Salesforce Expands the AppExchange Ecosystem

The Salesforce AppExchange ecosystem is expanding with the addition of Consultants on AppExchange and AppExchange Partner Intelligence. The goal of these latest initiatives is to help customers find and connect with Salesforce experts and for Salesforce partners — consultants and ISVs — to get insights about how customers interact with their solutions.

Today, there are more than 65,000 Salesforce-accredited consulting professionals and the vendor expects that number to exceed 250,000 by 2022. There are currently more than 5,000 technology solutions ranging from apps, components, prebuilt flows, industry-specific Bolt templates, data and more on the AppExchange.

Salesforce’s Woodson Martin

“As the Salesforce economy and customer demand continue to grow, our customers and partners must have the right business solutions and technology experts at their fingertips,” said Woodson Martin, general manager, Salesforce AppExchange. “AppExchange is bringing consulting partner services and technology solutions together in one marketplace while enabling all of our partners to harness data to power customer success like never before.”

Designed as a new destination and tailored for customers on the AppExchange, Consultants on AppExchange, includes a Consultant Finder and Expertise Tab.

The Consultant Finder is a guided search engine that enables customers to connect with a consultant based on specific search criteria, such as preferred location, company size and product and industry expertise. There are also additional filters for search based on consultant ratings and language preferences.

The Expertise Tab will provide information about a consultant’s technology expertise and specialization as it relates to specific AppExchange solutions.

Prior to the new Consultants destination on AppExchange, Salesforce customers were able to use the search bar to find consultants, and could filter by partner tier, customer rating and language. The new capability allows customers to narrow down their search much further with specific search criteria.

Salesforce partners interested in getting listed on Consultants on AppExchange need to initiate the standard process to get listed on AppExchange, similar to the process ISV partners use. The number of Salesforce-accredited consultants and expertise details that appear on consultant listings are validated through the Salesforce Navigator program. This program is where consulting partners can achieve various levels of achievement to achieve Master status first by becoming certified through the formal Salesforce certification process and then submitting customer-surveyed implementation projects, customer stories and references to Salesforce to confirm their expertise in specific area, according to the vendor.

Designed to help Salesforce partners, AppExchange Partner Intelligence is a new set of robust analytics features that deliver insights into how customers and prospects interact with a partner’s solutions. There are two analytics offerings: AppExchange Marketplace for Analytics and AppExchange App Analytics.

AppExchange Marketplace Analytics is powered by Salesforce Einstein Analytics and gives ISVs and consultants insight into how visitors get to…

…and engage with their AppExchange listing. So, for example, there’s a dashboard where partner can see how many times resources, such as videos, demos or case studies, are viewed, or how many times their high-conversion buttons, such as “save”, “watch demos”, “test drive”, and “get it now”, are clicked.

Partners will also be able to see the top AppExchange search terms that attract visitors to their listings and use them for other activities such as leads and installs. The new AppExchange Marketplace Analytics will also give partners more access to traffic sources and additional flexibility to filter their data by specific time periods.

AppExchange App Analytics is designed to help ISVs track app adoption and analyze usage data to uncover trends and influence roadmap decisions. This information could help ISVs take insight-based action to optimize their apps across UI, features and overall performance.

Salesforce will offer webinars to alert partners when the new features are available and train them on how to use them.

Consultants on AppExchange is currently available. AppExchange Marketplace Analytics will be available to AppExchange partners and consultants with active AppExchange listings in Summer 2019; AppExchange App Analytics will be available to AppExchange partners with security-approved apps in June 2019.