Yext helps local businesses manage directory listings, reviews, and other parts of their online presence. It’s a specialized but large corner of the marketing technology industry. They just completed their Initial Public Offering, a rare achievement these days. The IPO raised $133 million and yielded a $1.2 billion market capitalization. That’s ten times revenue if you track such things.
Marketo used to be a marketing automation system but it now calls itself an “engagement platform”. Whatever that is, it just got still broader with the company’s purchase of ToutApp, which helps salespeople send multi-step email campaigns. The extension from marketing to sales supports Marketo’s position in Account Based Marketing, which straddles both worlds.
More on ad measurement: comScore has expanded its “validated Campaign Essentials” to measure audience demographics, reach, frequency, and GRPs as well as viewability for Facebook display ads. The product already provided similar metrics for Facebook Audiences, Twitter, and Instagram. This is part of advertisers’ increasing resistance to unverified audience claims by the big social networks and to the networks’ power in general.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.