Oracle Eloqua from a New User Perspective

Eloqua can be quite a beast when it’s your first time navigating the system. I started my Eloqua journey a year ago and wanted to share some of my experiences and tips with you. As a newbie I think this is helpful for other Eloqua beginners.

Oracle provides several resources that dive into the basic as well as the more technical features of Eloqua.

• Topliners is a community based resource where you can ask questions and find answers. You would be surprised how many other users run into the same problems and have similar questions as you. I have also found the user perspective documentation to be very helpful. These user documents are written in a way that a new person can understand them, versus the general how-to guides that are written on a high level. The documentation includes terminology and definitions as well as product documentation from users. Topliners also has details on system updates, news, apps and events.
• The Oracle Marketing Cloud Academy; is another great resource. Here you can sign-up for courses, browse the catalog, find new courses, frequently asked questions and launch the Learning Portal. The courses are detailed and hands on so be prepared to focus and set aside some time to go through this.
• Finally, there is The Oracle Help Center which has documentation and tutorials for users of Oracle Cloud Services. Within the documentation there are also images and screen shots detailing where to find things, along with step-by-step guides. The Oracle Help Center is a great reference when studying for certification exams and problem solving.

While learning Eloqua, I found that exploring the system and applying what you learn from Topliners and the Marketing Cloud Academy is a great way to put into action what you are learning. One way to practice what you have learned is in an Eloqua Sandbox instance. The Sandbox isn’t just for beginners, here you can test different functionalities and features before applying them to a production instance.   If you don’t have access to a Sandbox,  have an experienced user walk you through a production instance.

Eloqua has so many incredible features. Some of them I use more than others. I wanted to share with you what they are.

• One of my favorite features of Eloqua and the one I find has many uses are Custom Data Objects (CDO). A CDO helps maximize the use of forms with contact and account fields by storing custom data. Using a CDO can help you create strong niche segmentation and help sales understand exactly what the contact is looking for from your company.
• Eloqua has many great integrations and Apps that elevate the customer and user experience. The Oracle Marketing Cloud apps integrate various external systems to Eloqua and help to create robust campaigns, dynamic emails, and landing pages. One of the apps I like to use is Email on Acid, in this app you can test emails, landing pages and apply tracking tools. The spam testing feature is especially helpful; you can show clients with their own content how and why their email goes to spam versus right to the inbox. The reporting in the app also includes pattern identification and optimization opportunities.
• Campaign approvals is feature I just started to use and have found to be very helpful. Approvals provide a verification step from different levels of an organization before a campaign is officially activated. This is helpful when building complicated and multi asset campaigns.

Finally, as a new Eloqua user I find the Relationship One podcast (Inspired Marketing Podcast) and blog to be a great place to hear stories and experiences from marketing powerhouses. The podcast  touches on a variety of high level and personal experiences using Eloqua. I like to listen to the podcasts because they not only provide user solutions but it also inspires me to think about new ways to best utilize Eloqua to get better results.

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