Contact: Matt Mullen
For the first half of this decade, the rise of digital marketing technology in the go-to-market strategies of many of the largest global software vendors has been difficult to ignore. Yet in the second half of 2015, there were several indicators that the progress of these transitions toward digital marketing was not uniformly successful, and several large players announced that they were looking to divest their digital marketing divisions – a sign of retrenchment as they protect their core business by shedding underperforming units that failed to generate hoped-for revenue.
In August, as part of the HP split, the company decided to put its marketing optimization business in HP Inc, among its PC and printing operations. The rest of its software organization emerged at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. That same month, Intuit announced that it wanted to sell Demandforce, which it acquired for $424m in 2012. That came to fruition earlier this month, with Internet Brands as the acquirer. Other firms looking to sell their digital marketing assets include Teradata and SDL.
That these companies’ adventures in digital marketing are almost over doesn’t suggest that the rush to establish businesses in this market was foolhardy. There remains an opportunity for the assets that are overtly (or covertly) up for sale right now to be refocused – perhaps alongside other complementary assets – most likely via an acquisition by a private equity shop with a vision to do so. 451 Research’s own data shows that the bulk of the digital marketing opportunity currently remains greenfield, ensuring that with the right combination of technical assets aligned with an astute go-to-market strategy, an active channel and agency partnerships, there’s every possibility of creating a successful business.
Look for a full report on this topic in a forthcoming 451 Market Insight.
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