Consolidation will continue
The enterprise B2B marketing automation market is concentrated among a few cloud vendors, including Salesforce, Oracle and Adobe. In 2018, there were a number of acquisitions by Adobe and Salesforce in particular as they sought to consolidate their positions at the top of the market and broaden their offerings for B2B firms.
Adobe’s biggest deal of 2018 was its purchase of rival marketing automation platform Marketo in September for $4.75 billion; the firm also bought Magneto Commerce for $1.68 billion in May. Meanwhile Salesforce acquired integration platform Mulesoft in May for $6.5 billion, analytics provider Datorama in July for $800 million, as well as interactive email outfit Rebel in October and CloudCraze in May for undisclosed sums.
There was less deal-making activity among vendors serving the small and midsized business (SMB) market in 2018, although Infusionsoft, which targets small and rapidly growing firms, raised $20 million in Series E funding in October before undergoing a rebrand (to Keap) in January 2019 and launching a new CRM tool.
In January 2019, Cision sold iContact to j2Global for $49 million. Mailchimp bought graphic design startup Sawa in February for an undisclosed sum to enable users to more easily create on-brand campaign graphics.
There will likely be more acquisitions to come in 2019, as a number of smaller martech companies mature out of the venture-funded stage.
Contact Sharon Herrnstein, Chief Marketing Officer at sharon.h@vglobalinc.com today for a FREE and no obligation consultation call. We can help ensure your investment in marketing automation truly supports your organization’s goals whatever platform you’re working with.
Source: Martech Intelligence Report 2019
