According to Fred

The musings of a marketer and tech geek.

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After a year of M&A where do the major DXPs go from here?

It’s a crowded marketing technology space and it gets worse every year. Startups are popping up it seems like every day to combat a specific niche need in the world of today’s digital marketer. To make matters worse (?? – intentional question), the SaaS platforms make it easier for companies to jump in and try/buy/use than ever before. The craziness around it all is that it only gets worse as you get bigger in size. But we also see that best-of-breed platforms are getting used as well, which leads me to the topic for this article. Where do the major digital experience platforms (DXPs) go from here?

Did that say billions?!

I always have some level of surprise when I see the headlines that “So and So” company bought another company for some big price tag. Let’s just use Salesforce and Tableau for example. Any time an acquisition in the MarTech space ends with a “B”, we all take notice. So when Salesforce dropped $15.7B, it’s not just an acquisition, it’s a statement. But like any acquisition, they are made for a reason, and the likely reason is that it fills a gap that the acquiring company has to either fuel further growth or immediate complementary services to add to the bottom line. Thus as you look at all the acquisitions of the last year (and into 2018) of all the major DXPs, you will see a pattern — fill a gap. There are some distinct differences in the gaps being filled and how they fuel further growth for each platform. However, gap filling is the main driver.

The acquisitions of 2019

Here is a quick list of the acquisitions in 2019 by the major DXPs.

Adobe

  • Allegorithmic – maker of 3d material and texture software
  • Adobe’s major acquisitions were in 2018 with Sayspring, Uru, Magento and Marketo.

Sitecore

  • Hedgehog – a professional services company with Sitecore specific IP
  • Sitecore’s major acquisition of 2018 was StyleLabs, a content marketing software company.

Salesforce

  • Griddable.io – data synchronization service
  • MapAnything – location based workflow software
  • Bonobo AI – conversational software
  • Tableau – data visualization
  • ClickSoftware – field service software

Episerver

  • Insite Software – B2B commerce software
  • Idio – a content personalization and analytics platform
  • Episerver was acquired by Insight Venture Partners in 2018, which is fueling the acquisitions in 2019.

Acquia

  • AgileOne – a customer data platform (CDP)
  • Cohesion – a low-code/no-code development platform
  • Mautic – a marketing automation platform
  • Acquia was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2019 as well, which is fueling the growth acquisition strategy as well.

SAP

  • None. All of their recent acquisitions were in 2018, the biggest and notable being Qualtrics.

Oracle

  • CrowdTwist – a loyalty software and service provider
  • Oxygen Systems – a NetSuite SuiteCloud Developer Network partner

OK, we got all that? So if you dig in, clearly the gaps are what is fueling the M&A. Some are rounding out their core offerings. Others are starting to get really niche in what they need to grow with.

So in my opinion, Acquia and Episerver are growing their core offerings to play with more established players such as Adobe and Salesforce. They both had recent ownership changes by private equity and they are fueling the growth needed to expand in their categories as well as grow into new spaces be it upper mid-market or lower enterprise companies.

Adobe’s sole acquisition of 2019 was very specific to content creation and in a world where they want to grow in the upcoming AR/VR space as that takes hold in 2020 and beyond. For Adobe, 2019 and going into 2020 it is all about integrating their big 2018 acquisitions of Magento and Marketo into a holistic platform with the rest of the Adobe Experience Cloud.

Sitecore’s acquisition of Hedgehog turned some heads in their partner ecosystem. Many thought this was going to change their partner relationship. Turns out it wasn’t so much that as it was to gain some proprietary IP and bolster their customer success efforts. The StyleLabs acquisition of 2018 was the big story of gaining a more robust DAM and marketing services technology.

For Salesforce, clearly the big news was the Tableau acquisition. Adding a big set of customers and adding a data visualization solution to their stack turned some heads, but maybe in jealousy rather than the actual acquisition itself. Data is complex. You can make it tell any story. But when you have the right tools to help decision makers make informed decisions, that makes business run faster and more efficiently. The difference of the other acquisitions of Salesforce is that they play in a lot of places with CRM being the hub. So whether it is conversational software or data synchronization or field service software with ClickSoftware, Salesforce is filling in specific gaps, not big ones.

Finally, I threw in SAP and Oracle only because they are big players, but they didn’t make any big noise in 2019. SAP did make some noise with the Qualtrics acquisition in 2018, but time will tell if that was a good move or not in the grand scheme of things.

Where do DXPs go now?

Disclaimer: Ok, this is where I have to make the statement that I work for a company in which we are alliance partners with many of the companies discussed here. However, all the information I’ve shared is public information. The next section is all personal opinion only based on the public information. I do not have insights into any M&A strategy by any of these companies or roadmaps through any of our partner agreements. All of these opinions are that of my own and not my employer.

It’s hard to say exactly where the major DXPs go from here. In some cases, several can fill in more niche gaps from the MarTech landscape. For companies like Adobe who also have other clouds in their product offering such as Advertising Cloud and Document Cloud, the acquisition front could shift to those to increase share of wallet on related services. Adobe Acrobat and Sign are great back-office softwares. Where else can they grow the back-office space? Adobe doesn’t have a CRM, but they do have a strong alliance with Microsoft with growing integrations of their Office 365 suite of services which includes Microsoft Dynamics.

For other companies such as Acquia, Sitecore, and Episerver, the play could be to continue to get to feature parity with Salesforce and Adobe. That’s a tall order as both Adobe and Salesforce play in so many places beyond the typical digital front-end these companies are known for. I personally also think this is why Adobe and Salesforce are public companies and Episerver, Acquia, and Sitecore are all still private. There just isn’t enough of an offering yet to be viable public companies.

For 2020, I think we will say a balance of a few things happen with the major DXPs.

First, those that have a mature offering will focus on integration of their offerings for better customer success and user experience. Marketers want (myself included) solutions that allow us to not have to rely on developers to create everything for us. We want to be able to do stuff on our own and bring in our dev teams as needed for custom experiences and solutions. So bringing these solutions tighter together to allow us to do our jobs better, faster, more efficiently and intelligently will be key.

Second, for the DXPs where they are playing catch up will need to decide how feature parity they want to go, and how they will differentiate themselves. What makes their offerings different than any of the others. Is it simpler to use? Better licensing models? Integrations with one or more of the thousands of other popular MarTech solutions out there?

Third, we will see more M&A. There are still some great solutions out there that are used by thousands of companies that will get gobbled up. I think anything around analytics and insights is fair game. Data visualization is fair game. Customer engagement solutions for better real-time response and data gathering. Really, any platform that is part of the overall customer lifecycle that can add data value to a DXP platform is fair game. Because with all the data privacy and collection laws coming into play, the more the DXPs can own the data source the better.

Final thoughts

I find the MarTech landscape one of the most fascinating spaces in the world of marketing. The technology to allow businesses to discover new audiences, create solutions, market to them, engage, and provide value is nothing short of amazing. It also makes marketing one hell of a tough job in 2020 as well. But as the landscape continues to shift to new channels, ways of engaging customers and prospects change with a changing demographic, the technology needs to keep up too. So whether you make your bet on wearables, voice, AR/VR, 5G, eSports or any of the plethora of channels, the one thing is certain — engaging with a customer base will require technology, data, and creativity. The companies that can offer solutions that fill those areas will find customers. The DXPs that can offer a tightly integrated platform around those areas will also win, but only if it works together and isn’t clunky.

Here’s to 2020 and the rollercoaster ride ahead. Cheers.

This post originally appeared as a LinkedIn published article.

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My Love / Hate Relationship with Ecosystems

Are you a Google user? Are you hooked on the Apple ecosystem? Maybe Amazon with the Echo and Alexa. How do you choose and how does those decisions impact your life in the technology you choose? I discus my love/hate relationship with them as it come to my life, home automation, and supporting my family.

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When Marketers and Consumers are at Odds with Data Collection and Marketing

Today marketers and technology are allowing companies to collect a vast amount of data on consumers and their behaviors.  Consumers on the flip side have been lax in how they treat their data as an actual currency for access to goods and services.  Layer in that legislators have had to get involved to limit how companies collect and use data.  It’s a mess and I try to talk through how we got here and how maybe we get back on track.

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Welcome to the According to Fred – the Podcast

Here we go! I’m trying something new and that is I’m starting a podcast. I wanted a way to be able to document content, thoughts, ideas, in a more consumable format. Not that I don’t like blogging, but as you know, consistency isn’t my thing. I hem and haw over the content that I write and more times than not, I have thoughts that are spur of the moment and I want to document them. So going to an audio format seems like an idea to try and see where it goes. Below is the first episode. I have a few more in the works. I hope to publish weekly, but it may be every two weeks. We’ll see how well I keep that up. I hope you subscribe. I will be submitting to all the major podcasting networks soon. This is just my introductory episode, so I thought I’d publish this one first. Looking forward to your feedback as I go along on this new format journey. Thanks!

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Personal Growth Means Investing in Yourself

“This year’s going to be different.”

You said that on January 2nd, didn’ you? When you made that new year resolution list “official” in your head, on a piece of paper, or printed out and posted on your bathroom mirror. “This year, I’m going to do it. ” you said.

It’s January and by now, almost every “resolution” that you set out for yourself you are likely to have already broken. Diet. “Dry” January. Getting to the gym three days a week. 365 Day Photo Challenge. We all do it. We set out to accomplish some personal ambitions that really take habitual behavior changes. I’ve been there. All of those listed above has been me at some point in the last few years. But just because you didn’t stick with a particular resolution doesn’t mean you still can’t grow, achieve goals, or learn something new. All it means is that you get to reset and focus on something from your list, just not the entire list.

Never Stop Learning

As I sit and watch my two children grow during the school year it is important to me that I also demonstrate that I’m growing too. Therefore I try to make a point to my kids (as does my wife) that we are constantly learning new things. We are diving into technology to help us do our jobs better. We read books on topics that we have interests in. We watch YouTube videos that aren’t someone else playing a video game. I’m constantly consuming content to help me in a variety of areas of my life from my job to my hobbies to my general interests.

That doesn’t mean we don’t do our fair share of Netflix/Amazon binging as well. We do, but I’d say it is far less than it used to be.

Sources of Personal Growth

There are no shortage of places you can consume content for your own personal growth. Some are free, some are expensive, some are in-between. Just depends on what you are looking for. The sites and services below I’ve explored or personally use today. I will say, they are all digital-based and support my need of being mobile when I consume this type of content.

Audible

$15 per month

I’ve been using Audible for about a year now. Nothing against real books, but I find that audio books fit my lifestyle more. There are certainly pros and cons to audio books from real books. If you are a highlighter / margin writer, clearly audio books aren’t going to fit the bill. I commute up to 3 hours a day between train, walking, and driving. So for me to just pop in my headphones and start listening, it works. Additionally, I recently discovered the speed setting, so now I listen to books at 1.25x to 1.5x speed, allowing me to cruise through books faster. The biggest downside for me is focus. I really can’t do two things at once when I listen to audio books. As soon as I open an email or even scroll through social media while listening to an audio book, I lose my place and concentration. I also take a break between business / career focused books and personal pleasure books. So I have a staple of Star Wars books in my library.

Udemy & Coursera

Udemy – starting at $12/mo | Coursera – pricing depends on course

Udemy and Coursera are two sites that take slightly different approaches to education. Udemy is a site with tons of courses from anyone who can put a program together that gets approved. There are quality courses ranging from how to program to building augmented reality apps, to how to use Microsoft Word. Tons fo courses and tons of options.

Coursera on the other hand is the opposite spectrum in that these are university/higher education level courses offered through the online tool. I consider this online learning for those who want to get high quality content. Universities endorse these programs and your certificate of completions go towards specializations or even some online degrees from universities such as University of Pennsylvania, University of Illinois, Northwestern University and more.

I’ve personally done both and feel both have their place in your learning arsenal. If you are just looking to get into a topic, I’d start with Udemy to get your feet wet. If it is something you really want to dive into and having licensed professors is required, then jump to Coursera.

Masterclass

Masterclass

$90 / course or $180 for a year unlimited subscription

This is the newest addition to my self learning arsenal. I asked for the unlimited subscription for Christmas and I’m not regretting it. I did make sure there was at least two courses I wanted to take before asking, and the topics are pretty narrow right now. However, between learning more about wine to guitar to filmmaking to comedy, I have a number of courses in my library at the moment. Right now I’m learning poker from Daniel Negreanu, photography from Jimmy Chin and Annie Leibowitz, comedy from Steve Martin, guitar from Tom Morello, and wine appreciation from James Suckling. I do like the big names that add gravitas to this subscription versus some of the others. Each has their own purpose. I doubt you’d ever see a Rand Fishkin doing an entrepreneur or SEO class on Masterclass. You are likely going to see him in other outlets.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com)

Paid with Premium LinkedIn membership or through corporate accounts.

Formerly Lynda.com, LinkedIn Learning (LNL) is their online continued education offering. Similar to a lot of other sites that offer courses, LNL has a variety of topics related to business, design, and productivity. I’ve had a Premium LinkedIn account for a while and have taken several courses to work towards a competency. The value of the topics range, but I do find that if I need to brush up on a business topic this solution suffices. My employer now offers this as part of their employee benefits, which is a nice offering.

Facebook Groups

Free

Easy access if you are a Facebook user, private or public groups are a great way to not only network, but learn from a community of similar interest. I run a few groups that are private, but I am also a member of several others. As I stated in another post, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. That being said, I’m still on it and some of these groups are helping provide the value of staying on the platform, for now. To fill my photography habit, I recently joined Pixels & Lenses Visual Club run by Becki and Chris.

Fender Play

$9.99 /mo. or $89/year

While learning from some of the greats like Tom Morello or Carlos Santana from Masterclass is fantastic, they are not really diving into learning guitar. They cover a lot of other aspects, including their style, emotion, gear, etc. However, if really want to learn how to play guitar/bass/ukulele, then Fender Play is the way to go. I like this subscription because they cover a wide variety of skills from practice skills to riffs to full on songs in a variety of genres. Pick your path and go. Also you can do it from your computer or mobile phone. There are plenty of popular songs to work from and the instructors break down each song in a logical way showing chords and strumming from different angles as well as clear explanations.

Podcasts

Free

2018 seemed to be the resurgence of podcasts. From new ones starting to others really taking off, podcasts have picked up steam and I see no letting up in 2019. As we become a more mobile world, podcasts are giving authors a new way to communicate that is beyond their blog. The audio medium allows for passive content consumption. Like Audible, podcasts have no shortage of content from comedy to celebrities to influencers to the mom or dad down the street with a unique point of view they want to share.

The nice thing about podcasts is that depending on the source, you can also get them as part of your daily routines through Amazon Echo and Google Home.

Some of my favorite podcasts include:

  • B2B Growth & B2B Revenue Leadership
  • HBR Ideacast
  • Grammar Girl
  • The Garyvee Audio Experience

News Aggregators

Free

My last source of continuous learning is through several news aggregators for websites and blogs I try to read. I currently use Feedly and Flipboard as my two go-to apps for content. Each offer streams of content based on topics and sources I subscribe to. Feedly really just a content hose from the sources I designated. Flipboard, however, is more of a learning machine based on topics of interest and it helps surface new sources of content based on my behaviors.

Conclusion

Clearly I’m not consuming content from all these sources in one given day. I go through my ebbs and flows of which tool I fall into. Some are part of my routine, while others are sporadic depending on my mood and what I’m digging into. My constants are probably Audible/podcasts for my commute (when I’m not listening to Spotify for music), then Flipboard/Feedly for day-to-day news. I don’t sit down with a Masterclass or Fender Play unless it is the weekend and I have some extended time to spare.

Where do you go to for your continuous education? Do you formally enroll in programs or do your own pacing of learning? Share your thoughts in the comments below.