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Customer project

Connecting Partner
Portals and Marketing Automation
for Automated Communication and Webinar Management

The portals evolve from pure information platforms into integrated communication building blocks. Profile and interest data flow automatically into Marketing Automation, enabling personalised push communication, more efficient webinar processes and a more professional user experience – without duplicate data management.

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Business Activity

This is a large payment service provider offering businesses solutions for cashless payments in brick-and-mortar retail, online and mobile. In the context of its partner and dealer communication, the company operates several portals through which information, services and interactions are made available to different target groups. These include in particular a partner portal for partner communication and a specialist portal serving the connected organisation and its service environment.

“By connecting our portals to the Marketing Automation solution, we were able to interlink communication and user management far more intelligently. Particularly valuable for us is that we can use profile and interest data directly from the portals without giving up control of the user journey. At the same time, by automating our push communication and webinar processes we have noticeably reduced manual effort and significantly increased the scalability of our partner communication.”

Head of Digital Marketing

The Project in Detail

Application

Two portals were connected to a Marketing Automation solution for the company: a partner portal and a specialist portal. In both cases, user and profile data from the portals is automatically transferred to the Marketing Automation platform – both at initial registration and during subsequent profile updates.

In addition, webinar management in the specialist portal was significantly simplified and automated. Using a custom interface, staff can centrally create webinar content and parameters. On this basis, the entergon Hub automatically generates all required Marketing Automation elements of the webinar journey – from registration through reminders to the follow-up.

Starting point

The company operates two portals serving different target groups and use cases – a partner portal as the central platform for partner communication, information provision and target-group-specific content in the DACH region (including country-specific targeting), and a specialist portal in the specialised banking environment of the connected organisation and its service ecosystem.

Before implementation, several challenges existed:

  • User and profile data from the portals were not seamlessly connected to the Marketing Automation solution
  • Changes to master data and interest profiles had to be processed with considerable technical effort or only in a limited way
  • Push communication about new portal content could not be scaled efficiently without integrated automation
  • Webinar communication in the specialist portal had been organised manually up to that point
  • For every webinar, emails such as confirmations, reminders, dial-in details and follow-ups had to be created and coordinated individually
  • High manual effort and dependency on individual team members

It was particularly important that the portal operators wished to retain full control over forms and the user journey within the portals. Marketing Automation forms were not to be embedded via iframes. Instead, data capture was to take place entirely within the portal and be transferred to the Marketing Automation solution via interfaces.

Solution

An integrated solution was implemented to connect both portals to the Marketing Automation platform – in three interconnected building blocks.

1. API-based synchronisation of portal and profile data

  • Transfer of master data and qualification data from the portals to the Marketing Automation solution
  • Automatic creation of profiles upon new portal registration
  • Continuous updating whenever changes are made via “Edit profile”
  • Transmission of interest categories as well
  • No iframe embedding of Marketing Automation forms – data capture takes place entirely within the portal
  • Use of a unique Marketing Automation ID to identify the user

2. Automated push communication from the portals

  • New content / articles are published in the portal
  • Relevant content and tags are transferred to the Marketing Automation solution
  • A mailing is automatically generated there
  • A push email is sent with a link to the relevant portal article
  • Country- and target-group-specific targeting based on portal and interest data (DACH)

3. Automated webinar management in the specialist portal

  • Staff maintain webinar parameters via a custom interface
  • The entergon Hub automatically generates all required Marketing Automation objects (registration, confirmation, reminder, dispatch of dial-in details, follow-up)
  • Only the respective registration link needs to be stored in the portal
  • Registration is processed automatically using the known Marketing Automation ID of the logged-in user
  • Forms in the portal can be pre-filled on the basis of existing data
  • The webinar journey starts without any manual intermediate steps

The result is an integrated portal and communication architecture in which user profiles, interests, push communication and webinar journeys work together automatically – without media breaks and without duplicate data management in the user interaction.

Benefits

The solution delivers clear operational and communication benefits for both the company and the teams involved:

  • Central connection between the portal world and Marketing Automation
  • Automated synchronisation of profile and interest data
  • No duplicate form logic in portal and Marketing Automation
  • Full control over the user journey remains within the portal
  • Personalised and precisely targeted push communication for new content
  • Automated creation of complete mailings when new articles are published
  • Country-specific and interest-based targeting
  • Significantly reduced manual effort in webinar management
  • Standardised, less error-prone webinar journeys
  • Consistent user experience through pre-filled forms and automatic identification
Business Impact

The following improvements can be derived from the integrated setup:

0-0%Less manual effort in webinar management
0-0%Faster push communication for new portal content
0-0%Fewer manual steps in profile creation, profile maintenance and use of interest data
0-0%Lower coordination and error-correction effort
Further benefits
2 to 3 times greater scalability for push and webinar communication with the same team structure
10 to 20 hours saved per month – approx. 120 to 240 hours per year
Higher data quality through clean profile synchronisation and interest tracking
Retention of data sovereignty within the portals without iframe embedding
Strategic Value

The company gains an integrated communication infrastructure in which portals are not merely information platforms but are directly connected to automated, personalised and rule-based communication. This results in more efficient processes, better data quality and a significantly more professional user experience.

The particular strategic value lies in the combination of API synchronisation, automated push communication and fully automated webinar management: two isolated portals become a cohesive digital communication platform that makes partner and specialist communication significantly more scalable.

Business Impact

The following improvements can be derived from the integrated setup:

0-0%Less manual effort in webinar management
0-0%Faster push communication for new portal content
0-0%Fewer manual steps in profile creation, profile maintenance and use of interest data
0-0%Lower coordination and error-correction effort
Further benefits
2 to 3 times greater scalability for push and webinar communication with the same team structure
10 to 20 hours saved per month – approx. 120 to 240 hours per year
Higher data quality through clean profile synchronisation and interest tracking
Retention of data sovereignty within the portals without iframe embedding

Strategic Value

The company gains an integrated communication infrastructure in which portals are not merely information platforms but are directly connected to automated, personalised and rule-based communication. This results in more efficient processes, better data quality and a significantly more professional user experience.

The particular strategic value lies in the combination of API synchronisation, automated push communication and fully automated webinar management: two isolated portals become a cohesive digital communication platform that makes partner and specialist communication significantly more scalable.