First Look – Clario Core

Clario Analytics has been marketing cloud-based analytic solutions since 2008. The company has been going to market with a general purpose analytic platform – Clario Platform, offering predictive analytic model development in the cloud – across multiple verticals. In addition, they leveraged their deep experience in marketing optimization and developed Clario Stream, a marketing optimization engine that is focused on multi-channel retail contact optimization.  Clario has been previously mentioned in these articles: first look on the company and this update focused on Clario Stream.

Predictive analytics is a hot topic in marketing these days. Predicting life time value, churn risk, propensity to buy and more as well as segmentation based on these predictions are the talk of the industry. Yet many companies have not adopted predictive analytics. Mid-sized companies and ancillary parts of larger businesses are especially backward in this. After all, the history of predictive analytics lies in improving risk-based decisions and using predictive analytics for “softer” marketing decisions is sometimes a hard sell, especially given the large investments generally required. This tends to deter all but the largest companies from making the necessary investments to apply predictive analytics in marketing.

One of the ways in which other analytic technologies have expanded into mid-sized companies is by providing analytic applications. These have pre-configured data structures, reports and dashboards based on industry expertise that address a specific business need. For smaller companies with limited analytic skills this approach is perfect as it lets them adopt both technology and best practices together.

Predictive analytics have not been packaged in this way but pre-packaged predictive analytic applications could have a similar effect. They could reduce the cost of adopting predictive analytics, broadening the range of companies that can afford predictive analytics. They could package up industry best practices and expertise, increasing the benefits for those that adopt them and speeding time to value. They could also increase the penetration of predictive analytics by targeting companies that have a problem but don’t yet see how predictive analytics can help by focusing on being a solution to a known problem.

The New Clario Core Applications

Clario has decided to address this gap in the market by making their analytic platform available to a broader range of customers. Some of these customers are clear on the value of predictive analytics and just need a more consumable solution. Some are interested in predictive analytics but don’t know where to start and need industry expertise as well as technology. Some just have a business problem and want a solution.

Clario has created Clario Core, a formalization of Clario’s proven platform with a corresponding set of applications that work with Clario Core. These five add-on applications perform modeling and scoring, reporting and selection functions, on top of Clario Core. Customers can now buy a platform only license for Clario Core and do it themselves or they can purchase one or more of the applications on top of the platform:

• Core Modeling
  This lets users create a wide and deep set of customer attributes suitable for modeling and then use these attributes to build effective predictive analytic models using various techniques. A browser-based environment manages the model-creation workflow.
• Reporting —Three powerful reporting applications deliver meaningful analysis built around critical predictions
• Campaign Reporting
  This shows key performance metrics by customer segment for ongoing campaigns and uses predictive analytics in sophisticated match-back reports to tie revenue back to the right campaign, even where the results come in a different channel from the original campaign.
• Migration Reporting
  Values a company’s customer and prospect base by valuing segments and predicting future value of these customers as they move between segments – from new to established customers for instance.
• Future Value Reporting
  Helps marketing planning by predicting the long-term value of customer segments in part by predicting the value of converting prospects to new customers.
• Core Selection
  Selection is an  operational application for creating and measuring the effectiveness of large numbers of highly targeted customer lists using existing segmentation, customer and channel information and predictive scores from Clario Core Modeling.

All of these are built on Clario Core, the underlying platform allowing marketing organizations to pull together all their raw customer data and integrate it into a single view so that both reports and predictive analytics can be developed against that data.

These Clario Core applications join Clario Stream, Clario’s existing contact optimization engine. Clario Stream works by optimizing marketing contact across channels and over time to ensure that the contacts with each customer deliver maximum value.

Best Practices and Industry Expertise Propels Adoption

Besides building out these applications, Clario has recognized that customers really want to adopt best practices along with their analytics. Clario also provides experienced consulting support to help companies get up and running. These folks are not only focused on software skills but on the business domain skills needed to quickly equip companies with best practice. They have also invested heavily in a complete set of documentation, tutorials, how-to videos and more.

Clario Core is available now and priced via a monthly subscription that depends on the size of your enterprise. Each optional Clario Core Application is available for an initial configuration charge and minimal monthly support fees.

Time for Predictive Analytic Applications

The value of analytic applications has long been clear to the market. Now it’s time for predictive analytics to take center stage. Packaging up analytic technology, best practices and industry domain expertise has decreased time to value and broadened the range of companies that can successfully adopt analytics. Meanwhile high-end Decision Management systems that embed predictive analytics have shown that even for large companies with strong analytic skills it is easier to establish predictive analytics with a solution focus. Clario’s delivery of packaged predictive analytic applications is both a timely and an exciting development.

Don’t forget the Decision Management Technology Map