Revenue performance management provider Marketo has acquired social campaign management platform Crowd Factory, Inc., for an undisclosed sum. It’s the first acquisition for the company.
The acquisition will enable Marketo to make social marketing an integrated and integral part of every online marketing initiative.
“Social marketing campaigns and marketing automation have been like the proverbial two ships passing in the night, with most social marketing tools sitting in silos disconnected from mainstream marketing processes. Today we have changed that game,” said Phil Fernandez, president and CEO of Marketo.
“By combining Crowd Factory with Marketo, marketing professionals can finally use integrated social campaigns to boost the reach and impact of every marketing initiative they undertake – at every step in the customer lifecycle.”
Crowd Factory helps marketers accelerate social and word-of-mouth marketing, grow their marketing databases with social profiles and attract new customers.
The platform allows marketers to add social applications and messages to every channel – Facebook Pages, Twitter and LinkedIn feeds, landing pages, websites, banner ads and emails.
Then, Crowd Factory automatically tracks the reach and impact of the social sharing, providing direct feedback on the return on investment (ROI) of social marketing.
“Crowd Factory pioneered the idea of social ROI by empowering marketers to push viral campaigns throughout the social web, and then track that valuable social activity back to individual influencers and conversions,” said Sanjay Dholakia, CEO of Crowd Factory.
“This fits perfectly into the vision of marketing automation that Marketo has led: that all marketing activity matters and can be measured against the bottom line.”
