So, as a Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights Journeys customer (formerly known as Dynamics Marketing), you’ll know that you need to transition from the legacy Outbound Marketing side of the platform to the newer ‘Real-time Marketing.’ And you’ll have done your homework and read our super handy guide on how best to approach that transition Transitioning from Outbound Marketing to Real-Time Marketing – Edit
Plus, extra gold stars awarded as you’re here, diligently following the advice we gave in Step 1 of that previous article ‘Get yourself familiar with the similarities and differences between Outbound Marketing and Real-time marketing.’
So, without further ado, here is a handy summary of the key differences between ‘Outbound Marketing’ and ‘Real-Time Marketing’ …
What are the key differences between Outbound Marketing to 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’ | X | • 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 | X | • 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. |
Contact us today if 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.
