MarTech Series Reviews the Top 20 Acquisitions of 2018 That Disrupted the Technology Landscape
We begin the New Year with a round-up of the top 20 MarTech acquisitions in 2018. The article is part of the research that intends to shed light on the most-read MarTech topics focused on funding, acquisitions and product launches that were in demand in 2018. While one of the biggest acquisitions of 2018 was IBM acquiring Red-Hat, here are the rest that we found to be disruptive.
Cision Completes Acquisition of PRIME Research
Cision, a leading PR Tech firm, acquired PRIME Research in January last year. The acquisition was important for Cision to bolster their media measurement, professional services, and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities.
Cost of Acquisition: Undisclosed
We got in touch with Connected Work Analysts at Frost & Sullivan to obtain commentary on the acquisitions of 2018. They said, ”As a team, we seem to agree that there is no point in trying to establish which acquisition was the largest in $$ value. Instead, we believe acquisitions must be evaluated based on their impact on the industry. We also seem to have reached a consensus that Cisco’s acquisition of BroadSoft was the most impactful acquisition in the UC/UCaaS space in 2018.”
SAP to Acquire Callidus Software Inc., Will Offer Comprehensive “Front Office” Suite
Callidus Software’s Lead to Money Suite combined with SAP’s cutting-edge consumer engagement platform is the perfect mix to emerge as industry’s leading CRM. No surprises then that SAP thought it was a great idea to acquire Callidus Cloud.
Cost of Acquisition: $2.4 billion
Townsquare Announces Acquisition Of Trenton, NJ Radio Stations
Acquisitions seem Townsquare’s forte as it continued acquiring in 2018. America’s third-largest AM-FM radio provider, the company has 320 radio stations in 66 markets. Townsquare originally started from radio and has since diversified its business into media.
Cost of Acquisition: $17 million
Also Read: SourceLink Completes Acquisition Of Path Interactive, A Leading Digital Marketing Agency
Salesforce-MuleSoft Deal: The Dynamic Shift in Marketing Cloud Equation
MarTech leader Salesforce decided to acquire Mulesoft to give a newer dimension to its product portfolio. Mulesoft has a unique attribute of associating enterprise data with it. Hence, the software can handle integrations of all components of an enterprise environment in a single system. Mulesoft’s clients were able to leverage these capabilities on disparate devices and software.
Cost of Acquisition: $6.5 billion
STRATACACHE Announces Acquisition of X2O Media from Barco
STRATACACHE acquired X2O from Barco Media in March 2018. The acquisition is crucial for STRATACACHE, the company being a leading digital engagement brand. X2O gets two things done for STRATACACHE — gets cash-cows as clients and enhances their interactive digital engagement capabilities.
Cost of Acquisition: Undisclosed
West Corporation Closes Landmark Acquisition of Nasdaq’s Public Relations and Digital Media Businesses
West Corporation’s acquisition of Nasdaq’s business ingests additional horsepower in the company’s already well-established technology-enabled services suite. Nasdaq’s business unit that has been acquired consists of Digital Media & Public Relations. This will significantly increase West’s outreach and consumer base.
Cost of Acquisition: $335 million
Infosys Completes Acquisition of Award-Winning Creative and Consumer Insight Agency, WONGDOODY
Infosys, one of the biggest names in consulting, technology and services of the future acquired WONGDOODY in May last year. WONGDOODY is a creative agency that also works in the consumer insights space. With studios in Seattle and Los Angles, WONGDOODY brings to Infosys, creative talent and deep marketing and brand engagement expertise.
Cost of Acquisition: $75 million
Impartner Continues Rapid Expansion of Channel Management Technology Portfolio with Announcement of New Acquisition
Impartner is perhaps the biggest brand when it comes to Partner Relationship Management. In June last year, it acquired Tremolo Software in an attempt to optimize brand engagement for its customers. Tremolo specializes in NewsOnDemand (automated newsletters) and SocialOnDemand (Social Content Syndication for vendor’s partner).
Cost of Acquisition: Undisclosed
Microsoft To Acquire GitHub For $7.5 Billion
Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub opens a plethora of opportunities for almost 30 million developers. GitHub is the go-to platform for the developer community to train and educate themselves on the entire paradigm of coding. Microsoft’s benefit — the company has always had a developer first attitude.
Cost of Acquisition: Well, $7.5 billion
Adobe Completes Acquisition of Magento Commerce
One of the two big acquisitions of Adobe in 2018, Adobe’s acquisition of Magento integrates the latter’s Commerce Cloud into Adobe’s capabilities. With this, Adobe has been able to deliver a single, end-to-end digital experience platform.
Cost of Acquisition: $1.68 billion
Plantronics Completes Acquisition of Polycom
Plantronics acquired Polycom in July last year in its efforts to boost its capabilities in the Unified Communications and Collaboration Marketing Technology landscape. With the acquisition, Plantronics managed to focus on several aspects pertaining to human-technology exchange.
Cost of Acquisition: $2 billion
Gannett Completes Acquisition of WordStream
Gannett, the futuristic media company acquired WordStream in July 2018 — Wordstream is a SaaS solution for optimizing digital marketing services campaigns. The acquisition enabled Gannett to go light years ahead in its pursuit to accelerate digital transformation for every sector that it caters to.
Forrester Adds Muscle to its CX Delivery Capabilities with New Acquisitions
July 2018 also saw Forrester making a couple of acquisitions so that the company can better its Customer Experience (CX) capabilities. Forrester acquired the following two brands –
- FeedbackNow — The company develops monitoring software to measure and enhance CX
- GlimpzIt — Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Provider
Cost of Acquisition: Undisclosed
“We work with business and technology leaders to develop customer-obsessed strategies and operations that drive growth,” said George Colony, CEO, Forrester.
Why Forrester and SiriusDecisions? Forrester provides the strategy needed to be successful in the age of the customer; SiriusDecisions provides the operational excellence. The combined unique value can be summarized in a simple statement:
You can read his full commentary here.
Workday Completes Acquisition of Adaptive Insights
Workday’s acquisition of Adaptive Insights in August 2018 successfully groomed the former’s itinerary of products. Adaptive Insights developed solutions that facilitate easier business planning. Workday, being a leader in Finance and Human Resource capabilities for the enterprise, leveraged Adaptive Insight to refine and sharpen its products.
Cost of Acquisition: $1.55 billion
Amobee Completes Acquisition of Videology, Expands Advanced TV and Video Advertising Capabilities
Amobee’s acquisition of Videology’s assets helped the former equip itself with advanced TV and video advertising abilities. Amobee now has access to sophisticated data-driven linear-TV planning tools for its connected TV and digital video solutions.
Also Read: Integrate Acquires Listenloop and Widens Its Demand Generation Offerings
Cost of Acquisition: $101 million
We spoke to Kim Perell, CEO, AMOBEE, to inquire about the state of the company’s acquisition of Videology. She said, “While television remains the largest single channel for advertising spend, the TV industry is transforming through the nascent stages of TV and video convergence for both viewers and advertisers. We saw an enormous opportunity with the acquisition of Videology,which had established its pedigree as the market-leading technology for video and linear TV. With consumers now moving seamlessly from screen to screen, from channel to channel, the incorporation of the Videology technology within the Amobee platform means that we are now able to provide best-in-class advertising solutions that drive results for our clients across the entire spectrum of media channels, seamlessly joining TV and digital planning, execution and reporting within a single interface.
Further, the strategic addition of Videology to our suite means that Amobee can work with progressive broadcasters to meet the goals of marketers more efficiently, with sophisticated audience-based planning technology and yield optimization solutions.
The net result of the acquisition is that Amobee is now in a pre-eminent position to capture the global digital marketing opportunity brought about by the ongoing convergence of TV and digital.”
Deloitte’s Acquisition of Magnetic’s Business Platform Enables New Capabilities for Deloitte
Deloitte announced that it will be acquiring Magnetic Media Inc’s Artificial Intelligence-powered business platform. This move clearly indicated Deloitte’s increased focus in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Audience Data Analytics. This strategic acquisition helped Deloitte accelerate smarter and faster development of its Digital Experience Services platform.
Cost of Acquisition: Undisclosed
SiriusXM’ Acquisition of Pandora Creates the Largest Audio Entertainment Enterprise Globally
SiriusXM acquired Pandora in this third quarter of 2018, automatically transforming the company as the leader in the subscription radio domain. This is because SiriusXM, prior to the acquisition was only a vendor for in-car-radio. After the acquisition, the company could penetrate in other Radio Marketing Technology landscapes such as home radio, mobile radio, etc. Pandora was/is the largest US audio streaming platform.
Cost of Acquisition: $3.5 billion
Adobe to Buy Marketo; Leaps Ahead in the B2B Engagement Economy with this $4.75 Billion Acquisition
Adobe’s second-biggest acquisition after Magento, Marketo’s buyout ensured that Adobe infused some of the best B2B marketing technology techniques in its offering. Thanks to the Magento-Marketo acquisition, Adobe is now light years ahead of its competition. Not to mention that Magento-Marketo capabilities join extremely superior technologies such as Adobe Experience Cloud and Sensei AI.
Cost of Acquisition: $4.75 billion
SAP SE to Acquire Qualtrics International Inc., Sees Experience Management as the Future of Business
SAP’s technology engages with 77% of transactions worldwide. Combine that with Qualtrics’ experience data and you have the biggest platform to accelerate the XM category. This is a divine combination of Experience Data mixing with Operational Data to create an end-to-end global platform, at scale. We have yet to experience the force of this acquisition. But we will be on the lookout for the same.
Cost of Acquisition: $8 billion
Forrester To Acquire B2B Sales Research Firm, SiriusDecisions
Forrester is one of the most credible brands when it comes to businesses looking out for well-researched reports. SiriusDecisions has its niche in B2B research and the subsequent advice. Forrester acquiring SiriusDecisions helps the former expand in size and offer further innovative and customized solutions to its large clientele.
Cost of Acquisition: $245 million
We are concluding by mentioning our final two — Outreach’s acquisition of Sales Hacker and Claritas’ acquisition of Barometrics and completing our list.
Recommended Read: Campaign Monitor Expands into Enterprise Email Market with Acquisitions of Sailthru and Liveclicker
That was our review of the top 20 acquisitions in the Marketing Technology landscape for 2018. What do you think? Let us know at news@martechseries.com.