Oracle adds clouds for analytics, segmentation and loyalty

Oracle is boosting its marketing chops today, launching its first analytics platform and new cloud-based platforms for audience segmentation and loyalty programs.

Oracle Infinity is the first web/app analytics capability for the company. It is designed to unify real-time behavioral and transactional data and allow it to be utilized in its consumer-focused marketing platform Responsys or the B2B-oriented Eloqua, or to pair it with Google Analytics.

Marketing Cloud SVP Shashi Seth told me that Infinity is “a first step for Oracle analytics.” He added that “the long-term goal” for Infinity is to turn the data into customer profiles, but for now it exists as a data lake, where data is stored in its original format for integration with other tools.

As an example, he noted that Infinity’s data can be used to tell a site that a given customer has spent 90 percent of her time on a retailer’s site looking at baby clothes but hasn’t put any into a cart. So the site’s tools would have the data to trigger an offer for a discount on baby clothes before she leaves.

The Responsys and Eloqua marketing automation platforms contain basic audience segmentation tools, but today Oracle is launching CX Audience to boost its game.

The new platform, Seth said, is a complement to those basic capabilities, and it “ups the ante to leverage our Data Cloud for bringing in third-party data,” combined with a brand’s first-party data if needed. The Oracle Data Cloud, he pointed out, is “the world’s largest third-party data marketplace.”

The new ante includes the ability for non-technical users to create more finely defined segments quickly, to predict future results of given segments and to reveal previously unknown sub-segments.

Finally, the new Oracle Loyalty Cloud builds on the company’s previous capabilities, which have mostly been on-premise. New functions include the ability to quickly deploy loyalty programs. Here’s a sample screen:

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About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.