We've worked with Webex, GTW, On24 and BrightTalk. There are lots of intricacies but I wanted to expanding on two major considerations around BrightTalk.
1) The Network---Awesome. BrightTalk rules in this area as its network provides tons of viewers to your webinar. Huge value here as lead generation is part of the platform. If you are looking for more net new leads, BrightTalk excels.
2) Time to Implement--Not So Good....Yet.
How it works w Webex, GTW, etc
These connections work like a charm. After setting up the connection, it's a matter of syncing Marketo's Program to the equivalent webinar. This allows webinar membership (Registered, On Demand, etc) to sync sync back and forth automatically. No fuss--it just works just like opening the door of your house with a doorknob.
Example GTW - Just pick the webinar and membership flows between GTW and Marketo
How it works with BrightTalk
The BrightTalk process requires a lot of manual setup. If setting up the others is like using a doorknob, imagine that you don't have a door knob to open the door. There are various hoops to jump through.
Companies must set up a series of fields that change every time someone registers, attends or watches a webinar. Rather than automagically syncing to 1-to-1 Marketo programs, listening campaigns must be setup to listen for the numerous field changes that get pushed over from BrightTalk. Documentation is currently lacking so support is usually required (Side note: Support is very fast with answers). Better documentation would be an enormous help and that is apparently on its way.
Registration Example BrightTalk - Leverage numerous fields to trigger Program membership. Forget to set it up or do it incorrectly? You'll need to backfill all the data (Yes, have learned this the hard way). Note, your setup may vary so please always test.
Example of 14 fields that you will add to your Marketo instance. Most change every time a webinar is watched, attended or registered for.
Other Things to Consider
Even with better documentation, I would still rather see an automatic 1-to-1 relationship between a Marketo program and a BrightTalk webinar. Relying on various field changes is too system and error prone so you need to make sure to follow process.. What happens when someone forgets to activate a trigger or makes an error? Put in more time upfront to avoid ongoing issues.
Additionally, setting up 10-30+ fields is not exactly ideal. Your Salesforce admin might not be too happy if you ask for all those fields so I'd recommend keeping most/all in Marketo. Yes, there is lots of additional information you can use for intelligence but most like Webinar Viewing Time should really live at the webinar object level. Currently, the data lives at the lead level and changes constantly for all webinar status changes. In other words, the Webinar Viewing Time intelligence from a few webinars ago is captured and can be used for real-time alerts/interesting moments---but it's not maintained in Marketo for historical analysis once another webinar occurs (Side note, other providers don't give you this intelligence at all).
Wrapup - What to Do
BrightTalk functions at two extremes. Its lead generation capabilities are tremendous but its integration can be unnecessarily time consuming to setup. If you can live with the extra upfront effort, BrightTalk provides tremendous benefits...especially if lead acquisition is part of your goals.
I've seen some of the pros/cons so let me know if you need any specific help getting BrightTalk up and running, give me me a shout. Otherwise, push on the BrightTalk team for documentation and changes.
If anyone else has the magic bullet, please share here.
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