What was announced?
Microsoft has formally announced that Outbound Marketing, Social Posting and LinkedIn Lead Generation will no longer be available and will be permanently removed from Customer Insights. Current users of Social and LinkedIn Lead Generation will lose access on December 2, 2024, and the Outbound Marketing module will be terminated for all users on June 30th, 2025.
What this means for customers licensed with
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
Outbound Marketing is a module inside Microsoft Customer Insights that was designed to help businesses create and run proactive marketing campaigns. The removal of this feature will significantly disrupt marketing operations for businesses and organizations that depend heavily on traditional outbound strategies, such as email campaigns, segmented marketing lists, and social media posting. Additionally, businesses requiring the ability to do ad hoc email communications (e.g., CrowdStrike crisis communications), will be left without a quick, simple way of doing so.
Microsoft is shifting away from supporting traditional, proactive marketing use cases and moving to reactive, real-time journeys to address use cases that are part of the overall customer experience when engaging with a brand. This change in strategy forces marketers who wish to continue utilizing Customer Insights to transition to Real-time Journeys, which requires a more significant, resource heavy effort in terms of planning and journey setup. Users will also find that they cannot replicate all the features available in Outbound Marketing, including social posting and the lead gen syncs from LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
Real-time Journeys offers advanced real-time engagement capabilities; however, these advanced features require a higher level of data expertise to fully unlock its potential. For many organizations, this means depending on a data analyst – a resource they may not have – to configure, manage, and interpret customer data within the platform. To better understand the specific features and capabilities that will not be available in Real-time Journeys, Click recommends that companies review Microsoft’s transition overview page.
Impact to Click
Click’s Marketing Automation solution is natively integrated with Microsoft Dynamics and remains unaffected by the Microsoft announcement. Our features and capabilities are not impacted by Customer Insight’s shift from Outbound Marketing to Real-time Journeys and will continue to support marketers with the marketing communications capabilities they need, whether they be outbound, inbound, or specific to social marketing.
How can Click help?
For businesses that want to remain agile and avoid the complexities of managing a data-heavy approach, Click’s Marketing Automation solution provides a more seamless, marketer-friendly experience. With intuitive tools and built-in automation, marketers can independently create, execute, and optimize campaigns without waiting for a data analyst to interpret insights or build segments. This empowers marketing teams to be more self-sufficient and responsive.
If you have any questions or want to discover how Click can support your ongoing Outbound Marketing efforts, you can contact our Partner Channel Team here. We would be delighted to talk to you!
