Customer Insights Journeys or D365 Marketing? All Change

Customer Insights Journeys or D365 Marketing? All Change

*** NOTE: ALL INFORMATION IS ACCURATE AT DATE OF PUBLISHING ***

Last week was a bit of a mind bend. Changes all over the place, and I’ve taken a bit of time to let things marinate, and put together my thoughts on an announcement from Microsoft that changes things for their marketing offering. I don’t have all the answers, but I think it’s important to share my thoughts on exactly what is going on with a change from D365 Marketing to Customer Insights Journeys. That’s a big deal! So what does it actually mean? Below is my interpretation based on what Microsoft has published to date. If info changes or is expanded upon, I will update the post to reflect that. For now, read on for what these changes might mean for you.

NAME CHANGE

We know Microsoft loves a good name change, and this is the first thing to be aware of.  Their recent announcement explained that Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing are coming together. The name of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights will be kept, but it will be split in to two apps:

• Customer Insights – Data (currently known as Dynamics 365 Customer Insights) that empowers you to effectively build a unified, real time 360-degree profile of your customers
• Customer Insights – Journeys (currently known as Dynamics 365 Marketing)

More on this change can be found here: Transition to real-time marketing and transform your Customer Experience

NO MORE OUTBOUND MARKETING

So, this part isn’t entirely true, and I don’t want you to panic, but I do want you to reconsider the urgency and timeline at which you move over to using Realtime Marketing only. From the link below from Microsoft – on September 1, 2023, Dynamics 365 Marketing will transition to focus on real-time marketing features only. 

New customers will install an app that only contains real-time marketing features. Although outbound marketing features will continue to be supported for existing users, outbound marketing features will receive no future updates.

Move from outbound to real-time marketing

From an FAQ page, Microsoft have stated the following: Over the next year, we invite all customers to fully transition from outbound to real-time marketing. Real-time marketing has already surpassed traditional outbound marketing in functionality, effectiveness, usability testing results, satisfaction surveys, and our innovations and upcoming AI features are exclusively focused on real-time marketing.

Real-time marketing transition FAQs

PRICING CHANGES

Guessing the next question you have is what about pricing? I don’t sell licenses to you so can’t comment on what your exact changes and cost impact would be, but the link below refers directly to how the new Dynamics 365 Customer Insights will be licensed. I would strongly suggest planning ahead and contacting the partner you purchase your licenses from. From that article, a key part that you fall in to is that existing, standalone Dynamics 365 Marketing and/or Customers Insights customers will have an opportunity to renew their existing licensing for one contractual cycle before transitioning to the new Customer Insights combined licensing. This renewal, however, must be contracted before September 1, 2024. 

After GA on September 1, 2023, existing customers will have two options:

1. They can choose to remain and renew on the standalone licensing model for another contractual cycle. This renewal must be made during the transitional offer window that will run through September 1, 2024, with a final contract maturity date that can’t extend beyond September 1, 2027. At the end of the renewed contractual period, customers will then need to transition to the new Customer Insights licensing.
2. Existing customers can choose to true down their existing contract on the old standalone licensing model and step-up to the new Dynamics 365 Customer Insights pricing model on their contractual anniversary and renewal date.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights FAQs

HOW DO YOU PLAN TO MOVE TO REALTIME?

For me, this is the easiest part about the whole thing! It’s not that difficult to make the move, you just need to make sure a few things are in place before you get going. Compliance is one of the biggest parts of this as it’s handled differently in Realtime Marketing compared with Outbound Marketing. I’ve already written these three blogs to help you get started with this:

I’ve shared information about Realtime Marketing for some time including creating Emails, Segments, Journeys and Forms. I will continue to blog about Realtime Marketing… and also will still likely call it D365 Marketing for a long time to come.

Bottom line, don’t panic. Just start planning your move gradually to Realtime. It’s going to be fine.

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