When it comes to mobile marketing, should marketers employ platforms specifically designed for those devices or utilize mobile capabilities within larger, multichannel marketing clouds.
The first Magic Quadrant report on mobile marketing platforms by Gartner points out the depth of mobile capabilities in mobile-only offerings. Not only that, it notes the flexibility for a marketer who isn’t necessarily wanting to make such a large commitment to a single vendor. (A complimentary copy of the report is available from one of the selected vendors, Braze. Registration required.)
But on the flips side, even though mobile-only vendors are beginning to add other channels, such as email and internet of Things, the large marketing clouds offer built-in integration of mobile campaigns and data with all the other channels.
In assessing 15 vendors, Gartner places five mobile-only platforms into the top category of Leaders (Braze, Urban Airship, Swrve, Localytics and Leanplum) and only one marketing cloud (IBM).