Customer relationship management (CRM) company, Salesforce.com, has announced that ExactTarget is officially part of the business. The original tender, announced last month, was estimated to be in the region of $2.3 billion.
In buying ExactTarget, Salesforce said it wanted to capitalise on the shifting reliance on marketing technology. It will now be able to add to the marketing, service and sales opportunities it already makes available to clients.
Gartner, a researcher of industry trends, has revealed how marketing is one CRM category to keep tabs on in 2012. The sector’s prosperity is such that it grew by 21% during 2012 and is expected to maintain that same rate well into 2017.
Chairman and chief executive officer of US-founded Salesforce described how there might be a changing of the guard between the chief marketing officer (CMO) and chief information officer (CIO) roles by 2017 as budgets shift from one to the other.
“The CMO is expected to spend more on technology than the CIO by 2017,” said Benioff. “The addition of ExactTarget makes Salesforce the starting place for every company and puts salesforce.com in the pole position to capture this opportunity.”
Little Will Change at ExactTarget
ExactTarget’s sale to Salesforce is considered a logical step after the two have been partners for nearly a decade, while headquarters are expected to remain at Indianapolis, even though the CRM company is California-based.
Scott Dorsey, the man who founded ExactTarget, will continue as CEO of the platform, which has been used by over 6,000 companies including Coca-Cola, Gap and Nike. He appears to have great belief in the additional tools Salesforce.com offers.
“By bringing together ExactTarget’s industry-leading marketing automation and campaign management capabilities with salesforce.com’s leading social marketing solutions—listening with Radian 6, publishing with Buddy Media, and advertising with Social.com—we will deliver the marketing platform of choice for CMOs,” explained Dorsey.