How to value in-house functionality versus outsourced web API functionality.

Question

Hi,

I'm weighing up building a light-weight email marketing system into our existing platform I've developed. The other solution is to use an already existing tool (e.g campaign monitor / mailchip) and connect it into my platform as much as the api allows.

The connection will be a little more cumbersome for the user, there will be different UI's for my platform because the mail tool may be outsourced to one of these companies. They may need to switch apps to get things done..

Any ideas on how to make a decision here? Is a more powerful external tool worth the disjointed feel from users perspective?

The company I'm doing this for doesn't have "advanced" users to ease of use is preferable.

Just wondering as a general open question to how people make this call. Do your users mind? Does it make business sense for you not to re-invent the wheel?

Answer 1

Where I work, the development team plays a critical part in the decision making process, but ultimately the decision needs to be made by the business unit(s) that will be using the product. Our job in the decision making process is to guide them to making a choice that:

1. Meets their needs
2. They will be technically capable of handling
3. Gives them the best competitive advantage
4. Falls within their budget
5. Gives them the greatest ROI.

Having said that, your particular situation is interesting to me. We completed a fairly comprehensive email marketing campaign about a year ago. Actually, it was a re-write of a previous attempt from two years prior to that. We wound up using Campaign Monitor for sending campaign emails, click-thru tracking, etc. We also had our own administrative web site for our main app because Campaign Enterprise just didn't do what we wanted.

In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I would have guided our users to an existing product, such as Constant Contact. The people administering the Emarketing program are not the most tech savvy around,and have to be reminded quite often of CAN-SPAM guidelines, etc. A solution like Constant contact is more their speed - powerful, easy to use, and has all of the regulations built into the design already.

Not that I'm endorsing this one product.. I would recommend shopping around, but for a project like the one you're looking at, it's worth considering.