Vendor Profile
TIE Kinetix
Content marketing platform that
supports the syndication of content
to partners for use in channel
demand creation programs
Demand creation functionality
allows suppliers to provide
both inbound and outbound
marketing capabilities for
partners to create leads
Support for ecommerce Web
sites includes dynamic refresh
of product pages that suppliers
can push out to partners
As b-to-b organizations increasingly rely on multiple routes to market –
including channel resellers – to market and sell their offerings, they must
manage the complexity of delivering marketing content for third parties to use.
While regional marketing hubs can be used to deliver programs and content to
both managed partners and unmanaged partners (e.g. those that buy from
distributors), both types of partner often have difficulty locating appropriate
content and customizing it for their demand programs. As a result, they misuse
content or abandon a supplier’s marketing initiatives.
TIE Kinetix, a channel marketing and management (CMM) vendor, addresses
this problem through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that enables
partners to access and customize the content they require to generate leads
for a supplier’s solutions and the partner’s services. The TIE Kinetix platform
includes multiple modules designed to help a supplier create demand and sell
online through channel partners, manage the exchange between supplier and
partners of content and report on results.
Sanoma
TIE Kinetix offers three pricing options: Self-Service, Professional and Enterprise. The Self-Service option has no setup fee and costs $750 per month;
the Professional version requires a $5,000 setup fee, used to customize
partner content or create microsites, and costs $1,750 per month; and the
Enterprise version requires a $10,000 setup fee and costs $2,500 per month.
While all three versions offer automatic partner enrollment and varying
degrees of content syndication capabilities and reporting, the Professional
version supports lead generation reporting, enrollment support (including
two webcasts for partners) and customized email templates. The Enterprise
version includes extended support for inbound marketing tactics (e.g. payper-click, social syndication), expanded language support, a more robust
partner showcase and advanced analytics dashboards. All three versions allow
syndication of an unlimited amount of content and updates to an unlimited
number of partners.
Unify
Functionality
Vendor at a Glance: TIE Kinetix
Contact Information
24 New England Executive Park
Burlington, MA 01805
(800) 624-6354
[email protected]
www.tiekinetix.com
Client Roster
Avaya
Infor
Motorola
The Hartford
Operations
Revenue: $25MM-$100MM
Employees: 165
Global Presence: Asia-Pacific, EMEA
Key Industries Served: Financial Services,
High Technology, Publishing,
Telecommunications
© SiriusDecisions. All Rights Protected and Reserved.
The presence of functionality is a dimension that SiriusDecisions uses to
evaluate a vendor’s offerings; in addition, vendors must demonstrate the
functionality is capable, and have a vision for continuous improvement.
Our analysis of TIE Kinetix around these components follows:
• Features. The TIE Kinetix platform supports inbound marketing tactics such
as pay-per-click, banner advertising and social media syndication, as well as
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Vendor Profile
outbound email marketing to lists or nurture streams. Using social syndication, a supplier can tag specific content assets to match partner preferences –
e.g. by product or content type (white paper, webcast, blog, etc.) – and create
landing pages and microsites that a partner’s prospects can visit by clicking
from Twitter feeds and other social media links. Promotion syndication helps
suppliers create branded partner banner ads linked to microsites that can be
used for a specific product launch or promotion. As prospects follow these
links, the lead generation module creates leads by providing a form that
prospects must fill out before accessing any gated content. Intranet syndication allows suppliers to support partner sales forces by providing regular
updates to sales content located within the partner’s intranet, ensuring that
supplier product or marketing content is kept up to date. The platform also
supports ecommerce Web sites with inline syndication, which allows suppliers
to push assets to online retailers, providing product information directly to
their product pages; this content can be delivered based on SKUs or keywords. As customers add products to their shopping carts from a retailer’s
site, the upsell syndication module can create upsell and cross-sell opportunities by tracking what’s in the cart and later offering banner ads and links to
additional products they may be interested in. Deep linking provides nested
links that tie specific content assets to relevant offerings (e.g. prospects can
learn about one solution, then click on the content and be led to another
related product or service offered by the partner). As the supplier creates and
distributes content to partners, this module also embeds tracking codes that
can be used for reporting. It also allows for XML Web-based updates, which
can be used to dynamically update partner microsites and push content out
using the responsive design module to mobile devices. The reporting and
analytics module supports four levels of reporting: real-time content analytics, which tracks how content (e.g. video product overviews) is utilized by
customers; Web reports, which provide data on the completeness of partner
profiles, page views, clickthrough rates and how much time prospects spend
on partner microsites; when reporting is combined with intranet syndication,
suppliers can provide partners with a custom reporting dashboard via their
intranets. TIE Kinetix also provides mobile reporting, which extends these
capabilities to iPhone and Android devices; and monthly executive reports,
which provide data on campaign effectiveness, partner adoption and enrollment, and stack rankings, including metrics on top-selling SKUs, most active
partners, regional performance, as well as insight into which content is most
effective across partner types.
• User experience. The TIE Kinetix solution can be integrated with a supplier’s
partner portal via single sign-on, and can utilize either the platform’s built-in
content management system or assets directly from a supplier’s (or a
partner’s) digital asset management or other back-office systems where
content is stored. Enrollment is a quick process for a partner and requires
little marketing knowledge. The enrollment portal provides a one-stop site
where partners can learn everything they need to know about a supplier’s
content syndication program or other modules they can employ to create
marketing programs for their company. Generally, suppliers do not need IT
© SiriusDecisions. All Rights Protected and Reserved.
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Vendor Profile
resources to implement the platform, as the process is automated and relies
on a single line of embedded code to activate a partner. As long as that line of
code remains on the supplier’s Web site, the partner will continue to receive
content syndicated by the supplier. Suppliers may allow a partner to review
content before it is added to branded pages and to choose among various
presentation options to tailor the look and feel of the information. With
relatively little involvement on the part of the reseller, the TIE Kinetix
ecommerce platform also can be used to update content within a reseller’s
digital storefront or product placement pages for channel partners that sell
online; as prospects interact with this content, the platform provides reports
that indicates how the content is being viewed or utilized by Web site visitors.
Essential Elements
As important as features and functionality is a vendor’s ability to deliver and
implement its solutions. Our analysis of TIE Kinetix along this dimension that
we call “essential elements” is as follows:
• Deployment. Because TIE Kinetix’s platform is a SaaS application, suppliers
can implement the system quickly. The platform automates many of the
steps necessary to activate partners, facilitating implementation across a
large number of channel resellers. The platform integrates with several
enterprise resource planning systems (SAP, Microsoft Dynamics) and sales
force automation systems (Salesforce.com) as well as existing storefronts
and mobile devices through application programming interfaces. TIE Kinetix
also can be linked to a supplier’s own content management system so that
content assets already stored there can be syndicated directly to partners.
These integration options are not included in standard pricing options but
are available for an additional cost.
• Enablement. TIE Kinetix offers training in the form of electronic documentation, written manuals, interactive videos and regularly scheduled webinars.
This training is provided at no additional cost if the supplier opts for one of
the higher-end packages. The vendor offers 24x7 multi-language support for
suppliers with partner networks that extend across multiple time zones and
global regions. Best practices supported by the solution include white-label
storefronts, self-service capabilities and reporting on closed-loop metrics.
Vendor Strength
The more established, ambitious and viable the vendor, the greater its ability
to support its customers and develop its offerings into more advanced states.
Our analysis of TIE Kinetix assesses two components of vendor strength –
vision and viability – as follows:
• Vision. TIE Kinetix’s product roadmap includes continued development in
the area of partner usability, including additional self-service capabilities to
support unmanaged partners. Planned features will reduce the time and
effort required to enroll and activate partners on the system. The vendor
also plans support for persona-based marketing, which will syndicate
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Vendor Profile
end-user persona-based content to partners, and plans expanded functionality to support original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and white-label
partnerships where multiple suppliers jointly market to each others’ channel
resellers.
• Viability. TIE Kinetix is a publicly traded company founded in 1987. It maintains offices in the Netherlands (where it is headquartered), the United States,
France, Australia, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The company has been profitable since it was founded. Flagship clients
include global technology vendors as well as small IT, insurance, publishing
and telecom companies.
The Sirius Decision
TIE Kinetix is one of several channel marketing and management (CMM)
vendors (others include Zift Solutions and Averetek) that offer a broad set
of inbound and outbound digital marketing capabilities in one platform. TIE
Kinetix differentiates itself by focusing on content-driven demand creation,
especially the dynamic updating and delivery of content aligned to multiple
types of partners with varying capabilities. While distributors can use the
platform to promote supplier products to sub-resellers from their Web sites,
ecommerce sites and value-added resellers also can use the content to become
more effective on their own sites or when marketing directly to their prospects.
As with any CMM platform, suppliers still need to guide partners through the
use of this solution in order to leverage its full set of capabilities.
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permission from SiriusDecisions, Inc.
SiriusDecisions is the leading global B2B research and advisory firm. We deliver the actionable intelligence,
transformative frameworks and expert guidance that equip executives to modernize and elevate sales, marketing
and product performance. SiriusDecisions is based in Wilton, CT with offices in London, Montreal, San Francisco and
Waltham, MA.
187 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897
203.665.4000 fax 203.563.9260
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