$ 4.45 billion purchase of Marketo's Adobe will enable the company to compete with Salesforce – Adweek



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Adobe has ended more than a week of speculation with the confirmation of a $ 4.75 billion purchase from California-based marketer-to-business marketing specialist Marketo, a transaction that is increasingly competing with the Adobe Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

At $ 4.75 billion, the purchase from Vista Equity Partners is the largest in Adobe's history and comes a few months after its $ 1.7 billion purchase from Magento e-commerce specialist. Both additions will soon be integrated with Adobe Experience Cloud.

The reports of negotiations between the two companies were published more than a week ago, with the purchase now subject to regulatory approval. If successful, Marketo CEO Steve Lucas will join Adobe's Board of Directors and lead the Marketo team in the Adobe Digital Experience business and report directly to his Executive Vice President and Executive Director. General Brad Rencher.

In a conference call confirming the details of the deal, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said, "We believe that the combination of Adobe Experience Cloud analytics, customization, and content solutions for all traders. "

In a statement announcing the deal, Rencher said, "The acquisition of Marketo expands Adobe's leadership in terms of customer experience over the b-to-c and b-to-b networks and places Adobe Experience Cloud at the heart of all marketing.

"Adding Marketo's engagement platform to the Adobe Experience Cloud will enable Adobe to deliver an unparalleled set of solutions to provide customers and businesses of all sizes with transformative experiences."

Justin Gray, CEO of Lead®, is a long-time Marketo partner and has offered his assessment by claiming that Adobe's management could be a "boost" for Marketo while the b-to-b specialist had "Dropped the pace of innovation" in recent years.

The combination of Adobe's creative toolset and Marketo platform will enable the b-to-b specialist to expand its buyer engagement mission by better integrating into the behavior of online shoppers via Adobe Experience Manager. "The real potential for innovation, however, lies in the coupling of Sensei, Marketo's and Adobe's AI product, to make the platform more accessible," he added.

Adobe's acquisition track this year puts it increasingly in competition with Salesforce, the cloud marketing solution provider b-to-b, with its combined purchases – exceeding $ 6 billion – and his video purchase in 2016 TubeMogul advertising specialist for $ 540 million.

Adobe announced a $ 2.3 billion business turnover for the third quarter of 2018 last week, while Experience Cloud had generated $ 614 million.

In 2016, Market Equity was acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $ 1.8 billion, reflecting the growing interest of private equity firms in the high technology and technology sectors.

Jay MacDonald, managing partner and CEO of investment bank Digital Capital Advisors, told the ATS conference last week that private equity groups, such as Vector Capital and Vista Equity Partners, were interested in the deals. are in sight.

In particular, he highlighted Sizmek's purchase of Vector Capital's $ 122 million Rocket Fuel, previously valued at $ 2 billion, as typical of private equity maneuvers. These outfits will seek to "add a few extra pieces," which Sizmek has done through multiple purchases to build a "full stack" that she believes can compete with Google in terms of utility.

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