Oracle’s new deal looks the same, but feels different

Contact: Scott Denne

Oracle’s reach for BlueKai looks the same as some of its recent marketing software deals, in some ways. The transaction brings Oracle a cloud-based software service that companies use to manage data for Web and mobile marketing, an offering that complements the company’s other marketing products. But BlueKai’s advertising data marketplace service also moves Oracle into the world of ad tech, a very different sector with a set of customers and a sales model the company isn’t accustomed to.

Adding BlueKai’s data management and third-party data sources to its existing offerings enables Oracle to create a rich set of customer profiles and help it sell its earlier acquisitions, such as Eloqua and Responsys, into the CMO’s office. This type of vendor and feature is familiar to Oracle as the company got its start in managing and integrating data.

What’s new to Oracle is running a data marketplace, especially one like BlueKai’s that is sold to ad tech providers and ad agencies, rather than businesses. While Oracle has made multiple marketing deals, those offerings were aimed squarely at CMOs and other marketing professionals, not paid advertising executives. Though BlueKai sells its data management platform based on a recurring license fee, much of its data exchange business is based on how many people click on ads served using its data.

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Posted in M&A