Six weeks ago, Laura Ipsen – a former Microsoft and Cisco exec – succeeded Kevin Akeroyd as SVP and GM of Oracle Marketing Cloud (OMC). Akeroyd, one of the original architects of the OMC business, had moved on to the CEO role at Cision.
Ipsen – formerly an SVP of Oracle’s global industry solutions group – met this week with prospective and current marketer clients at DMEXCO and throughout Europe.
“A lot of the CMOs I’ve been talking to have said, ‘Help us attach the ROI to what I’m doing in marketing so that I can justify it to my CFO, CEO and board,’” Ipsen told reporters at DMEXCO. “It’s not just about how many leads I generated from the campaign, but at the macro level, what ROI am I driving?”
Ipsen believes Oracle’s other business and technology products, including its financial reporting and human resource software, as well as its customer experience suite, will help support this need.
But Ipsen still focuses on OMC’s integration at both the product and people levels. Oracle built OMC through several acquisitions like campaign management tool Responsys, marketing automation system Eloqua and BlueKai’s data management platform.
“We acquired companies in a fast and furious way, so you do have to integrate the product, but you also have different people coming from other companies that you cross-pollinate, and you need to do it in a mindful way,” she said.
Ipsen also collaborates with the Oracle Data Cloud, built via acquisitions like Datalogix, cross-device vendor Crosswise and BlueKai’s data exchange business.
“The Oracle Data Cloud is a big enabler because data is everything in this space,” she said. “It gives you context about campaigns, but it will also help us be more predictive about who to target. You’ll see us continue to get closer to Oracle Data Cloud as the market evolves.”
