Big news today in the marketing automation space. Marketo entered into a Definitive Agreement to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1.79 Billion. This, along with other recent acquisitions in the space, continues to validate the value marketing automation brings to organizations.
Marketo was an early pioneer in demand generation, built a great community, had a successful IPO, and now an acquisition by Vista Equity Partners. This deal is not only good for Marketo but it’s good for the industry, further reinforcing the business case for marketing automation.
Marketing automation is still in the early innings. And the way marketing automation is used is still evolving. We’d like to say the use of marketing automation has just scratched the surface. The 1st phase of marketing automation was about demand generation.
In the next phase, marketing automation will solve for more than demand generation – it will be used to deliver a better customer experience from brand awareness through customer retention and loyalty. Marketing automation will serve as the command center for orchestrating prospect and customer communications in Account-Based Marketing. And marketing automation will be the big data platform used by marketers to make smarter decisions and to better understand their customers. We’re excited to play a role in helping companies better understand their business and meet their customer’s needs.
It’s an exciting time to be in marketing technology and marketing automation – and we believe the most innovative and exciting days are still ahead for our customers and for the market.
