• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, December 13, 2013

Digital marketing platform Marketo has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Insightera, a marketing platform with a focus on real-time, personalized messaging.

Chris Golec, founder and CEO of Demandbase, told RTM Daily he believes "Marketo's expansion into site personalization through Insightera is a great move." He added that Marketo had to "expand beyond lead management and email to serve the broader needs of today's marketer." It should be noted that Demandbase is a partner of Marketo.

In a release announcing the news, Marketo cited a report written by Lori Wizdo, analyst at Forrester, which read: "Marketing automation captures buyer behavior -- the greatest untapped asset that marketers have."

But the move could be a sign that something more specific than generic "buyer behavior" has become important, a second observer told RTM Daily. The observer believes the acquisition makes it "more and more evident that identity is the number one factor for enterprise marketing."

The Insigtera platform can personalize business-to-consumer interactions on the Web and via mobile apps. Combined with Marketo's technology, the companies claim Insightera's platform can now let marketers deliver personalized messages "whether they go to the customer (email) or the customer comes to them (via their Web site)."

"For example, if a marketer sends an email to a customer but the customer never reads it, then they could present the same message to the customer on the website or mobile application during the next visit," the companies explained in the release.