InsightIQ Blog

Thoughts: Adobe's acquistion of Omniture

Sep 18 2009

In the past few years, we've seen marketing technologies market grow and shift to comprise these four major application areas:

Web content management
Online Analytics/Digital Marketing
Enterprise Marketing Management
Customer Relationship Management

The recent acquisition of Omniture by Adobe looks to be the first step toward industry consolidation of Web content management and online analytics.

We've already seen movement in the past: Unica, a global EMM provider acquired Sane Solutions in 2006 to build out their online analytics capabilities (first with Net Tracker, now NetInsight). And while they don't have Web content management capabilities yet, it's likely an area of consideration.

So why did Adobe plunk down $1.8B for the Web analytics giant? The answer is simple: the merger should further breakdown the silos between online marketing and content management, enabling marketers to become more cross channel-focused in the digital channels. And, as content continues to move online, a combined Adobe/Omniture offering could provide richer analytics and optimization capabilities.

How quickly will Omniture and Adobe customers realize a benefit? That's a tough question to answer. When Omniture acquired Touch Clarity and Offermatica in 2006 and 2007, they struggled to integrate both. If the acquisition by Adobe slows down core product development, others like Unica, Core metrics and Web Trends might be able to gain market share in the short term. However if Adobe and Omniture integrate the content management and web analytics successfully, the rest of the providers could find themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage.

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