Tag: Aprimo

A market-moving marketing move

Brenon Daly

Contact: Brenon Daly

In the largest-ever transaction in the rapidly emerging marketing automation industry, salesforce.com said on June 4 it will hand over $2.5bn in cash for ExactTarget. The deal represents a significant bet by the SaaS kingpin, which has talked about cross-channel marketing becoming a $1bn business in the coming years. Salesforce.com will nearly clean out its coffers to cover its purchase of ExactTarget, which is three times the size of salesforce.com’s second-largest deal.

Under terms, salesforce.com will hand over $33.75 for each share of ExactTarget. That represents the highest-ever price for the 13-year-old marketing automation vendor, which went public in March 2012 at $19. (J.P. Morgan Securities led ExactTarget’s IPO and advised the company on its sale. Bank of America Merrill Lynch worked the other side.) The deal is expected to close by mid-July.

At an enterprise value of $2.4bn, ExactTarget’s valuation of roughly 7.6 times trailing sales splits the difference between the two previous largest transactions in the marketing automation space. In December 2012, Oracle paid an uncharacteristically rich 9.7 times trailing sales for Eloqua, and Teradata paid 6.5 times trailing sales for Aprimo in December 2010, according to the 451 Research M&A KnowledgeBase. (For its part, rival Marketo, which salesforce.com and others were rumored to have looked at last fall, trades at nearly twice ExactTarget’s multiple.)

With the purchase of ExactTarget, the three largest deals salesforce.com has done have all been aimed at expanding the company’s marketing offering. It picked up Buddy Media in mid-2012 for $689m for its agency relationships after spending $326m on social media monitoring startup Radian6 in March 2011. But don’t look for any more deals in that space or any other from salesforce.com soon. During a call discussing the ExactTarget purchase, CEO Marc Benioff said salesforce.com will be on ‘vacation’ from M&A for the next 12-18 months.

Google’s admission of failure?

Ben Kolada

Contact: Ben Kolada

Google has finally found a way to monetize Facebook’s platform. After failing to acquire Facebook when it had the chance several years ago, and now with its own attempts at social networking a bit spotty, official word came on Tuesday that Google is acquiring social marketing startup Wildfire Interactive. Google is reportedly paying $250m for Wildfire, a respectable price tag that likely values the target at 7-10x revenue.

Google’s own ‘Insights for Search’ search analysis engine shows interest in Orkut, its attempt at a social network that found most of its popularity outside the US, and its Google+ social network trending downward over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, interest in Facebook has remained remarkably high.

In acquiring Wildfire, Google is recognizing its social shortcomings, and not a moment too soon. There has been rapid consolidation of social marketing startups in just the past three months.

Sector stalwarts Vitrue and Buddy Media have already been acquired by Oracle and salesforce.com, respectively, leaving only a few hot startups left. Beyond Wildfire, we’d point to GraphEffect, Hearsay Social, Syncapse and Lithium Technologies as the next to go. And there will likely be bidding competition for these firms. Large CRM vendors SAP and Microsoft could make a play here, as well as Teradata, which could buy into social to build on top of its recent purchases of marketing specialists Aprimo and eCircle.

Recent select M&A in social marketing

Date announced Acquirer Target Deal value
July 31, 2012 Google Wildfire Interactive Not disclosed
July 10, 2012 Oracle Involver Not disclosed
June 4, 2012 salesforce.com Buddy Media $689m
May 23, 2012 Oracle Vitrue $325m*
April 18, 2012 Marketo Crowd Factory Not disclosed

Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase *451 Research estimate

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Intuit pays up for SMB-focused Demandforce

Ben Kolada

Contact: Ben Kolada, Thejeswi Venkatesh

Intuit on Friday announced its largest M&A move in six years, acquiring SMB-focused marketing automation startup Demandforce for $423.5m. The deal, and Demandforce’s valuation, was primarily driven by the target’s market traction. The company, founded just in 2003, has amassed a customer roster of more than 35,000 SMBs. The transaction also demonstrates the accounting and tax giant’s desire to further penetrate this market with additional products and services – this is its first major play in marketing automation.

The Demandforce acquisition complements Intuit’s QuickBooks software and expands its offerings for SMBs. (We’d note that Intuit already offers a marketing management and productivity application called QuickBase, though that product is for enterprises.) Demandforce provides marketing automation SaaS and helps businesses maintain an online profile and better communicate with their customers. The company has grown considerably over its short lifetime. According to Inc.com’s annual survey of the fastest-growing companies, Demandforce generated $15.3m in revenue in 2010, up from $6.4m in 2009. Continuing that growth rate would put its 2011 revenue at roughly $25-30m.

Intuit is handing over $423.5m in cash for Demandforce, making this deal Intuit’s largest since it forked over $1.35bn for transaction processor Digital Insight in 2006. Demandforce’s growth certainly factored into its valuation. Assuming that Demandforce maintained historical growth rates, Intuit’s offer would value the target at a whopping 15-20 times trailing sales. If our initial estimates are correct, that valuation is double and even triple some precedent valuations. For example, in 2010, IBM bought Unica for 4.4x sales. Unica had flatlined during its final years as a public company, with revenue remaining in the $100m ballpark for the four years before its sale. The valuation is also double Teradata’s Aprimo acquisition, also announced in 2010. Teradata paid $525m for Aprimo, or 6.3x sales.