San Francisco, Software major Adobe has struck a deal to acquire Marketo, a leading Cloud platform for business-to-business marketing engagement, for $4.75 billion.
“The acquisition of Marketo widens Adobe’s lead in customer experience across B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) and puts Adobe Experience Cloud at the heart of all marketing,” Brad Rencher, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Digital Experience, Adobe, said in a statement on Thursday.
The deal is Adobe’s largest ever and puts the company in more direct competition with Oracle and Salesforce, ZDNet reported.
Adobe said the transaction, which is expected to close during the fourth quarter of the company’s 2018 fiscal year, is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.
Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently, the San Jose, California-headquartered Adobe said.
Marketo is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices around the world, and serves as a strategic partner to enterprises across a wide variety of industries.
With nearly 5,000 customers, Marketo brings together planning, engagement and measurement capabilities into an integrated B2B marketing platform.
Adobe hopes that adding Marketo’s engagement platform to its “Experience Cloud” will enable Adobe to offer an unrivalled set of solutions for delivering transformative customer experiences across industries and companies of all sizes.
The Adobe Experience Cloud platform enables B2C companies to drive business impact by harnessing massive volumes of customer data and content in order to deliver real-time, cross-channel experiences that are personalised and consistent.
This acquisition brings together the richness of Adobe Experience Cloud analytics, content, personalisation, advertising and commerce capabilities with Marketo’s lead management and account-based marketing technology to provide B2B companies with the ability to create, manage and execute marketing engagement at scale.
“Adobe and Marketo both share an unwavering belief in the power of content and data to drive business results,” said Steve Lucas, CEO, Marketo.
“Marketo delivers the leading B2B marketing engagement platform for the modern marketer, and there is no better home for Marketo to continue to rapidly innovate than Adobe,” Lucas added.
Upon close of the transaction, the Marketo CEO will join Adobe’s senior leadership team and continue to lead the Marketo team as part of Adobe’s Digital Experience business, Adobe said.