Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle Corp. announced this morning it has completed the acquisition of cloud-based content marketing provider Compendium in a transaction for which the details have not been disclosed.
The software as a service (SaaS) firm will be used by Oracle to bolster its marketing cloud, adding to the Toronto-based Eloqua acquisition that it made December 2012. A part of Oracle’s Customer Experience solution, Compendium and Oracle will be combined to offer marketers an automated content-delivery system, according to a FAQ issued by Oracle. The aim will be to improve the likelihood a potential customer will make a purchase when the sales department reaches out to them. Oracle says this is possible by building digital profiles on customer leads and delivering targeted content to them based on that profile.
“Customers are increasingly accessing more information through online and mobile channels before engaging with a salesperson,” Oracle states in an open letter signed by both Thomas Kurian, executive vice president of Oracle Development, and Kevin Akeroyd, senior vice president of Oracle Eloqua. “Compendium’s data-driven content marketing platform aligns relevant content with customer data and profiles to help companies more effectively attract prospects, engage buyers, accelerate conversion of prospects to opportunities, increase adoption, and drive revenue growth.”
Compendium’s platform helps marketers plan, publish, manage, and measure their content across various content types and channels (such as Web sites, social media profiles, and e-mail newsletters). It will complement the Eloqua software that helps to target audiences and automates distribution of content to different online channels. Compendium has been used by clients including children’s retailer and play program Gymboree and SaaS event management firm Cvent.
“With Compendium, customers are expected to deliver the right content to the right buyers at the right time,” the Oracle FAQ states.
“The Compendium management team and employees are expected to join Oracle and continue their focus facilitating excellence in marketing,” states a corporate presentation about the acquisition.
The move by Oracle can be construed as its latest move in the battle for chief marketing officer mindshare, says Constellation research analyst Ray Wang on Twitter. As corporate CMOs increase spending budgets on technology tools, many software firms are realizing they must pivot their operations to cater to their needs.
MyPOV: battle for #cmo mindshare is real. See classic research post http://t.co/qcmhF8OnQc #marketing @oracle @Compendium
— R “Ray” Wang 王瑞光 #1A #MetaVerse #Freedom #LetsGo (@rwang0) October 17, 2013
“Marketing sits at the cross roads between the old analog world and the new shift to digital transformation,” Wang writes in a Aug. 2 blog post. “With each big shift, organizations will change what technologies they invest in, who they decide to partner with, and how quickly they will make the shift. This new battle for CMO mind share started when IBM purchased Unica for $480M in August 13, 2010 (Figure 2). The frenzied activity by Adobe, Dell, Eloqua, Google, Hubspot, Kana, Marketo, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and SAS Institute reflect the desire to be top of mind among CMO budgets.”
