Adobe completes US$4.75b Marketo buyout

Adobe has officially completed its US$4.75 billion acquisition of B2B marketing firm Marketo and now it's time to make every business an 'experience business', the company says.

Adobe says that the Marketo acquisition will provide numerous benefits for customers as Adobe Experience Cloud and Marketo Engagement Platform become integrated into Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Adobe Experience Cloud offers analytics, personalisation and content capabilities, while Marketo offers lead management, account-based marketing and revenue attribution technology.

Together, the two companies aim to become the leader in managing, optimising and orchestrating cross channel experience and campaigns across B2B and B2C campaigns.

"The combination of Adobe Experience Cloud and Marketo's Engagement Platform provides an unrivalled set of solutions for delivering transformative customer experiences across industries and companies of all sizes—making every business an experience business," comments Adobe's executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience, Brad Rencher.

"Adobe is leading the charge to reimagine customer experience management, and with Marketo, we're further delivering on this vision.

Adobe states that digital transformation is now a mandate for executives in boardrooms across the world.

To compete and win today, businesses need to provide a world-class, end-to-end customer experience across every touchpoint.

Adobe says it is leading the charge to reimagine customer experience management (CXM) with Adobe Experience Cloud, the industry's only end-to-end solution for marketing, advertising, analytics and commerce.

The Marketo Engagement Platform drives business growth by personalising complex buyer journeys and uniquely aligning marketing and sales teams across every channel.

Marketo's platform is feature-rich and cloud-native with significant opportunities for integration across Adobe Experience Cloud. Marketo's ecosystem includes over 500 partners and an engaged marketing community with over 65,000 members.

"Marketo is the long-standing leader in B2B marketing," comments Marketo chief financial officer Steve Lucas.

"As a part of Adobe, we see an extraordinary opportunity to further accelerate Marketo's momentum and deliver combined value to marketers around the world.

The two companies add that customers will be able to: •    Acquire more customers through targeted, account-based advertising •    Improve campaign creation and execution velocity with access to an intelligent repository of content assets •    Use a data-driven approach to focus sales and marketing activities on the most valuable prospects and customers •    Deliver cross-channel experiences, including web, mobile, email, in-store, and in-person, that are personalised and consistent.

Marketo CEO Steve Lucas will continue to lead the Marketo team as part of Adobe's Digital Experience business, reporting to Brad Rencher.