Marketing Software

Wow, this certainly tops off a spectacular year in the marketing technology space: yesterday, Eloqua announced that it was being acquired by Oracle for $871 million. Reflecting on this last night, five thoughts came to mind: Thought #1: Congratulations First, big congratulations to Joe Payne, Steven Woods, and the rest of the Eloqua team! I’ve been a big fan of Steven’s thinking around digital body language for many years. They’ve done an amazing job of …

5 thoughts on Oracle’s acquisition of Eloqua for $871 million Continue Reading »

There’s been a lot of furor over the years about Nate Silver’s FiveThrityEight blog for predicting the outcome of U.S. elections using more math than mouth. His critics usually include those who disagree with the predicted outcomes of his models and those who make their living crafting, um, less analytical narratives for the heated horse races of American politics. (You can read a brief history of FiveThrityEight and its controversies on Wikipedia. As noted elsewhere, …

The “marketing technologist” of U.S. elections Continue Reading »

“Marketing automation” as the label for a major — if slightly amorphous — category of modern marketing software appears to be here to stay. Three recent points on the curve: The acquisition of Pardot by ExactTarget, labeled as a marketing automation deal. The IPO of Eloqua earlier this year, again labeled as a marketing automation offering. A recent IDC report that includes marketing automation as an explicit budget allocation. The latter is perhaps the most …

Whatever it is, we’re calling it “marketing automation” Continue Reading »

Do you think computers and software could run marketing as well as humans? Or better? Skeptics and humanists — which describes my leanings on this subject, even though I’m a technologist by trade — may reflexively answer “no.” The complex organizational and psychological facets of marketing — a discipline renown for creativity and imagination — seems like it would defy the purely mechanical capabilities of computation. That’s true today. But if you doubt the potential …

Will your next marketing manager be a bot? Continue Reading »

My post from last week — is marketing technology consolidating or diversifying — resonated with the folks at HubSpot, and they invited me to contribute a few thoughts on that subject to their blog. The result: Will Marketing Technology Look Like iOS Someday? As illustrated in the graphic above, we consider three possible futures for marketing technology: Diversified with no real center of gravity (kind of what we have today), on the left. Consolidated into …

3 different futures for marketing technology Continue Reading »

Is marketing technology consolidating or diversifying? Every few weeks it seems like we see a new round of marketing technology acquisitions, especially from Oracle, Adobe, IBM, Salesforce.com, Google. For example, Google’s recent acquisition of Wildfire. There are certainly plenty of anecdotes to support the narrative that marketing technology is consolidating. At the same time, however, the pages of TechCrunch, VentureBeat, PandoDaily, GigaOm, etc., are constantly pumping out announcements of new ventures launching in this space. …

Is marketing technology consolidating or diversifying? Continue Reading »

UPDATE: The 2020 Marketing Technology Landscape is now available. Marketing is in a whirlwind of technological innovation. It’s thrilling, inspiring, and a little dizzying. Last year, I made the first version of a marketing technology landscape infographic to try to glimpse the “big picture” of this broad field. I’m pleased to now share with you the all-new 2012 version of this supergraphic above (click to open a large version that’s actually readable). Its purpose is …

Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (2012) Continue Reading »

Marketers will spend about $1 trillion this year on external costs: everything from advertising of every kind, marketing services such as direct mail and lead generation, agency fees, data and intelligence such as market research, and — at the very bottom of the stack — software and technology. In 2012, marketing technology will account for only 1% of marketing spend. According to a recent report by research analyst Dan Salmon, the amount spent on software …

We are the 1% (of global marketing spend) Continue Reading »

How many different solutions do you estimate you have integrated to support your website capabilities today? How many do you anticipate you will have integrated into your website 2 years from now? For eCommerce professionals, the answers are surprising: 42% have 10 or more solutions integrated in their sites today 69% expect 10 or more solutions integrated in their sites within 2 years 31% expect 20 or more solutions integrated in their sites within 2 …

Imagine 20 different technologies integrated into your website Continue Reading »

This is a follow-up to my post on why marketing software will never be like ERP (but it’s still going to be a ridiculously huge, multi-billion dollar industry). The marketing technology landscape continues to expand and evolve at a breakneck pace. But while its vibrancy is in large part due to a fertile environment for start-ups, the hundreds of billions of dollars at stake in this reincarnation of the marketing industry has attracted the attention …

Marketing technology: suite, platform, or portfolio? Continue Reading »