It will be well into next year before the fruits of a Salesforce-Google partnership will be realized, but the company used its annual Dreamforce conference last week to show how working with Google will create a dynamic marriage between its customer relationship management tools and the search engine giant’s strength in online advertising analytics.
Google has agreed to integrate Google Analytics 360 and G Suite (office productivity apps such as Gmail, Drive, Sheets, Docs, Calendar and Hangouts) with Salesforce CRM. This means enterprise firms can harness CRM data from the Salesforce Sales Cloud or the Salesforce Marketing Cloud directly from within G Suite. Alternatively, you can Google apps and analytics tools from within Salesforce.
Those familiar with Marketing Cloud will be able to view Analytics 360 data from within it. This will allow them to more accurately monitor campaign performance, trigger targeted ads and emails, and combine online and offline customer interactions, Salesforce said.
What A Salesforce-Google Partnership In Action Might Look Like
Take the case of an estimate prepared in a call center or order received in the field. The Salesforce-Google partnership means the integration of both firm’s technologies will offer a better picture of customer interaction. And that can lead to more valuable insights into immediate upsale potential, campaign weaknesses and future customer behavior. Instead of coming out of the Marketing Cloud to view website analytics data, users have to hand the number of pages prospects visited, what product details they clicked on, and shopping cart activity.
Another possible use case is taking qualified leads from the Sales Cloud into Analytics 360. From there, AdWords or DoubleClick can be employed to hit the right demographics. Alternatively, those working in Analytics 360 will be able to access Marketing Cloud data to create audience lists. If you are interacting with a customer via Gmail, Salesforce data will be right there without having to move in and out of different applications.
Lightning Hits Gmail
The permutations of the Salesforce-Google partnership don’t end there. Google Hangouts Meet can pull up accounts data from Salesforce. Sheets can be embedded into Salesforce so data is updated in both platforms bi-directionally. The new partnership between Google and Salesforce will more deeply integrate Gmail with the Salesforce Lightning app development framework. This will allow users to interact with Salesforce CRM data from within Gmail and to pull customer interaction data from Gmail more easily into Salesforce. High priority emails can be better identified as they can access more focused analytics. Follow-up suggestions will similarly be based on insight derived directly from Google Analytics 360.
Salesforce and Google said the partnership will please users who are tried of manually importing data from Salesforce into Google. Instead, Salesforce Records and Salesforce Reports data can be imported instantly into a Sheets spreadsheet and vice versa. App developers, too, can use Salesforce Lightning to customize apps and interactions.
Quip
Salesforce’s Quip Live Apps, meanwhile, can be used with Google Drive and Calendar as a way to increase collaboration. Lists of Drive files can be brought into Quip. This is all part of the evolution of Quip from a collaboration point product into a hub that teams can use for collaboration. Its chat-enabled documents and spreadsheets have been expanded so a greater range of functions can be embedded into documents. LiveApps. Quip users can share documents which will incorporate data from other apps to smooth collaboration. Calendar tools, task managers, customer records are among the Quip apps already developed. Quip documents and spreadsheets can also be pulled into Salesforce Chatter.
To sweeten the deal and encourage users or one or the other to use both, any Salesforce user with 350 or more employees can get a free year of G Suite. Fewer employees than that and the first three months are free.
