Prompt Cast
Salesforce's Acquisition of ExactTarget: A Success Story in Marketing Cloud
TLDR Salesforce's acquisition of ExactTarget, a tech company specializing in email marketing, proved to be a successful move as their marketing cloud division generated $654 million in revenue in fiscal year 2016. ExactTarget's strong relationships with customers, commitment to innovation, and ability to disrupt the market played a key role in their acquisition by Salesforce.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
ExactTarget, founded in December 2000 by Scott Dorsey and his co-founders, started as a tech company in Indianapolis during the burst of the internet bubble and against long odds, with a clear vision of applying database marketing principles to the internet, specifically email marketing, to help small businesses better understand their customers.
05:50
ExactTarget started as a tech company in Indianapolis in 2000, and despite facing challenges in raising money from VCs, they were able to raise a friends and family round of funding and build a scalable sales organization by leveraging their network of friends and colleagues.
11:15
ExactTarget was a sales-driven organization from the beginning, with the founders actively selling and working closely with customers to shape the product, and they also built a channel program with digital agencies to reach larger clients early on.
16:28
ExactTarget admired Salesforce's ability to build and scale their business, and they wanted to build software that could serve both small businesses and large enterprises, with the flexibility to offer different features to different clients, which allowed them to reach a wide range of customers and disrupt the incumbents in the market.
21:34
ExactTarget went public in December 2007, but ultimately decided to pull their IPO in 2009 due to the financial crisis, and instead raised a large round of capital to continue expanding the business as a private company.
26:57
ExactTarget expanded internationally by partnering with resellers in the UK, Australia, and Brazil, and eventually acquired these businesses to establish a presence in those markets. They also made three product expansion acquisitions and three geo expansion acquisitions over the course of their history.
32:37
Salesforce acquired ExactTarget because they wanted a multi-channel platform with greater data capabilities that catered to both B2B and B2C customers, and ExactTarget fit perfectly into their vision for the marketing cloud.
38:03
Salesforce acquired a B2B marketing automation company in Atlanta for around $100 million, which allowed them to compete with Eloqua and Marketo in the industry.
43:58
ExactTarget was committed to Indianapolis and played a significant role in the city's tech community, and their real estate strategy focused on building in the urban core to attract top talent and take advantage of the energy and vitality of downtown Indianapolis. They also worked to establish a nonstop flight from Indianapolis to San Francisco, which was seen as a game changer for the tech community in Indianapolis.
48:58
ExactTarget faced pressure as a public company to move away from email and embrace new channels, but their email business remained the most powerful tool for marketers and continued to grow, leading to their acquisition by Salesforce.
54:13
ExactTarget built a strong relationship with Microsoft, which led to Microsoft becoming a customer and eventually retiring their internal email platform in favor of ExactTarget's solution, illustrating the trend of businesses using software as a service to outsource non-core competencies.
59:39
ExactTarget's acquisition by Salesforce was successful due to Salesforce's strong executive level relationships with trusted CEOs and CIOs, as well as their ability to innovate and scale the business, but there is still plenty of opportunity for new innovation and new companies in the SaaS space.
01:05:13
Salesforce's marketing cloud division had a revenue of $654 million in fiscal year 2016, showing the success of the acquisition and the power of their enterprise relationships.
01:10:57
Salesforce's marketing cloud division had a revenue of $654 million in fiscal year 2016, showing the success of the acquisition and the power of their enterprise relationships.
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Technology
Business
