There’s been a lot written over the last week about Marketo’s acquisition of Crowd Factory. Much of the commentary is a simple rehash of the announcement itself. Some of it implies that the move is an attempt by Marketo to “help it expand out of its core B2B customer base to embrace more consumer-focused brand owners.” Does this mean that Marketo is abandoning its B2B roots?
On the surface it may well appear that way. The B2B Marketing Automation space is highly competitive and in the midst of consolidation. The winners and losers are emerging. And while we B2B tech marketers understand the value proposition of these systems, the overall adoption rate in 2010 was only 7-10% for a segment that has been in existence for about 10 years. If you consider that Marketo has taken about $107.5M in funding, playing in a space with historically relatively slow growth, they may be looking to appease investors by entering a new market (in this case B2C).
However, I wouldn’t be so quick to throw in the towel as to Marketo’s intentions in the B2B space. Sirius Decisions predicts the adoption of marketing automation technology to reach 50% by 2015 – a significant 5 year growth rate. The next frontier to attack by the marketing automation vendors is social media marketing.
For too long, marketers have been operating their social marketing activities in a silo – completely unintegrated with the rest of their online and offline activities. What marketers have been dreaming of is a way to unify their social campaigns with their marketing automation system. Marketo’s acquisition of Crowd Factory is an attempt to deliver on that vision.
What can B2B marketers expect to gain from this acquisition?
This acquisition will deliver the following value to Marketo customers:
1) Measure ROI from social campaigns. Crowd Factory helps users learn which social media users are top content sharers and who presents the most value.
2) Increase the value of the marketing database by adding social profiles for prospects.
3) Enable marketers to push viral campaigns through the social web, and then track social activity back to individual influencers and conversions.
The value of this deal will not only be felt by Marketo customers, but also by customers of the other marketing automation vendors. The race will be on to play catch-up and even leapfrog Marketo’s new functionality. We’ll see how long it takes for Eloqua, Pardot and the others to unveil their comparable solutions.
It’s a good day to be a B2B marketer!!
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