Yesterday's News: Marketo Plans IPO, Eloqua Eyes B2C

There were two bits of news from Marketing Automation Land yesterday: Marketo announced it has filed a draft registration statement for an initial public offering, and Eloqua CEO Joe Payne was quoted as saying his company plans to expand into business-to-consumer marketing.The Marketo news is long-expected. CEO Phil Fernandez said last September that the company planned an IPO for first half of 2013, so they are pretty much on schedule. Of course,...

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HubSpot Reports 82% Revenue Growth

HubSpot released its 2012 Year in Review today, reporting 82% revenue growth, to $52.5 million.  Number of clients grew by 42%, to 8,440.   The figures are in line with my expectations, so they don't require any adjustments to my previous estimates of industry size or growth rate.  Compared with last year, the revenue growth rate is about the same (82% vs 85%), while the customer growth rate is sharply lower (42% vs. 55%). ...

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VisualIQ Connects Attribution to Media Buys

As I threatened – I mean, promised – a couple of weeks ago, I’ll be writing about marketing measurement systems over the next month or two. The hottest topic within this segment is probably algorithmic attribution, which uses advanced statistics to calculate the incremental impact of each marketing contact on final results. Unlike marketing mix models, which work with aggregated data such as total TV spend per month, the algorithmic systems...

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Why Is B2B Marketing Automation Growing So Slowly?

Let me start by saying that the 50% revenue increase I’m projecting for B2B marketing automation in 2013 is a very healthy one. In actual dollars, the $250 million gain is much larger than the $175 million growth in 2012. So if you’re working in the industry, don’t circulate that resume just yet.But still, as I noted last week, the growth rate is slowing – and for some vendors seems to have fallen considerably in the second half of 2012. The...

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And Our Forecast of B2B Marketing Automation Revenue for 2013 is....

I’ve just finished the latest update of our B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST), available on the raabguide.com Web site. The VEST is our evaluation of industry vendors, aimed primarily at companies choosing a marketing automation system.The VEST contains a great deal of information that provides interesting (to me, at least) insights into industry trends. But by far the most quoted piece of content is our estimate of industry...

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The Marketing Funnel is Dead: Here's What Will Replace It

Okay, I freely admit that headlines like “the marketing funnel is dead” are a cheap trick to attract attention. But I swear I came by this one honestly. Too tired to do any serious work on a recent plane flight, I scanned a random white paper that argued the traditional idea of a funnel didn’t capture the need to treat customers individually as they move towards a purchase. So far my head was nodding in agreement plus maybe a little drowsiness....

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