Another day, another acquisition in the marketing automation industry. Salesforce.com has boosted and diversified its product offerings for marketers by acquiring ExactTarget for $2.5 billion. Adding email marketing functionality to its portfolio is a key play for salesforce.com, so it’s no wonder Marc Benioff is telling analysts that ExactTarget is more important than any of the 25-odd acquisitions the company has previously made.

Salesforce.com's acquisition of ExactTarget, Oracle's recent acquisition of Eloqua, and Marketo's IPO add up to a lot of change in the fast-growing marketing automation industry. But what does it mean for customers? 

Marketers are struggling to keep up with the rise of the connected consumer by adopting real time methods for engaging with prospects and customers. With the marketing technology industry in a state of flux, customers are certainly experiencing a level of marketing automation anxiety. As I talk to companies on a daily basis, most are grappling with how to choose the right vendor - or vendors - that will be with them for the long-haul and help them address four key issues:

• Disparate Data: Marketers know that customers expect personalized interaction, regardless of the channel, but removing silos (both technical and cultural) and ensuring data flows across teams is still a huge challenge
• Metrics Confusion: Marketers are struggling to gather meaningful analysis across multiple channels and multiple systems
• Skills Shortage: Finding people with expertise across multiple marketing automation systems and who know how to create an integrated approach to customer engagement is difficult
• Future-proof Technologies: Selecting the right technologies to build customer intimacy and enable actionable insights is a headache for companies, especially in the context of a shifting vendor landscape

The good news is that major vendors, like salesforce.com, recognize that marketing automation is a critical business tool and are investing heavily to integrate the technology into their CRM solution. For the digital marketer, the addition of ExactTarget has rounded off the Salesforce solution. Already the market leader in CRM sales and service solutions, salesforce.com now has the email marketing tool to add to their suite of social marketing solutions (Salesforce Marketing Cloud).

Nevertheless, technology is only one piece of the puzzle, and there’s some way to go before any single platform is able to deliver a single seamless toolset for the modern marketer. 

What do you think of the ongoing change in the marketing automation industry? Share your thoughts below.

Need help shaping and executing your marketing automation strategy? Learn more about Bluewolf’s Marketing Services Practice.