When Marketing Automation and Customer Experience Collide - Thoughts on What Adobe’s Acquisition of Marketo Means for Marketers

By now you’ve heard the big news: Adobe is acquiring Marketo to the tune of $4.75 billion. And as Scott Brinker says, this is a huge vote of confidence for the martech industry in general, as it shows that one of the major players in the tech industry sees it as having the potential for even more growth.

Now that the initial surprise has passed, it makes sense to take a few moments to reflect on what this acquisition means for the people involved in these two industries. In other words, what should marketers expect to change (and prepare for) when two of the biggest powerhouses in the worlds of marketing automation and customer experience combine forces? Here’s what I predict:

The lines between martech and adtech will get even blurrier: The convergence between martech and adtech has been happening and Adobe’s acquisition will speed this adoption. If you want to remain not just relevant but in high demand, you’ll need to ensure that you can fluently speak both languages. It’s great if you’ve got a proven track record of optimizing and deploying high-converting email campaigns to targeted customers, but you’ll need to be willing to learn the ins and outs of buying ads on SERPs and working with demand-side platforms. Now is the time to start brushing up on your adtech knowledge.

Marketing automation will be easier to use and highly customizable: The good news about needing to expand your skillset is that the platforms you need to learn should become even easier to use as time goes by. With Adobe’s influence, anticipate Marketo’s platform to become a place where you can easily tweak every visual variable needed, allowing power users to control the smallest detail while still allowing the casual user to quickly and easily design campaign elements. Additionally, both firms’ commitments to nurturing strong online and offline communities bodes well for their continued support.

Your marketing automation platform may define your career path: In his piece, Scott Brinker predicts that Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo will cause a shakeup in the martech industry in the next 12-18 months, and that about a quarter of marketing technology vendors that currently exist will either “consolidate” or simply cease to exist. I think he’s right, and with this in mind, I’d urge marketing leaders to take a close look at the marketing technologies you’re using. Is this what you want on your resume? Is this technology going to be there next year? If you aren’t in the position to spearhead and drive the transition to a new technology, your best bet may be to transition yourself to a new position where you can gain experience with a marketing automation platform that will survive the shift.

Creative types will rule again: With a customer-first focus driving marketing automation, marketers who are capable of coming up with big ideas and new, exciting ways to reach out and connect with customers in a way that resonates will be in high demand. Because so many of the tasks associated with running, optimizing and analyzing campaigns--across devices, into shopping carts, forms and through conversions--companies will need the human talent who know just the right words to say and images to use that will capture the customer’s imagination and their wallets. If you’ve been storing your creative hat in the closet while your data that has been getting a workout, it’s time to make a switch.

B2C marketers will move from Adobe Campaign to Marketo: Word on the street is that Campaign never quite delivered up to Adobe’s expectations, and so I don’t foresee Adobe keeping both a B2B and B2C solution. Instead, I believe that Adobe-powered Marketo will expand to meet the needs of B2C marketers. If that’s you, be prepared to be impressed. You’ll be able to measure and optimize campaigns in ways that simply weren’t possible using your previous platform. For a sneak peek at what’s in store for you, check out the Marketo Nation, its massive user community; while it’s currently focused on B2B marketing, it will be easy for you to understand how much of what they’re talking about will be able to translate into value for your own organization.

You’ll gain unprecedented access to analytics insights: Understanding all of the touchpoints that contributed to a visitor’s conversion is important in determining the best way to allocate budgets, but if you’ve been relying solely on Adobe Analytics your viewpoint has been siloed at best. Marketo’s recent acquisition of Bizible lets you integrate all of your online and offline data (think tradeshows, in-person events and all the other “real world” initiatives where you spend money but you’re never really sure how to best integrate the leads) so you have a full picture of attribution.

If you’re an Adobe Analytics master and you’re digging your heels in at the change, you may want to think twice. The reality is that Marketo’s Bizible-powered solution combined with Adobe Analytics is going to bring an unprecedented level of insights to your marketing because it’s now owned by the same company because the integration point will go much deeper--you’ll never get there using Adobe + anything else. If you insist on doing thing the way you’ve always done them--the status quo simply won’t be good enough anymore. This is one change you’ll definitely want to embrace.

Ecommerce marketers will get to think beyond the purchase: With the acquisition of Magento earlier this year, Adobe moved toward completing the customer experience cycle. The acquisition of Marketo expands that cycle to include the very important actions that occur after the purchase--things like upsells, renewals and reengagements. What does this mean for you, the ecommerce marketer? Simply put, you’ll have the chance to determine the best approach for retaining and reselling to the customers you worked so hard to acquire. Think about it this way: If like many ecommerce marketers, you’ve been focusing on ways to optimize conversions on the “buy” side of the funnel, this acquisition means you’ll be able to access a whole new set of insights and optimizations on the “bought” side of the funnel. Effectively, you turn your single ecommerce funnel into a two-sided bow-tie.

A Bright Future

The one thing that is certain is that there’s still uncertainty. But overall, I think the future is really bright, and I’m excited to see what’s to come.

For marketers who are Marketo customers, I don’t anticipate much change on the platform side, nor any disruption in their current business. I believe Marketo will continue to innovate, though I suspect it will come under the guise of integration with Adobe products versus the development of completely new products. 

For marketers who are Perkuto customers, expect business as usual! We’ll be closely following everything that’s happening with the acquisition and will be poised to react quickly to any changes in the platform, so you can rest assured that we’ll be ready to handle whatever comes our way. After all, we are Marketo Platinum Partners.

For the martech industry in general, I see this acquisition as moving along the path of the democratization of martech and the general trend of distributed marketing--getting massively powerful technology into the hands of as many marketers as possible without putting the brand at risk.

What do you think? Will the creative class reign supreme once more? Will martech and adtech keep their silos? Will Adobe insist on keeping Campaign? Tell me what you think I got right, what you think I got wrong and what you think marketers should take away from this acquisition in the comments below.