10 years ago I took the plunge to become the CMO in a tech startup. With global ambitions and limited resources, I needed some smart tech to solve my customer acquisition challenges.
On one side of the business, an online B2B listings directory, I invested in SEO & paid search to capture a massive long tail of global search traffic. But on the other, a SaaS e-buying platform, I needed something more comprehensive that could engage, nurture & filter thousands of contacts and highlight those that were in “buying mode”.
Of course this set me on the road to marketing automation and a friend of mine recommended I speak with a new company that was in the early stages of bringing a product to market.
That company was marketo, and I joined the Beta program for their Lead Management solution. In fact I was one of marketo’s first 50 customers (the “Marketo 50”) and their first customer outside of the US.
I was in London and marketo (numbering I’m guessing less then 40 employees) was in California. We never met, all selling then on-boarding was done by phone (no video conferences in those days) and it took me 20 minutes to install the solution.
That experience was an epiphany to me - how small businesses could afford solutions that previously needed six figure budgets, how we could punch far above our weight with the power of Martech and just how transformative SaaS was in software delivery.
There was a hole at the time though. With efforts to drive web traffic to our site via search and marketo nurturing leads, it was clear to me I needed to get better insights into onsite behaviours. The obvious choice was Omniture (just bought by Adobe and soon to be renamed Adobe Analytics), and I explored bringing that tool into the business, meeting with Adobe & it’s partners. We never completed the transaction, being small we moved on to other things, but marketo + Adobe Analytics seemed to me to be a no-brainer.
That whole experience set me on a path to get on the supplier side of Martech, with the ideal employer being Adobe. The next few years saw me sharing my digital transformation journey at conferences and in webinars. It turned out what I was doing was relatively cutting edge (who knew?), and marketo supported me in winning several industry awards.
A little self promotion never hurts, and the opportunity to join Adobe came in 2013. This week marks my 5th anniversary. This week also sees the completion of Adobe’s acquisition of marketo. Both are incredibly proud moments for me.
I’m not sure back in 2008 I would’ve dreamt that Adobe & Marketo would join forces, but based on that personal experience I’m so excited by the future of Adobe & marketo coming together. It’s funny how things turn out...