Demand Gen Report

Salesforce.com — long thought to be in the market to acquire a marketing automation vendor since Oracle bought Eloqua — announced plans to purchase ExactTarget for about $2.5 billion. The move comes as a bit of a surprise to industry observers, who noted that Marketo’s recent successful IPO positioned the company as an appealing acquisition target for Salesforce.com.

The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, is expected to close late in Salesforce.com's fiscal second quarter, ending July 31. The acquisition is expected to increase total revenue by $120 to $125 million in fiscal year 2014.

VisiStat, a cloud-based digital analytics service for marketing and lead generation, announced the launch of two major product versions — VisiStat 10.0 and LeadCaster 4.0.— that feature advanced lead search, comprehensive lead scoring, live leads, and lead history.

In this new release, all lead capture information is presented on one screen, bringing all data together for simple review and fast action by the user, according to company officials.

Skyword, a content production platform provider, recently landed $6.7 million in growth financing led by Cox Media Group. The investment is said to help expand the team and help scale the company to meet increasing customer and partner needs, according to Skyword officials.

“We are in the midst of a perfect storm in the digital information era,” said Tom Gerace, Founder and CEO of Skyword. “Today’s converged media landscape and the evolving relationship between brands and consumers are driving marketers and publishers to rethink their tried-and-true strategies and invest in new technology solutions to better connect with customers. Cox Media Group continues to be a strategic partner in our growth as we push to reshape the industry.”

Act-On announced Act-On Inbound, which extends Act-On’s marketing automation platform to include advanced inbound marketing capabilities such as SEO enhancement and in-depth metrics. The company also announced a new mobile app for Android and iPhone users along with increased offerings of mobile-optimized templates, forms, and preview options within the interface.

Act-On Inbound allows customers to optimize their content, blog, and web site for search engines, manage keywords for both SEO and AdWords, and accurately measure the effectiveness of these campaigns.