“Consumers are interacting with brands in real time across email, mobile, social media and the web, and marketers must make the most of the opportunity to effectively engage,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget Co-Founder and CEO. “By bringing the power of Marketo to the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, we can provide BtoB marketers a single solution to deliver real-time cross-channel marketing, improve sales efficiency and accelerate revenue growth.”
The partnership is aimed at capitalizing on the ever-changing interactive marketing arena. Marketo and ExactTarget operate in adjacent markets – with Marketo focused on revenue performance management and ExactTarget focused on interactive marketing solutions across email, mobile, social media and the web for all segments and verticals.
“I see the partnership as a way for Marketo to expand distribution of its product and for ExactTarget to strengthen its BtoB offering,” said David Raab, Principal of Raab Associates. “In terms of industry evolution, it’s more evidence of the difficultly of distinguishing marketing automation from email marketing. Of course, ExactTarget was already more than email.”
Unveiled in September 2010, the Interactive Marketing Hub is a cross-channel interactive marketing platform designed to enable marketers to engage in real-time marketing, consolidate all data to create a common view of the consumer and deliver targeted, permission-based interactions across email, mobile, social media and the web. Currently in beta with more than 500 brands worldwide, the Interactive Marketing Hub is an online marketing suite that offers a platform for marketers and technology providers to connect disparate data sources to power more relevant real-time cross-channel marketing.
Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez took to the company’s blog to comment on the strategic partnership. “By combining our direct sales and services teams with strategically selected partnerships with leading companies like ExactTarget, Marketo will be in a position to continue its growth trajectory for years to come,” he said.
Developed as the first partner application for the Interactive Marketing Hub, the application is designed to provide Marketo’s full lead management functionality directly from the Interactive Marketing Hub, allowing marketers to plan, power, monitor and track Marketo revenue performance management campaigns alongside ExactTarget-powered email, mobile, social media and web campaigns.
ExactTarget customers will be able to purchase Marketo’s revenue performance management solutions as an additional application from ExactTarget. ExactTarget’s team of professionals will begin selling and supporting the integrated Marketo application to its 8,000 customers worldwide, as well as prospects, later this year, expanding Marketo’s reach into new markets around the globe.
“By integrating our technologies, we will help marketers deliver information tailored to each prospect’s unique needs, at exactly the right time, all built on a single view of the customer in the Interactive Marketing Hub,” said Amy Guarino VP of Business Development at Marketo. “…Our platform and apps strategy will allow us to serve the unique needs of marketers in every segment and vertical while allowing us to remain laser focused on investing in innovation to power real-time, data-driven cross-channel marketing.”
The Marketo partner application will feature full integration with the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, allowing marketers to access unified calendaring, campaign management, data management and ExactTarget’s channel applications by bringing BtoB and BtoC communication together in a single platform. In addition to the partnership, the companies also announced that ExactTarget has selected Marketo to power its global revenue performance management efforts.
