ExactTarget Acquires Pardot and iGoDigital to Redefine its Marketing Platform
Email marketing and cross-channel interactive marketing saas solutions provider ExactTarget has acquired Pardot, a marketing automation provider and iGoDigital, web personalization provider in a move that will revolutionize its marketing platform.
Over 100million in Cash
ExactTarget ,founded in 2000 and headquartered in Indianapolis injected $95.5 million for Pardot, $85.5 million of it in cash and $10.0 million in ExactTarget common stock. ExactTarget also spend $21.0 million for iGoDigital, with $14.7 million of it in cash and $6.3 million in ExactTarget common stock. The acquisitions are meant to make the firm’s marketing platform better.
On Pardot’s acquisition, Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and chief executive officer said;
“Marketers around the world are hungry for a lead nurturing solution that integrates with their broader marketing efforts and transcends the current offerings available from point solution providers”.
Pardot to Redefine Marketing Automation
Dorsey added,“With the addition of Pardot to the ExactTarget suite, we will redefine marketing automation and deliver the most scalable, comprehensive automation solution that helps both B-to-B and B-to-C marketers leverage the power of data to connect with customers across email, mobile, social media and the Web.”
Pardot was founded in 2007 and is based in Atlanta .
The firm is a software-as-a-service marketing automation platform which is used by clients to create, deploy and manage online lead nurturing marketing campaigns and can be integrated with salesforce.com, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SugarCRM.
Pardot Serves Over 1000 Clients
According to Pardot, it has over 1,000 organizations as its clients, ranging from small and mid-sized businesses to divisions of large enterprise organizations like Restaurant.com, comScore and twilio.
Adam Blitzer, Pardot co-founder and chief operating officer said Pardot has been growing to to be the leading provider of marketing automation for clients in the small business and mid-market and the acquisition will help even achieve their goal faster.
He said; “Now as a part of the ExactTarget family, we can provide our clients with even greater capabilities, as we leverage ExactTarget’s substantial resources and industry leading cross-channel messaging platform. Our goal remains the same – to redefine marketing automation and help marketers around the globe achieve even greater results.”
Pardot is among fastest growing firms. Inc Magazine ranked Pardot number 172 on its Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing privately held companies in August.
iGoDigital to Deepen Web Capabilities, Bring in Predictive Analytics
According tot ExactTarget, its early acquisition, iGoDigital will help it deepen web capabilities and add predictive Analytics to its interactive marketing platform. The Indianapolis-based iGoDigital will lead ExactTarget’s expanded Web product line under the leadership of iGoDigital Founder and President Eric Tobias.
Dorsey again said; “Consumers expect a seamless experience across every interaction with a brand”.
And added, “With the addition of iGoDigital’s advanced Web capabilities and predictive analytics to the ExactTarget platform, we will continue to revolutionize marketing with a powerful suite of new applications to transform data into highly personalized, seamless experiences across email, mobile, social media and the Web.”
iGoDigital was founded in 2004 and is a leading provider of Web personalization solutions that deliver predictive, real-time product recommendations and online guided selling experiences and serves big wigs like Staples, Wal-Mart, P&G, Lids and Scholastic.
To Help Observe and Analyze Online Behavior
iGoDigital’s software-as-a-service platform provides clients a complete solution to observe and analyze online behavior and ask explicit questions through its guided selling application to develop highly accurate customer profiles that can power cross-channel personalization and optimization.
“iGoDigital is revolutionizing the online experience by providing consumer brands a powerful and intuitive solution to transform what they know about a consumer into a highly targeted and relevant online experience,” said Tobias. “As a part of ExactTarget, we can provide our clients even greater levels of innovation by bringing together the best of our Web and predictive analytics capabilities with ExactTarget’s cross-channel interactive marketing platform.”
ExactTarget says its focusing on empowering organizations to communicate with their clients via email, mobile, social media and websites. ExactTarget has presence in North America, Europe, South America and Australia.
