Microsoft to make Dynamics 365 Marketing a part of D365 Customer Insights

Microsoft is retiring the product name Dynamics 365 Marketing and will rebrand most of the current capabilities as part of Dynamics 365 Customer Insight, the company has announced.

"Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing are coming together as one offering named Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, an AI driven solution which will revolutionize your customers experiences," wrote Jim Nakashima, Microsoft partner general manager for D365 Marketing and Customer Insights.

As a result of the change, the new D365 Customer Insights will now have two elements, Data and Journeys. "Customer Insights – Data" will be the name of the existing Customer Insights solution and it will function primarily as a customer data platform that provides an organization with a 360-degree view of their customers. The product that had been known as D365 Marketing will be known as "Customer Insights – Journeys". The new offering will be available for purchase starting on September 1, according to information shared by Microsoft.

Bringing both marketing and customer data under one brand will align with Microsoft's product vision, the company says. Customers will be able to run campaigns based on customer entities stored in Dataverse or based on profiles stored in Customer Insights from other sources. 

Presenting the two applications under a single brand could help Microsoft present a more unified vision to the market, says Thomas Manders, managing director at Microsoft partner Coffee + Dunn. 

Microsoft is looking to build on the success of both Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (CI).  The combination of the two products certainly makes sense; it brings together the customer data platform (CDP) in CI and Real Time Marketing (RTM) in Marketing. The matchup enables the full scope of data clients need to optimally engage their customers around the events, behaviors, actions that both reflect their interests and the way each prefers to interact with the client’s business. 

Done well, this approach can create a more connected customer experience, leveraging interactions from any system at any point during the customer’s lifecycle.

Microsoft had previously communicated a plan to retire D365 Marketing's older "outbound" marketing module in favor of the newer "real-time" marketing capabilities, and "Customer Insights – Journeys" will continue that plan. For existing D365 Marketing customers, the transition from outbound to real-time marketing will continue as part of the product change. Starting in August 2023, new customers will only have access to real-time marketing capabilities. Existing customers can continue to use outbound marketing, but Microsoft will not be adding any enhancements.

"Real-time marketing has already surpassed traditional outbound marketing in functionality, effectiveness, usability testing results, satisfaction surveys. Moreover, our innovations and upcoming AI features are available exclusively in real-time marketing," Nakashima wrote.

Microsoft's 2023 Release Wave 2 plans still includes a section for D365 Marketing separate from Customer Insights.