8 Questions with Emarsys: An Interview with Megan Hostetler

January 9, 2025

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I had the pleasure of sitting down with Megan Hostetler from Emarsys to ask her eight pivotal questions about SAP Emarsys, an industry leading MarTech solution.  Throughout our conversation, Megan shed light on how Emarsys helps B2C and B2B businesses navigate today’s challenging economic climate.

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Q1: What is SAP Emarsys and how does it help a marketer?

SAP Emarsys is an omnichannel customer engagement platform that enables marketers to create and deliver highly personalized marketing campaigns across various channels, including email, SMS, conversational channels, mobile wallet, and social media. SAP Emarsys was built for marketers to easily create, launch and scale AI-powered personalized omnichannel engagements that deliver business outcomes.

Does a marketer need IT involvement to leverage your tool?

Involvement is minimal! The marketer has the power to drive efficiencies and get campaigns out the door faster.

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Q2: Are you just an email provider?

We are much more than an email provider, we are omnichannel. We integrate data from all customer touchpoints to empower marketers to increase revenue and customer loyalty by creating real-time hyper-personalization across channels, allowing marketers to speak to their prospects and clients at relevant times throughout their journey.

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Q3: Are you just for SMB or do you play in other industries?  What verticals do you play in?

Our platform is scalable for small and mid-sized businesses and has functionality designed to meet the rigorous requirements of the enterprise as well. We play in several B2B and B2C industries such as Retail, eCommerce, Consumer Products, Sports & Entertainment, Utilities, Manufacturing, and Construction to name a few.  One of our main objectives, however, is to keep our platform intuitive and easy to use, no matter the size of the business using it.

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Q4: How do you compare to the big enterprise corporations/stacks in the space?  Is there value in having a single platform?

Our ratings on a variety of customer ranking surveys indicate that our users are highly pleased with the extensive functionality and intuitive interface of our platform. Having all your customer data loaded into one platform gives you ease of use and does away with the data silo-ing that keeps customer journeys from being seamless. I believe that the days of having one MarTech brand for your entire stack is in the past.  Today’s marketers buy what is best for their business, not the logo on the proverbial mainframe box.  Our platform natively integrates with the SAP suite, making for a powerful connection between your front office and back-office tools like your ERP. Plus, with our flexible ecosystem, we can integrate with non-SAP tools you use every day like your CDP or Loyalty provider of choice.

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Q5: Many platforms are hard to use for today’s marketer.  How complex is your platform?  What are some examples?

Ease of use is our north star when designing our interface. After all, it doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles a platform has if it’s too complicated to use.  We simplify the marketer’s experience by streamlining the creation of messages by giving users the ability to create content once and use it across multiple channels, making the process faster and more intuitive. Our AI-powered Product Finder also frees up a marketer’s time and easily locates the best products to incorporate in your content.  One of our other differentiators is our Tactics library, pre-built journey and campaign programs that come standard out of the box.  With just a few clicks, your marketing outreach is active!  Our users love this functionality, something that separates us from “the other guys”.

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Q6: What sets you apart from other players in the space?

We have a long history of integrating AI into our platform. We’ve been using predictive AI in our platform for more than a decade. So, for us, the current conversation about AI in marketing isn’t new. We’ve been swimming in these waters for a long time, and our AI capabilities don’t feel “tacked on” the way some others who are newer to the AI space are.

Some of our competitors have a more bloated interface, which can make creating omnichannel personalization a struggle. Overly complex and non-intuitive platforms cause marketer fatigue and make implementation slow and laborious. Some of our competitors still silo data, causing an overreliance on IT.

In contrast, our platform is designed to easily connect your data and channels, giving marketers a single, unified platform with the agility and flexibility you’re looking for. SAP Emarsys offers expert onboarding via trusted certified partners, 24/7 regional support for smooth implementation, and dedicated customer success managers to help you get the most out of the platform and investment.

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Q7: How are you different from a CDP?

I think the better question is when to use a CDP? Often, we speak with marketers who think they need a CDP but in reality they simply aren’t ready for it, nor do they need to it solve their problem of reaching their customers in a more personalized way. Our team of experts and certified partners will help advise on the best solution for you. Emarsys will use the insights collected from your CDP of choice and connect those to make your customer engagement data even richer. Then, Emarsys would be your activation channel to deliver hyper-personalized messages across all channels. Beyond just a CDP, Emarsys can connect your customer engagement data across your CX and operational systems like your ERP, supply chain or BI tools–and it doesn’t take a data analyst to do it.

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Q8: In your opinion, is data the lifeblood of today’s marketing efforts?  How does Emarsys leverage data today?

Data is absolutely a key component of marketing efforts. And it’s also important to focus on how that data is integrated and activated into cohesive, smart, and thoughtful campaigns. Having data from all customer touchpoints and preferences is crucial.  However, focusing on what to do with that data is often overlooked or overwhelming.  That’s where SAP Emarsys excels: giving marketers the power to create powerful experiences that wow customers.

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About Megan

Megan Hostetler is Global Head of Content Marketing at SAP Emarsys and has spent 10+ years in the SaaS industry across the martech and sales enablement tech landscape. With a product marketing background, she understands features and functionality inside and out to help customers realize the full value of their purchase and translate those learnings to content that resonates. Formerly, she hosted The Marketing Cloudcast podcast, where she interviewed hundreds of thought leaders, authors, professors, and digital marketing experts to discuss trends, innovative tactics, and relevant insights in today's marketing landscape.

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