The theory is that marketing-cloud firms could fulfill all of a brand's tech and data needs during every step of the 'customer journey' - the path during which people learn about a brand and become customers and hopefully loyalists.īut in practice, marketers may not want to fork over everything to any one company because they could get locked into deals or services that don't mesh with what they actually need. And Salesforce paid a reported $800 million to buy Datorama's platform that plugs into its marketing cloud.For example, Adobe recently announced that it's paying $4.75 billion for Marketo to integrate its automation software.The wave centers on these cloud titans filling in holes that help brands store and manage their data and then using data to run and measure targeted marketing campaigns.

The recent marketing tech M&A seems to signal consolidation is happening.

Other marketing-tech players want to be an alternative to marketing clouds - like Braze, which recently raised $80 million.Īdobe, Salesforce, and Oracle are on a crusade to either build out or acquire powerful tech stacks that promise to solve all of marketers' data problems.īut there have been signs recently that brands are wary of getting married to any one single marketing platform.

Salesforce recently integrated Datorama into its marketing cloud to give brands a clearer vision of how they use data.

Instead, some marketers would prefer to piece together their own set of partners as they do with advertising agencies.

Adobe, Salesforce, and Oracle are building out tech stacks that promise to handle all of a marketer's data needs, but some argue that splitting up responsibilities is a good thing.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

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