UK Perspective on Oracle’s entry into market automation space
Oracle announced today that they have purchased the intellectual property rights Market2Lead one of the pioneering companies in the market automation space. What does this mean for for B2B Marketers here in the UK? Right now – not very much. Firstly, Market2Leads customer base is small and there are not too many UK customers so no major disruption here. Secondly, Marketing Automation and why you need it is still not widely understood within UK b2b circles. However, Oracle’s move indicates that Marketing Automation is now on the agenda for the larger technology houses. Salesforce and other Oracle competitors in CRM are probably already looking to acquire some of the players in the space or partner up with the right companies.
Remember Forresters Sept 2009 Report “B2B Lead Managment Automation Marketing Overview” estimated Market2Lead 2008 revenue to be no more that $5m. The larger vendors in space Eloqua and Aprimo were plotted around the $30m and $50m marks respectively. The same report puts the total market at no more than $200m. This gives some indication of where the UK market might be. Anecdotal reports from MA vendors is that many are growing at 30% plus. Yet only a few , Sliverpop and Eloqua, have a UK presence. So I’m guessing that the total UK spend on Market Automation will not be more that £2-3m per. However that number will get bigger over the next 12-18 months and that means an increasing number of UK B2B Marketers moving from ‘Untroubled and Unaware” to “Researching Vendors”.
DemandGen Report’s have written a briefing doc “Bringing the Power of Marketing Automation To The Fortune 5,000,000″. This is a useful primer providing case studies and interviews with industry thought leaders to illustrate how Small and Medium sized companies (SMB) can benefit from Marketing Automation. Copy available here: Marketing Automation Paper
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