Cloud marketing – Ireland to springboard Marketo’s Europe launch

15 Sep 2011

Marketo's European managing director Fergus Gloster

Cloud software player Marketo – which aims to finally help marketers demonstrate their contribution to the business revenue cycle – is spearheading its attack on the European market from a new 125-job operation in Dublin.

The company chose the Salesforce.com Cloudforce event in London yesterday to begin its launch into the UK market.

Marketo recently established its European headquarters in Dublin and plans to create 125 jobs over the next three years through an initiative supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

Its Revenue Performance Management (RPM) technology combines marketing automation and sales effectiveness to grow revenues using all the latest customer interaction points, including social media.

One of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing cloud companies

Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com, Marketo’s European managing director Fergus Gloster said it’s all about analytics and demonstrating the effectiveness of marketing in the revenue cycle of companies.

“Marketing for too long in companies has been led by people who do events and branding and it is usually sales who get all the credit for closing the deal.

“Whereas in reality, marketing is what probably instigated the revenue cycle. What we need to be able to do for modern marketers is measure their effectiveness. If you, for example, spend €20,000 for a big event in Europe, what return did you get on that investment?

“It might be all good with a lot of acclaim and brand recognition, but how do you make that tangible?

“Marketing needs to put itself in the revenue cycle. If they don’t then the old tradition of marketing being the first thing to get cut if there are any market setbacks will continue. This is because, until now, marketers never existed in an environment where they could easily justify what they deliver.

“We’re taking marketing automation and showing the proof points – the cost per lead, what sources of leads close deals best and what are the quickest channels for delivering revenue.”

Marketo has already signed a number of customers in the UK, including Antivia, Mimecast and NewVoiceMedia.

A recent global study of 250 Marketo global customers found that RPM improves lead-to-opportunity conversion by an average of 46pc, improves opportunity-to-win ratio by 17pc, increases average contract value by 12pc and reduces customer acquisition costs by 15pc.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com