Marketo Announces LinkedIn Integration, Digital Advertising Tools at Marketing Nation

GE will be the first user of the joint solution, Glass noted. "This reinforces our goal to offer the most rewarding experience to B2B marketers in their quest to nurture their target audiences across the web."

Glass added: “This really helps B2B marketers listen to known and unknown prospects and put their customer experience in context.”

Using a hypothetical situation, Glass explained that the integration would allow GE to follow a prospect who visited its commercial lighting page but left without filling out a form.

Based on what marketers learn from a prospect's URL address and their behavior on the site, a series of relevant messages across LinkedIn social ads, display ads and other channels can nurture the lead. Once the prospect shares more information, that triggers email, display and social ads that relate to their demographics, web site behavior and content engagement.

Key capabilities of the integration include:

• Engaging prospects using display and social ads across desktop and mobile, based on their stage in the buying cycle;
• Providing marketers with enriched data on known and anonymous prospects, including relevant business, profile and behavioral information, to deliver more relevant ads to customers and prospects on their channels of choice over time; and
• Delivering relevant content at the right time to build advocacy and brand loyalty.

Marketo Chairman and CEO Phil Fernandez said the integration with LinkedIn was part of a larger movement for B2B marketers to take a context-based approach and embrace “engagement marketing.” He told the audience that the era of mass media and structured email campaigns is “dead” and noted that the future is about using data to engage and build trust with customers.

Fernandez compared data-driven marketing to a self-driving car. “Drivers plug in the destination and let the cars do the driving,” he said. “We need to have that same role as marketers — with Big Data, machine learning, predictive analytics — and move to a world where we set the goals for our customers.”

New Tools For Online Ad Integration, Mobile

In addition to the LinkedIn integration, Marketo unveiled a number of tools designed to unify mobile, advertising and other digital marketing channels.

"Marketing should not live in silos — it's imperative that brands connect with their customers with the right message wherever they are," Fernandez said. "We are ushering in a new era of marketing that is all about engagement everywhere."

The company unveiled a number of product enhancements, including:

Marketo Ad Bridge, which is designed to connect online advertising efforts to an overall engagement marketing strategy so marketers can find and attract the right prospects, and then move them through the buyer’s journey. By bringing together Marketo's marketing insights with ad tech solutions, marketers can target audiences based on who they are, their stage in the buyer journey and their individual behavior over time to deliver more personalized digital ads.

Marketo Moments, a mobile application that can provide Marketo users with a continuously updated view of the most important marketing program information.

Marketo Mobile Engagement, which is positioned to help bridge the gap between mobile and other marketing channels. Marketo Mobile Engagement enables marketers to drive lasting customer engagement by listening for customer behavior across web, social, email and advertising channels and communicating directly within the mobile environment.

For other news and announcements for The Marketing Nation Summit, click here and here.