Salesforce adds more intelligence with Datorama purchase

Salesforce announced Monday that it has agreed to buy Datorama, which employs artificial intelligence to provide marketing intelligence and analytics.

Deal terms were not disclosed, but Reuters cites Israeli media reports that it was over $800 million. Although the company is headquartered in New York City, about half of its 400 employees are in Israel. Datorama’s 3,000+ clients include PepsiCo, Ticketmaster, Trivago, Unilever and Foursquare.

While there is no shortage of firms offering analytics and marketing intelligence, Datorama has emphasized it can present the advertising and marketing data from a variety of tools — the company says the average marketer has an average of 70 data streams — inside one cloud-based dashboard, where AI helps generate automated reporting, insights for decision-making and ways to optimize campaigns.

In a blog post, Datorama CEO and co-founder Ran Sarig noted that his company’s platform will help marketers “unlock insights across Salesforce data and the myriad of technologies used in today’s marketing and consumer engagement ecosystem, [inside of] one unified view of data and insights.”

In its announcement, Salesforce said the acquisition “strengthens Salesforce’s ability to empower brands worldwide to deliver smarter, more personalized and connected customer experiences,” adding that it complements the addition of its Einstein AI layer and the recent integration with Google Analytics 360. The availability, integration and analytics of data has become a central point of differentiation for Salesforce versus its major marketing platform competitors, like Adobe and Oracle.

Founded in 2012, Datorama has presented a series of leading-edge enhancements in recent months.

This past March, it launched a new LiteConnect feature that can turn a standalone data set into a separate interactive dashboard. For instance, a marketer might want to see weather data versus foot traffic for various locations in a chain of restaurants.

In the spring of last year, Datorama announced Genius, a built-in AI layer for surfacing insights, complementing its previous use of AI for foundational tasks like organizing incoming data. After a while, Genius automatically makes suggestions about data or metrics that it knows this particular user has found to be valuable.

At the end of 2016, Datorama became one of the first marketing analytics platforms to offer integration with Amazon’s Alexa voice agent, allowing users to ask for analytical results via voice inquiries.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

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