Cloud CRM platform provider
salesforce.com has acquired
ExactTarget - a cloud marketing platform provider with 6,000 corporate customers including companies of the caliber of Coca-Cola and Nike.
The acquisition advances salesforce.com's aim of becoming the leading CRM platform in the world. The company will combine its sales, service and social marketing solutions with ExactTarget's digital marketing options to establish a marketing platform that caters for email, mobile, and all aspects of the Internet, including social networks.
Salesforce.com and ExactTarget's merger will benefit both companies' customers - salesforce.com customers now has access to a comprehensive marketing automation solution, while ExactTarget's customers can now access world-class social marketing capabilities.
Research organization Gartner has estimated that in the near future technology companies will direct a full 33% of their marketing budgets to digital marketing at the cost of traditional marketing. This will be driven by a significant increase in consumers and businesses using mobile devices, digital technologies and social networks. Gartner also concluded that marketing grew at a rate of 21% in 2012, making it the fastest growing CRM category. 21% growth in the category is expected until the end 2017.
"The CMO is expected to spend more on technology than the CIO by 2017," explained salesforce.com's Chairman and CEO, Marc 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."
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