Defer Marketing Events in favor of Custom Objects

[SteveHTM]

I've recently had the opportunity to tangle with both Marketing Events and Custom Objects. My idea that comes from that experience may not be universally popular, but I think could improve the support of both concepts.

I'm struck by the counterintuituve special cases that plague the implementation/documentation of Marketing Events - and the contrast of how gracefully many of these issues are handled in the integration/use of Custom Events across the rest of the platform. For example:

• Availability of full object property editing, including group creation etc. in the logical settings menu Properties area. Marketing Events just don't show up here and they would be much more useful as fully integrated objects that could be extended in various ways.
• Immediate visibility of associated Custom Objects in Contacts/Companies etc. screens - including full preview etc. is very compelling.
• The full integration of all Custom Objects listing/filtering in the menu system under the same head as Contacts/Companies etc. The Marketing Events feature feels awkward and incomplete by comparison.
• Copying properties between standard and Custom Objects is simple and seamless inside workflows. By contrast, the special case app-centric workflow options to take action for Marketing Events seem very clumsy.
• The Beta API calls for marketing objects seem crude and arcane compared to the full set of APIs to manpulate Custom Objects.

And the list could go on, of course. My plea here is something along the lines of co-opting a "standard" Custom Object to serve the role of much more general Marketing Events support in those variants of the platform that can't create Custom Objects for themselves. I suspect that a full focus on Custom Object support would give an improved experience for those functions without dilution of developer effort into the cramped and inconvenient special case of Marketing Events. It would also give an 'upsell" taster for the added value that comes from full the Enterprise platform option.

I hope this commentary is useful.

[Stig]

Fully agree with this.