As a Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights – Journeys customer (formerly known as Dynamics Marketing), you’ll already know that you need to transition from the legacy outbound marketing side of the platform to the newer ‘real-time marketing.’
Plus, if you’ve done your homework, you’ll have of course already read our super handy guide on how best to approach that transition.
And you get extra gold stars because here you are, diligently following the advice we gave previously to get yourself familiar with the similarities and differences between outbound marketing and real-time marketing.
So, without further ado, read on for our handy summary of the key differences between outbound marketing and real-time marketing…
What are the Key Differences Between Outbound Marketing and Real-Time Marketing?
From scale and targeting ability through to segmentation and personalisation, we’ve put together the following tables to explain the key similarities and differences between outbound marketing and real-time marketing.
| Outbound Marketing | Real – time Marketing | |
| Scale* | • 10 million email interactions only per month. • 1,000 live segments per organisation (incl. system generated), 10,000 segment limit. • 1 million CI – Data profiles in a segment used in a journey. • 1,000 dynamic attributes used in an email personalisation with 1 entity relationship (for example, contact.account, contact.events) | • 300 million interactions across email, text and push per month. • No limit on the volume of segments. • 10 million CI – Data profiles in a segment used in a journey. • 100 dynamic attributes used in a single message with 1:1 = up to 6 levels. |
| Targeting | • Contacts | • Contacts • Leads • Customer Insights – Data unified profiles |
| Out of the box channels | • Email | • Email • SMS / Text • Push |
| Journeys | • Segment-based swim lanes. | • Segment or Trigger based, multi-branching journeys. • Journey reminders can be used to perform follow up actions depending on if your communication is interacted with within a specific timeframe i.e. student application has not been received. |
| Communications instigated in ‘real-time’ | • N/A | • Suite of out of the box Triggers (can be based on either interaction or Dataverse i.e. database change). • Ability to create Custom Triggers. • Can use Triggers mid-journeys to branch or take an action. |
| Segmentation | • Static or dynamic-based segments. • Dynamic segments operate on a scheduled refresh rate. | • Static or dynamic based segments. • Dynamic segments operate on a scheduled refresh rate – but more frequent than Outbound. • Can use segments created within Outbound Marketing. • Using Copilot Query Assist to help build segments using natural language and suggestions to reduce the reliance on your knowledge of the complex data landscape and structures. • Sync the tables you need access to within your segments without the need for an administrator. |
| Personalisation and Dynamic Content | • Dynamic text. • Code-based personalisation based on a 1 entity/table relationship. | • Dynamic text. • No code personalisation. • Conditional content. • Easy preview of conditional content and personalisation to see who will receive each variant of the content. • Based on information contained further away from the core tables i.e. multiple “hops” away. |
| Consent | • Contact-based i.e. consent is captured per contact. • Subscription lists. | • Contact Point-Based i.e. the consent is captured per email address or per mobile phone number. • Opt-in to different Topics to manage differing communication preferences, e.g. newsletters, communications on events or product offers. Topic preferences can be used within Segments to start or branch a journey and also within the email settings to determine what content an individual should receive. • Can create multiple, brand-specific preference centres. |
| AI | • N/A | • AI powered channel optimisation, i.e. based on a combination of consents and past interactions, optimise the selection of the right channel for delivery of the message to achieve the journey outcome. • Use AI to generate content ideas based on the right tone of voice. • Segment Copilot Query Assist (see Segmentation section). |
| Forms & Landing Pages | • Separate Marketing forms and Marketing pages (i.e. landing pages) using what used to be called Portals. • Separate configuration needed to add fields/attributes to forms. | • Improved forms creation user interface. • Power Pages (new name for Portals) can be used to host landing pages. • Entity/table fields or attributes available without additional configuration needed. |
| Events | • Event planning for live in-person and virtual events. | • Event planning for live in-person and virtual events. |
| Additional Useful Features | • Lead Scoring. • Social posting. • A/B creative testing. | • Enhanced lead scoring and qualification. • Journey A/B testing. • Create versions of journeys to track changes. • Set goals for journeys to measure performance. • Set milestone for journeys and measure them over time with both rules and AI-based attribution models. • Send a single communication now without having to build a journey (the system automatically takes care of that for you). • Automated UTM tagging. • Frequency Capping to limit the volume of communications sent to an individual per channel to mitigate contact fatigue and ultimately unsubscribes. • Save a copy of the email sent to the timeline to reference in the future if needed. • Create multiple brand profiles to manage assets for organisations managing multiple brand activities in one platform. • Select up to 5 specified recipients to dynamically include into the email communications within your journeys to share with your stakeholders. • Customise the journey designer to show your users what they need to see. • And much more coming on the roadmap! |
| Wider Microsoft Stack Operations | • Natively works with Dynamics Sales and/or Customer Service (no integration required). • Share Segments from Customer Insights – Data for use within Journeys. • Shared interaction timeline in Dynamics Sales and/or Customer services. | • Natively works with Dynamics Sales and/or Customer Service (no integration required). • Natively works with Customer Insights – Data i.e. a powerful Customer Data Platform (CDP) for achieving Single Customer View (SCV). • Shared interaction timeline in Dynamics Sales and/or Customer services. • Power Automate integration to enhance automations and connectivity across the Microsoft stack. |
Need additional advice on transitioning from outbound to real-time marketing?
So, there you have it! Hopefully the information above is a good starting point as you begin your transition from outbound to real-time marketing – and if you need any additional help and advice on anything from Dynamics to attribution in marketing, our expert team are here to help.
Here at Edit, part of the Salocin Group, we are experts in Microsoft Dynamics – which means there’s no-one better placed to help you on your journey from outbound marketing to real-time marketing.
Whether you need any help in migrating or if you’d like to find out more about Dynamics Customer Insights – Journeys and what it can do, look no further. Contact us today.
