Differences between RCE, RCA, RCM, and opportunity influence analyzer

[Jeff_Smith3]

I gotta say I miss the help articles from the old community. Clear, concise explainer documents seem harder to find now.

It would be super helpful if someone could clarify RCA, RCM, RCE, and opportunity influence analyzer in a brief breakdown. My understanding is that RCA (Revenue Cycle Analytics) is the analytical piece for the RCM (Revenue Cycle Modeler--now just Revenue Modeler?), which basically just acts as a map for your success path. RCA comes with Standard Edition, while RCE (Revenue Cycle Explorer) comes with Select Edition. Is the opportunity influence analyzer a part of RCE? How do all these relate to each other, and where does the limit of one end and the other begin?

A lot of the material I've seen addresses things like industry statistics and how analytics helps Marketing. I'm more interested in a brief product overview, and based on how much I'm seeing these terms (and other made-up terms) used interchangeably, I think it would really help to clear up what each of these really means. Thanks in advance! I'd love to start using our analytics better...haven't been as good with that.

[Alex_Stanton1]

Hi Jeff,

Here is a link to the RCA section of the new Docs: Revenue Cycle Analytics - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

Revenue Cycle Analytics is the "container" under which you find Models and Explorer. Here is a link to the pricing page where you can see what is included in what edition: Pricing | Marketo Marketing Automation. I would suggest you also ask your Sales Rep.

[Josh_Hill13 · Accepted solution]

What Alex sent should help.

RCE - Revenue Cycle Explorer. This is the BI tool that Marketo uses. It is an extra fee. It is mostly helpful in running certain large pivot tables and especially analyzing the Funnel, which is where RCM comes in.

RCA - Revenue Cycle Analytics - this is another, older name, for RCE. Same difference, Same Product.

RCM - Revenue Cycle Model - this is inside the main MLM tool. It does not require RCE, but it is more useful if you have RCE. The Model lets you build a model of your funnel with Stages and Transitions. There is a good presentation on this from the 2015 Summit (by me and Jeff Coveney). This is needed in order for Marketo to understand your funnel metrics and how to calculate this. This data goes into RCE and the Success Path Analyzer.

Success Path Analyzer - this is a tool in MLM that only works if you turn on RCM with your Lifecycle. It only shows the green success path. Pretty useful, but RCE is better. This is what the sales team uses to sell you on Marketo. They forget to tell you the amount of work required to use it.

Opp Analyzer - Also used to sell Marketo. It's not super helpful because it doesn't show aggregate data. The only use I've found for it is to show Sales that their Opp indeed had marketing influence because it shows all the IMs and Program Success points for the Contact Role and any related Contacts on the Opp's Account.

[Jeff_Smith3]

Josh, this is awesome...just what I was looking for. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I wanted to provide a bit more clarification for the differences in names and how they relate to the Marketo product.

RCA - The overall product family for Marketo advanced analytics.  The exact configuration of this does vary between SMB customers and Enterprise customers, but typically defined as the following:

1. Analyzers (accessible via Marketo Lead Manager / Analytics Home):
   • Success Path Analyzer - funnel view of leads flowing in/out of each stage defined via a Revenue Model
   • Program Analyzer - understand the relative effectiveness of marketing channels, all programs, or all programs within a given channel(s)
   • Opportunity Influence Analyzer - understand the specific sequence of leads, channels and programs involved in an Opportunity
2. Revenue Model - Within Marketo, we don't really refer to it as "RCM", but just as the "Revenue Model"
3. Revenue Explorer (aka RCE aka Revenue Cycle Explorer) - An advanced Business Intelligence tool that enabled multi-dimensional analysis in the following areas (focus is on revenue-based reporting against programs/opportunities, but not exclusively for this):
   • Email Analysis Area - advanced Email analysis (vs what's available in the Email Performance Report in Marketo Lead Manager)
   • Lead Analysis - advanced Lead/Company analysis, pulling in lead/company attributes, and can narrowed down to opportunity created time windows
   • Model Performance Analysis (against Leads) - Funnel-based analysis for leads flowing through your different Revenue Model stages (similar, but more customizable than Success Path Analyzer)
   • Model Performance Analysis (against Companies) - Funnel-based analysis for companies flowing through your different Revenue Model stages
   • Opportunity Analysis - analyzer opportunities against lead/company data
   • Program Cost Analysis - analysis of program cost and lead acquisition cost by program, allowing filtering by program success, tags, lead/program membership and new vs existing lead participation in programs.
   • Program Membership Analysis - program success analysis against leads/companies over time
   • Program Opportunity Analysis - revenue attribution by program, against opportunities.  This reporting area includes First Touch and Multi Touch attribution metrics
   • Program Revenue Stage Analysis - revenue stage analysis against programs

Hope this helps!

Brian Theodore

Director of Product Management, Analytics

Marketo

[Edward_Masson]

Great clarity Brian Theodore​!

[Anonymous]

I agree that the new community is super hard to find answers in. The old one was much easier to navigate and understand what you're clicking on. The old search also provided more relevant content. I'm really hoping improvements are made soon.

Cam