Oracle BlueKai Data Management Platform: Product Review

Oracle first acquired BlueKai, a top cloud-based data platform for digital marketing campaigns, in 2014, and has since integrated the software with several products in the Oracle data portfolio. Specifically, through integrations with Responsys and Eloqua, Oracle BlueKai Data Management Platform has advanced its automation and granular audience development capabilities to meet the digital advertising needs of major enterprises. 

Learn more about how Oracle BlueKai Data Management Platform works in my comprehensive product review:

A Closer Look at Oracle BlueKai Data Management Platform

• Oracle and the DMP market

• Key features of Oracle BlueKai

• Key benefits of Oracle BlueKai

• Oracle BlueKai use cases

• Pros of Oracle BlueKai

• Cons of Oracle BlueKai

• Oracle BlueKai ratings

• Cost of Oracle BlueKai

• Conclusion

Also read: Top Data Management Trends and Technology

Oracle and the DMP market

As software that manages big data with audience segmentation and a marketing campaign approach, Oracle BlueKai sits solidly between the data management platform (DMP) and marketing analytics markets.

The data management platform market approached $2.15 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $5.65 billion by 2027, according to Maximize Market Research. The marketing analytics software market was valued at $2.83 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand to $7.43 billion by 2027, according to Grand View Research.

BlueKai delivers a complex marketing data management solution that serves users who require mass automation and data analytics for large advertising campaigns. Some of the other vendors that offer software to assist with these kinds of projects include:

• Adobe Advertising Cloud
• Amazon DSP
• Adzooma
• Google Marketing Platform
• theTradeDesk
• Salesforce CDP
• MediaMath
• Marketing 360
• Bonzai

Read next: Data Management Market

Key features of Oracle BlueKai

Oracle BlueKai Data Management Platform merges several different marketing and data management functionalities into one tool with these key features:

• First-party online and offline data ingestion
• User data segmentation
• Audience growth through Oracle Data Marketplace
• Reporting for user profile quality assurance
• Reporting for inventory trends
• Reporting for audience discovery and audience analytics
• Pre- and post-campaign analytics
• Lookalike data modeling
• Taxonomy permissions for data sharing
• Cross-channel and cross-device data integration through Oracle ID Graph
• Integrations with other Oracle data management solutions

Learn more: 5 Ways Brands Underutilize Data Analytics

Key benefits of Oracle BlueKai

Increased knowledge of target audience

Oracle BlueKai improves marketing strategies primarily by helping companies understand their audiences better. It offers extensive audience segmentation and retargeting features, such as pre- and post-campaign analytics and audience suppression reports. A mixture of filters and reporting tools helps users know and granularly target a specific audience.

Streamlined management for third-party marketing data

Oracle helps you integrate third-party data and data hosting platforms into BlueKai. This level of third-party integration is important, especially if you’re working with an external CRM or other department-specific platforms.

Access to Oracle family of data tools

BlueKai integrates with other top data software in the Oracle portfolio, with many of those tools focusing on marketing data management needs. Here are some of the marketing-facing tools by Oracle that I found integrate directly with BlueKai:

• Fusion Marketing
• Eloqua Marketing Automation
• Responsys Campaign Management
• CrowdTwist Loyalty and Engagement
• Unity Customer Data Platform
• Infinity Behavioral Intelligence
• Maxymiser Testing and Optimization

Learn about another Oracle solution: Oracle Relational Database Management System Review

Oracle BlueKai use cases

With its focus on campaign management and audience analytics, Oracle BlueKai is typically used as a supplementary tool for digital marketing and advertising. However, some companies have realized other beneficial use cases for the platform, especially in the areas of people and profile management for recruitment, HR, and client management.

Learn how two different companies used Oracle BlueKai to meet their marketing and demographic data goals:

“We sent interaction details from Oracle Responsys to Oracle BlueKai, where we managed to enrich profile attributes and create special audiences to retarget in various digital channels, such as Facebook and Instagram,” -Alma Ajanovic, deputy marketing director for Lottery Bosnia and Herzegovina, review of Oracle BlueKai

“We made it possible for 70% of the bank’s new clients to have an automated digital onboarding process through Oracle Marketing. This automatic process has brought us real benefits.” -Alejandro Esguerra Escobar, head of digital strategy and data for Banco de Bogotá, review of Oracle BlueKai

Pros of Oracle BlueKai

• Strong user segmentation and audience building: Many users like how BlueKai allows them to closely monitor the full customer life cycle through detailed user segmentation and audience building. They particularly highlight the pre- and post-campaign analytics, which keep campaign work agile.
• Detailed marketing metric predictions: Several customer reviews comment on the in-depth marketing metric predictions offered by this software. For example, the platform drives detailed insights to users on metrics, like cost per thousand (CPM).
• Streamlined user profiles: One of BlueKai’s key capabilities, which many customers praise, is its integration with Oracle ID Graph. Through ID Graph’s support, the software is able to consolidate disparate data sets to create clean and clear user profiles.

Cons of Oracle BlueKai

• Security breach concerns: An unsecured BlueKai database reportedly exposed the personally identifiable information (PII) of “billions” of users in 2020, according to TechCrunch. Some users are especially wary of the BlueKai platform in particular, as they believe the company did not immediately report this incident.
• Weak user interface: Several user reviews comment on BlueKai’s complicated UI and how it negatively affects their team’s abilities to navigate the platform. In particular, reviewers highlight UI problems for the reporting capability.
• Difficulties with the cloud: Some users comment on the difficulties with deploying the cloud version of this platform. They also mention the learning curve for migrating important data into the cloud product.

Learn about top cloud solutions: Cloud Computing Market

Oracle BlueKai ratings

Cost of Oracle BlueKai

Oracle does not list pricing on its website for the BlueKai Data Management Platform. To learn what pricing and feature packages are available, I recommend prospective customers contact the Oracle sales team directly for more information.

Although the price is not listed on their site, several reviewers caution that the product is cost prohibitive for smaller companies, and some assert that it is among the most expensive options in the market.

Conclusion

Oracle is considered a data and database leader, so if you want access to all of their data software when managing marketing automation and audience data analytics, the BlueKai Data Management Platform offers sophisticated data management and growth opportunities, if at an enterprise-level cost.

Read next: Top Data Management Platforms & Software