Adobe has written a cheque for Neolane, a software company which allows for managing digital marketing campaigns over multiple platforms.
It is believed the deal cost Adobe $600 million and is part of the company’s bid to bring cross-channel campaign management to the Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a set of tools encompassing analytics, social, advertising, targeting, and web management. Neolane has been tried and tested at Barnes & Noble and Bridgestone Tires. It means that clients get a software platform for automatic web campaigns.
Adobe said the acquisition, expected to close next month, will not materially affect its revenue forecast and adjusted financial results for the current fiscal year.
According to Forbes, Neolane CEO Stéphane Dehoche will continue to lead the former Neolane team as part of Adobe’s digital marketing business.
The move means we can expect to see Adobe more heavily pushing its cloud offerings, backed by its software rental model, in the next few months.
Gerry Brown, senior analyst at Ovum, said that Adobe desperately needed a good campaign management platform as a lack of one had been “a glaring hole in its digital marketing platform proposition”.
At more than ten times what Neolane earned, the cost of the deal was steep for Adobe. But Brown said it was worth it because it could propel Adobe into the market leadership.
He thinks that the catalyst for this acquisition was Salesforce.com’s recent $2.5 billion purchase of Exact Target. Adobe had wanted to get its paws on Exact Target and Eloqua but did not manage it,
“Adobe was likely compelled to act before all the their campaign management best-of-breed vendor acquisition options evaporated,” Brown said.
