Marketing and customer engagement software continues to grow in usage, and sophistication and maybe the most crowded software category in terms of number of vendors. With such a wide variety of SaaS marketing automation options, self hosting can seem like an odd choice. But there are still many companies for whom self-hosting makes sense. In this article we get into some of the considerations that may lead you to self-hosting over paying for a SaaS vendor
Before jumping into self-hosting, it’s essential to define your specific needs. These needs will dictate whether a self-hosted solution is worth the effort and investment. Here are some of the key factors to consider:
One of the biggest reasons companies opt for self-hosting is to maintain complete control over their data. If your business handles sensitive customer information or is subject to strict data privacy regulations (such as GDPR or HIPAA), having full control over where data is stored and how it is processed becomes critical. Self-hosting gives you the ability to manage data in-house, ensuring compliance and minimizing the risks associated with third-party data handling. Laudspeaker the leading open source and self-hostable vendor has a number of healthcare customers who choose us to keep control over data.
If your business serves multiple clients or operates across various brands, you may need a marketing automation system that supports multitenancy. A self-hosted solution allows you to build or customize the system to handle multiple environments efficiently, enabling you to serve different clients or departments under a single infrastructure without compromising data separation.
Another related concern is pricing models. For companies that need a multi-tenant solution, most of the customer engagement and marketing automation solutions would cost and arm and a leg or simply not offer a plan that makes sense.
When it comes to marketing automation, access control is crucial, especially if multiple teams or departments are involved in campaign creation and execution. Self-hosting allows you to set up custom access control protocols that align with your organization's specific structure and security policies, giving you more granular control over who can view, edit, and launch campaigns.
If your marketing strategies rely on proprietary or niche marketing channels that aren’t supported by most out-of-the-box solutions, self-hosting offers the flexibility to integrate these channels. This can be vital if you’re using internal communication platforms or industry-specific channels that aren’t readily available through mainstream marketing automation tools.
Self-hosted systems can be fully integrated with your internal databases and data sources. This can be especially important if your marketing campaigns need to access proprietary or siloed data that’s not easily accessible through cloud-based solutions. With self-hosting, you can create seamless connections between your marketing software and your internal systems, enhancing the personalization and effectiveness of your campaigns. With Laudspeaker we also offer a specific extension of liquid templating where you can make api calls in your messages that get resolved at send time, so you can access sensitive data without loading it into our system
If you need to offer marketing automation to a number of your clients, but want to provide a unified experience, you can take an existing on-prem solution and customize it to fit in with the rest of your experience.
While the benefits of self-hosting are clear, it’s important to evaluate whether your organization has the resources to manage a self-hosted solution effectively. There are two key resource areas to consider:
Self-hosted marketing automation platforms require ongoing development and maintenance. This includes setting up the software, ensuring integrations with your existing tools, and troubleshooting any issues that arise. Your development team must have the capacity to dedicate time to both the initial deployment and the ongoing management of the system.
In addition to development, DevOps plays a significant role in maintaining a self-hosted environment. Your DevOps team will need to manage the infrastructure, ensure that the servers are running efficiently, handle backups, and provide system updates. They will also need to monitor the system for performance issues or security vulnerabilities. If your organization does not have a dedicated DevOps team or enough resources to support this, self-hosting may be a more challenging undertaking.
Once you’ve assessed your needs and resources, the next step is to explore the available options for self-hosting marketing automation software. Fortunately, there are open-source platforms that provide a solid foundation for building and customizing your marketing stack.
Even if you purchase a license for a enterprise version of an open source project, the open source project provides insurance of sorts. With proprietary platforms, companies can go under, get acquired, or shift focus, leaving you without support or stuck with a tool that no longer meets your needs. Open-source projects offer more stability since they are often maintained by a community of developers, ensuring that the software can continue to evolve even if the original company behind it changes direction..
Self-hosting marketing automation software offers significant advantages for businesses that require greater control, flexibility, and security. By clearly defining your needs—whether it’s multitenancy, data control, or proprietary marketing channels—and ensuring you have the technical resources to support a self-hosted environment, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals.
