“Marketing automation has evolved from the ‘gee whiz’ phase to the ‘marketing workhorse’ phase, and has reached a level of maturity where customers are generally clear about what they are looking for,” Raghavan told DemandGen Report. “Many of the older vendors date back to a time when automation was still evolving, and as a result, find themselves on the wrong technology platform to be able to evolve to where they need to be. In such situations, consolidation enables them to bring their hard-earned domain know-how to the market, but on newer and more modern platforms. For customers, consolidation offers a clue as to which vendors are thriving and growing.”
Act-On reported a record-breaking Q2, with a 49% quarter-over-quarter revenue growth from Q1 2011 and 137 new customers added. The company grew its revenue by 269% over Q2 2010.
In early June 2011, the company closed $10 Million Series C funding, led by Trinity Ventures. Existing venture partners Voyager Capital and U.S. Venture Partners, were part of the round, as well as participation from Stanford University.
Built primarily to address issues around automated brand management, lead generation, reporting, analytics and metrics, Act-On’s integrated cloud-based platform is designed to enable marketers to creatively utilize graphical design tools for web forms, landing pages and emails.
Act-On current solutions include and email engine and tools for web site visitor tracking, lead scoring and lead nurturing, and one-click integration with web conferencing and CRM solutions. Additionally, the company offers Twitter Prospector, designed to enable marketers to use social media properties as a lead source and for reputation manager.
In February 2011, Marketbright had announced the release of a beta email marketing system (version 2), offering the first 100 customers who signed up to six months of free service. In April, the company announced on its blog that it was moving to a Freemium model for the email marketing tool.
In May 2010, Hong Kong-based CDC Software completed an investment in Marketbright. As part of the investment, the firms formed a strategic relationship, where CDC Software would serve as an OEM, reseller or referral partner for Marketbright’s SaaS marketing automation solutions in the U.S., Canada, EMEA, Asia/Pacific and the rest of world. In turn, Marketbright was expected to serve as an OEM, reseller or referral partner for CDC Pivotal CRM solutions in the U.S. and Canada. Marketbright’s other investors include VC firm Greycroft Partners and Knight’s Bridge Capital Partners, a private equity fund.