Although Oracle’s acquisition of Datalogix hasn’t officially closed yet, some industry insiders have speculated the deal underscored Oracle’s interest in identity-based marketing.
Marketers need richer audience profiles that include known and anonymous attributes, meaning platforms should include, but also go beyond, cookie syncing, Kevin Akeroyd, SVP and GM of the Oracle Marketing Cloud, told AdExchanger.
“The CMO does not want to manage 50 different technology systems, which is why we needed the compilation of BlueKai and Datalogix in addition to identified audience assets like Eloqua and Responsys,” he said. “They want to look at the entire customer lifecycle from prospecting through purchase, loyalty and advocacy, and want it to include all channels – whether it’s TV, offline or digital all in one spot.”
The Datalogix acquisition is intended to help marketers deduce where and when to prompt a user with a relevant ad or offer, and attribute offline sales to digital ad spend.
For instance, Oracle’s data exchange and data-management platform BlueKai might provide an automotive advertiser with information on signal and intent – say someone visited a top-10 auto site in the past two weeks. Datalogix might then note the same individual’s purchase propensities: that she bought a Toyota Prius last year.
Consequently, an ad buyer on an exchange could know, down to the cookie level, that a consumer purchased a product and use that to build lookalike audiences, according to one vendor and Oracle partner company.
“It’s early in the integration process obviously but we’re curious about how it will come together – BlueKai with cookies and Datalogix with purchase data, and how will it ultimately work for exchange partners,” the partner said.
Several Oracle customers are shifting from traditional outbound marketing and list-based methodologies to audience-based targeting. That trend, which requires a mixture of first- and third-party assets, informs Oracle’s acquisition strategy.
“We’d traditionally used email channels and basic retargeting and dynamic content on our website, but recently deployed Oracle’s DMP to combine first-party data from our marketing systems with third-party data that can help us hone in on our market,” said Neil Rongstad, global manager for marketing demand for industrial manufacturer Rockwell Automation.
Rockwell combines its first-party data with third-party data from Demandbase and Dun & Bradstreet to activate audiences for search, display and social. It’s also using LinkedIn’s Lead Accelerator to identify key professionals at the director or engineering level to narrow down messaging by prospect role.
“A new focus for us has been engaging unknown customers,” Rongstad said. “Our vision is to use the listening capability of social to define audiences talking about key topics of interest to us in real time, and then using the DMP to help us … activate new audiences through programmatic demand.”
