here is my current very manual process:

1) Download form submission data to excel

2) Sort and search for all test data (by email domain, etc)

3) Delete test data to get accurate counts

The manual process needs to happen every time we look at the form submission data though since there is no way to permanently remove these contacts from feeding into the form submission report.  Any help would be much appreciated as currently this inefficient process is taking way too much time.

Laura McLellan, Research Vice President with Gartner, has written extensively on the future impact of customer experience in the C-Suite.  She recently published a fantastic post on “10 Proof Points – Why Customer Experience Is the Next Big Thing”.  But I’ve always struggled with how you measure the customer experience.  How do you measure and monetize the customer experience?  Today I learned.

A lot of effort has been focused on defining the perfect customer experience, but let’s talk about what that imperfect experience looks like.  Like art, or bad art, you know it when you see it and you react when you experience it.

All I wanted to do was activate my new phone.  A simple task, I thought.  My old phone would no longer hold a charge.  I followed the appropriate process and ordered the phone through my company’s self-service system.  I placed the order, received notification of shipment, and 2 days later received my new phone.

It Starts With Confusion and a Little Bit of Patience

In the package was a card from my service provider, providing the website address for phone activation.  I submitted the data for my phone but I continued to receive errors.  I selected the customer service web chat feature. It asked for my account information. Because the account is managed by my company, I was limited in what I could provide and therefore, could not access web chat.  I clicked around some more.  I finally found passage into web chat where I was redirected to the activation page at which I had originated. 

And Then Irritation Begins

I clicked around some more. I made a phone call to customer support and was put through a series of automated commands.  Following the automated instructions, I turned off my new phone, and then turned it back on.  Still nothing.  I returned to that same activation page, again.  This time when I submitted my information I was informed that my phone was now activated.  The problem was it actually wasn’t.  I could neither call nor text from my new phone.  I could access my iCloud data from my new phone, but I had to use my old phone to call. I called the automated customer support line, again, and received the same message I had received on the activation landing page. 

Irritation Evolves Into Exasperation

I called another support number and finally spoke with a human. The human looked at my account and said there must be something wrong with my SIM card and that I would have to visit a local store.  I drove 10 minutes to the store, waited 5 minutes to check into their queue, and then waited another 15 minutes until I was waited on.  Once I spoke with the store representative she looked up my account information and informed me there was nothing wrong with the SIM card.  She explained that because my line was tied to the company’s premiere account, a business representative would have to activate my line.  Apparently store representatives can’t activate business lines.  I asked why this wasn’t mentioned by the web chat assistant or the support representative I spoke with.  The store representative said they work out of different systems.

Finally, Anger Sets In

She called, and left voice messages, with 2 different business representatives.  That was two and half hours ago and I have yet to hear from anyone.

8 hours, 47 web clicks, 1 web chat, 3 support calls, one 10 minute drive, an hour-long store visit, and 2 unanswered voice messages and I still have no resolution.  That is how I measured my customer experience today.

The Solution

Now, I don’t believe in calling out the negative if you can’t provide a suggestion for improvement. So, here’s my suggestion.  I would recommend to my service provider that they invest in unifying their data.  And I recommend they do that now, because studies anticipate a 50X explosion in data growth by 2020.  I’m offered up display ads from my service provider so they’re certainly tracking my Digital Body Language.  When my phone shipped I should have received an email, from the service provider, that was personalized to my business account, which contained content and activation instruction to my business account. 

Companies become so focused on how to bundle services, up-sell, and cross-sell products and solutions yet they neglect the key to business growth.  Satisfaction and loyalty from customers, often developed through the customer experience, will trump creative marketing campaigns any day.  To develop an improved customer experience, companies must integrate systems and get them talking.  They must also implement technology that can leverage that personalized contact and account data.

I’ve never put my fist through a wall, but I came very close today.  From now on, when I’m asked to monetize the customer experience I’ll respond with “however much it costs to repair a hole in the wall”. 

I am wondering if there is a limit in Eloqua 10 to how many Lead Scoring Models you can have.   We are still rolling out Eloqua in our marketing organization, and we have diverse products going to many different markets and I can see needing 15-20 scoring models, and possibly more as we grow.   Can this be maintained in Eloqua?

I've meant to post this story for absolutely ages but never got round to it.

As some of you will know I was away in South East Asia for quite some time.  Anyway I have one Eloqua related story that is totally mental.

I had just driven from Bangkok to Trat, then over from Trat to Koh Chang and up to the port of Bang Bao on my little moped called Barbie.  I got on boat and was taken to small island called Koh Why which whilst stunningly beautiful had no roads (I'd left the moped), no electricty after eleven (petrol generator) and only four people on it.

One girl was English, One guy was Swiss, there was me, English and then finally a girl called Jess from New York who was funnily enough American.

Since there wasn't much to do (or anyone to talk to) we all ended up talking with each other after dinner.  It turned out that Jess is a fellow Eloqua user too!!!

It just goes to show how we all get around, fancy both of use flying half way around the world, to go to a tiny little island off the coast of Cambodia, to then get a speed boat to get taken to an even smaller one and then find out that out of the four people in the whole wide world I could have bumped into - I bump into another Eloquan - Unbelievable.

I am going to attach some pictures of our Island.  When the petrol generators got switched off we all went swimming with the fluorescent plankton in the sea which was mental - no light for miles so these plankton were likes swimming whilst attached to glowsticks!!!

Jess - If you ever come back to Marketing Automation and come across this post say Hi.

Everyone else - If you know a Jess from New York that went off travelling in South East Asia and was in Thailand at the end of April / start of May then let me tell you she was on fine form and having the time of her life.

Currently we have 2 campaigns running when ideally we wish to have one.

In the campaign manager, what element will enable me to send out a email once a segment has been updated?

Example - Were at an event. At the end of day 1 we collate the emails. Upload them to a segment. Later on in the day a 'Thanks for visiting our stall' email is sent out.

On day 2 the same thing happens. We collate the list of emails and wish to upload them to the same segment, but how can Eloqua know to send out that thank you email to only the people were added in the segment on day 2?

Again day 3...day 4....

Thanks

If i make changes to an active segment within a campaign e.g. i add 2000 records to the segment - will these guys get the next email send in my campaign?

====================================

**Update**

Sunday, October 26th, 3:15 pm EDT (UTC -4).

We are still investigating an issue with Cloud Actions and Cloud Decisions.

====================================

**Update**

Sunday, October 26th, 11 am EDT (UTC -4).

The maintenance concluded on schedule. We are currently investigating an issue with Cloud Actions and Cloud Decisions.

====================================

Eloqua Fall '14 Release - Sunday, October 26th, 2014

The Eloqua Fall '14 Release to Pod 3 has been pushed back 1 week. It is now confirmed for Sunday, October 26th, between 5 and 11 am EDT (UTC -4).

Please review the supporting resources available in the Topliners Release Resource Center. This includes Release Notes for both E9 and E10, with information on:

Release Overview

What's New in This Release

Known Issues

Fixed Issues

Technical Notes and Limitations

Supported Environments

Documentation

Troubleshooting and Technical Support

If you're not already an Eloqua Insider, you'll need to request access to that group before you can access the Release Resource Center.

NOTE: Please check out our newproduct documentation site.

While the application may remain accessible during this time, some features such as file and image uploads, program builder and emails will be paused as they are upgraded. There will also be intermittent downtime during this window. You are advised to avoid using the application during this window.

To determine if you are on Pod3:

Log into Eloqua as you normally would.

Look at the browser URL once you are logged in.

Pod3 URL has the following format - secure.p03.eloqua.com...... (note:  03 included in URL)

I don't know about where you live, but it's already tank top weather here in Austin. That means that bathing suit weather is right around the corner, which means plenty of folks will be ramping up their dieting!

Getting ready for some days of Fun in the Sun, I'm curious:
What's your weakness when it comes to dieting? What really makes it hard for you to stay on track?

(Mine is desserts. I've got a ravenous sweet tooth!)

Hello,
Is it possible to capture an activity that a visitor inputs to a form but does not submit it?
This is a similer situation to that a visitor visits a landing page but does not submit a form on the landing page.

I am wondering if we can send an email and create dynamic contents based on the form abandon activity.

Has anyone tried to do this?

Thanks, Ai

I want to run a report on specific contact field values to see what % has x, what's missing etc.

When I go to the "Contact Field Value" report in Eloqua it only shows some contact fields and not all the ones I want.

How do I go about adding the rest of the contact fields?

I just want to say a big "Thanks!" to the Eloqua documentation team.  Finally, one spot where you can access a single document that describes all of Eloqua's functionality!  Eloqua has always had good documentation, but it's also been rather scattered across many small documents.  I appreciate the effort to bring it all together in one spot where users can research any feature.  And having it as an interactive site rather than a set of PDFs should make it easier to keep up to date.  Good work!

http://docs.oracle.com/cloud/latest/marketingcs_gs/OMCAA/index.html

Sincerely,

Andy

Wondering how many topliners know where to go vote up the feature that would make their life simpler.

We have captured of them in an ongoing post

If you could add one feature to Eloqua what would it be?

Hi

I can't figure out how to create a new custom object record with field of date type. When i'm creating a contact i'm passing string in format like this: "2014-09-29T23:57:08Z". But same format doesn't work with custom objects. It just returns "Invalid JSON string". What am i doing wrong?

I am VERY new to Eloqua, and I am trying to implement a form on our external new website, which has not been launched yet. However, our back-end CRM integration configuration is not yet live. We are launching a new website, and I need to get the forms in place regardless.

Using the form's  HTML I understand how to go about finding the HTML and integrating, my question instead pertains to the 'disable' function. From what I understand, if you use HTML, you need to make your final edits before placing the HTML on the webpage, otherwise you'll have to go back and make edits accordingly. Can I setup the processing steps how I'd like them to work, use the 'disable' button in the processing steps (update contacts, update account) until I'm ready to activate these steps and not have to edit the HTML later?

Setup processing steps, disable, place HTML on website, finish CRM integration, enable?

Thanks in advance!

Do you want to increase form conversions with minimal customer effort? Do you wish a single email click-through could act as a form submission? Incorporate blind form submits in Eloqua! Learn how to create blind form submit links directly in your emails to gather Contact data with one click in this instructor-led, 3-hour course.

Eloqua 10: Blind Form Submits is now available in Eloqua University to All Access Education Pass (AAEP) holders. The course provides use cases for when blind form submits are a good solution along with step-by-step guidance to:

• Create a form with hidden fields and processing steps
• Build a blind form submit link
• Add additional processing steps to an existing form to support multiple blind form submit links in a single email

To learn more about this course, read the full abstract.

As the designer of this course, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback about it. Please leave any comments or suggestions below.

Happy training,

Clementina

When planning complex programs or campaigns in Eloqua, before building it out in the Program Builder or Campaign Canvas, how do you map-it-out?