Information architecture is the kind of work that nobody notices when it’s done right and everyone curses when it’s done wrong. A marketing team looking for the email campaign builder shouldn’t have to scroll past event management and survey tools to find it. Yet that’s what happens when a software module grows feature by feature over years without anyone stepping back to ask whether the navigation still makes sense.
Odoo just stepped back. The Marketing section of the platform has been reorganized with a navigation structure that groups tools by how marketing teams actually use them, not by the order they were originally built.
The New Order and the Logic Behind It
The reorganization follows a clear principle: group by workflow type, then order by dependency. Here’s how the Marketing section now reads:
- Email Marketing— the most universally used campaign channel, now positioned first.
- SMS Marketing— the second direct campaign channel, placed immediately after email because teams that run email campaigns almost always run SMS alongside them.
- Social Marketing— the third direct campaign channel, completing the “channel tools” cluster.
- Marketing Automation— positioned after all three channels because it orchestrates workflows across them. You build the individual campaigns first, then automate the sequences that connect them.
- Events— a distinct operational category that generates its own marketing needs (registration campaigns, reminder sequences, post-event follow-ups).
- Marketing Cards— placed after Events because it integrates directly with event workflows for attendee communications and branded card distribution.
- Surveys— positioned last as a supporting tool that feeds data into campaigns rather than executing campaigns directly.
Why This Matters More Than It Looks
Navigation order in an ERP isn’t just about convenience — it shapes how new users build their mental model of what the system can do. When a marketing manager opens Odoo for the first time, the order of items in the navigation tells a story about how the platform expects them to work.
The previous order mixed channels with tools with operational features in a way that didn’t communicate any workflow logic. A new user would see a list of marketing-related features and have to figure out on their own which ones were campaign channels, which were orchestration layers, and which were supporting functions.
The new order reads like a workflow: build campaigns in channels (email, SMS, social), automate the connections between them (marketing automation), manage your events, send branded communications (marketing cards), and collect feedback (surveys). Each section flows logically into the next.
The Bigger Reorganization Ahead
This navigation reorder is positioned as a first step toward a more comprehensive restructuring of the Marketing section. The current change handles the table of contents — what appears where and in what order. Subsequent phases will address overlapping functional areas and cross-module user workflows.
In practical terms, that means Odoo is likely looking at how features like audience segmentation, campaign analytics, and contact management are split across marketing sub-modules, and whether consolidating or cross-linking makes the platform easier to navigate.
What Changes for Current Users
No features were added or removed. Every tool that existed before the reorganization still exists in the same form with the same capabilities. The only difference is where things appear in the navigation hierarchy.
For teams that navigate by muscle memory — clicking the third item in the marketing menu without reading the label — there will be a brief adjustment period. The email campaign builder used to live in one slot and now lives in another. But the labels are the same, the functionality is the same, and the new positions match how most teams mentally organize their marketing toolkit anyway.
For new implementations, the benefit is immediate. Onboarding a marketing team becomes simpler when the software’s navigation matches the natural workflow: set up your channels, connect them with automation, manage your events, and deploy your feedback tools. The platform teaches itself.