Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) confirmed acquiring Marketo Inc., a market-leading automated B2B marketing software company, for whopping $4.75 billion. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Adobe’s 2018 fiscal.
Marketo offers world-class solutions in the B2B digital marketing domains, namely, lead management, e-Mail marketing, consumer marketing, customer base marketing, and mobile marketing.
“The acquisition of Marketo widens Adobe’s lead in customer experience across B2C and B2B and puts Adobe Experience Cloud at the heart of all marketing,” Brad Rencher, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Digital Experience at Adobe said in a statement.
Adobe Focus on B2B Marketing
Amid building enhanced ‘end-to-end customer experience’ for a broad portfolio of B2C companies, Adobe is looking forward to expand its reach in B2B marketing.
With Marketo entering Adobe Experience Cloud business, the image-editing toolmaker is all set to take on competitors like Salesforce, HubSpot, SAP, and Oracle. Marketo is reportedly Adobe’s largest acquisition ever, cited Bloomberg.
“Our ability to get a greater share of the wallet we think is enhanced with this acquisition,” Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, spoke on a conference call.
Earlier in May this year, Adobe acquired Magneto Commerce for $1.68 to boost Experience Cloud business. Magneto is a leading open platform for e-commerce innovations.
Marketo offers world-class solutions in the B2B digital marketing domains.
Marketo: Leading Online Marketing Solution
Founded in 2006, California-based Marketo is owned by Vista Equity Partners who bought it in 2016 for $1.8 billion. The company went public in 2013, however, Vista pulled it out from NASDAQ later.
Marketo ecosystem has 5,000 customers ranging from high-growth businesses to large enterprises including the likes of Eventbrite, GE, Glassdoor, Charles Schwab and CA Technologies. It further has 500 partners and an active marketing community comprising more than 65,000 members.
“Adobe and Marketo both share an unwavering belief in the power of content and data to drive business results,” mentioned Steve Lucas, CEO, Marketo. “Marketo delivers the leading B2B marketing engagement platform for the modern marketer, and there is no better home for Marketo to continue to rapidly innovate than Adobe.”
After completion of acquisition formalities, Lucas will continue leading Marketo as a division of Adobe Digital Experience business and report to Rencher. In addition, he will join Adobe’s senior leadership team.
Adobe 2018 Q3 Results
The California-based Adobe is a major provider of a series of services related to content and data, such as analytics, advertising and marketing. Its diverse product line includes Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Document Cloud, and Adobe Experience Cloud.
The Photoshop tool maker reported the third quarter earnings last week. It generated quarterly revenue of $2.29 billion, representing a 24 percent year-on-year growth.
Major revenue contribution came from the Digital Media business, which was worth $1.61 billion. The Digital Experience segment, which will include Marketo later on, made $614 million in revenues, corresponding a 21 percent Y-o-Y growth.
Adobe, further, has witnessed a drastic increment on Wall Street within a year. The stock soared 52 percent this year – from $149.96 last year to $266.08 at the time of publication.