US software company Marketo Inc. (Nasdaq: MKTO) has made its first acquisition six months after going public : an Israeli start-up Insightera Ltd , a real-time personalization platform for websites and mobile to improve online marketing, for $20 Million. $6 million was in cash and the rest in shares.
Insightera was founded in 2010 by CEO Mickey Alon and VP business development Mike Telem. The company’s technology provides real-time analysis of customers visiting e-commerce websites, and on the basis of the analysis, it provides a personalized presentation of the site.
Insightera has raised $6.5 million. $1.5 million 18 months ago from Glilot Capital Partners as a major seed stage investor, and in July 2013, Lightspeed Ventures and Opus Capital Ventures invested $5 million.
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Insightera is a real-time personalization platform that can identify visitors and customize their online and mobile experiences with relevant, personalized content to increase engagement and conversions. The platform includes capabilities for account-based marketing to target strategically important accounts with specific messages across channels, and predictive analytics to auto-engage customers with the most relevant content. Similar to other powerful Marketo solutions, Insightera is easy to use and deploy, working with any content management system and requiring no IT to get started.
Insightera can personalize web and mobile interactions based on company, industry, location and visit history. When combined with the rich information on customer behaviors and smart targeting capabilities that only Marketo can provide, a new level of personalization is unlocked. As a result, companies can communicate with each of their customers as individuals, not just based on profiles or broad pre-defined segments.
By adding the Insightera personalization engine to Marketo’s digital marketing platform, companies will be able to create individual customer conversations that engage customers with the right message, regardless of whether they go to the customer (e.g. via email) or the customer comes to them (e.g. via their website). For example, if a marketer sends an email to a customer but the customer never reads it, then they could present the same message to the customer on the website or mobile application during the next visit.
“Marketing automation captures buyer behavior – the greatest untapped asset that marketers have, ” wrote Lori Wizdo, analyst at Forrester, in a recent report. “With this data, and the knowledge it drives, marketers can provide targeted content and offers which serve to both improve buyer engagement and increase conversion rates.”
“the acquisition unlocks unique capabilities to unify customer conversations across channels and create digital experiences that are personalized for each and every customer”, says Marketo in its announcement, “This move delivers on a key element of Marketo’s multi-channel relationship marketing vision and reaffirms Marketo’s position as the leading innovator in the fast-growing marketing software category”.
Phil Fernandez, President and CEO of Marketo says: “By augmenting our marketing automation with Insightera we are delivering on our vision to unify disparate channels and create timely, individualized relationships. Marketo has repeatedly redefined the standard for a digital marketing platform, and we’re thrilled to raise the bar again with this exciting acquisition.”
Marketo customers including SanDisk, NICE Systems and Blue Jeans Network are already using Insightera to power their web and mobile personalization initiatives.
The acquisition is just one additional step after Marketo’s IPO in May 2013. On April 2012 Marketo accuaried Crowd Factory, a leading social campaign management platform.
Insightera has offices in San Mateo, CA and Israel. As part of the acquisition, the Israeli office will form the foundation of Marketo’s innovation center focused on big data and predictive analytics.
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