????如今，不只是大手筆買賣，大多數的采購決定早在賣東西的人勸你掏錢之前就已經敲定了。因此，現在營銷人員最重要的是要在銷售周期剛開始的時候，就潛移默化地影響潛在的客戶，同時也還不能表現得太露骨。

????這種趨勢也吸引了營銷自動化軟件行業的興趣。2012年年末，甲骨文（Oracle）以8.1億美元收購了這個行業最有潛力的公司之一Eloqua。上周，IBM也宣布將收購這個行業增長最快的公司之一Silverpop，總價目前尚未披露。這筆交易預計將于今年第二季度完成。

????IBM將把Silverpop的云主機服務與自己的一系列市場與客戶分析軟件結合在一起，形成一個包含140多項服務和應用的生態系統。IBM行業云解決方案部門總經理克萊格?海曼在宣布這筆交易時指出：“收購Silverpop將極大促進IBM為每個企業打造客戶中心型服務的能力。現在，幾乎任何一家公司的任何一名市場、商業或客服專員都將有能力通過我們的產品為客戶提供一種個性化的客戶體驗，同時它還能給企業的品牌體驗和財務業績帶來可以量化的積極影響。”

????這筆交易選擇的時機也非常理想。營銷自動化行業在2013年迎來了突破性的一年，根據市場調研機構Frost & Sullivan的最新預測，這個行業的市值有望從2013年的5.507億美元增長至2020年的19億美元。（而且這個預測數據還不包括用于營銷流程優化的軟件。）

????Frost & Sullivan公司數字媒體分析師海拉爾?賈薩尼指出，2014年，北美、西歐（含英國和意大利）和亞太部分地區（如新加坡和澳大利亞）營銷自動化行業的增長將尤為迅速。迄今為止，營銷自動化軟件的大多數早期采用者都來自科技行業，但金融服務、醫療保健、零售與電信等行業的用戶基數也在激增。

????賈薩尼說：“隨著各種設備的普及，顧客網上言論的語流速度大大加快，大多數企業都難以對它進行管理。很多營銷團隊被許多個客戶觸點搞得焦頭爛額。多渠道營銷已經成了當務之急。”

????據Frost & Sullivan公司的數據顯示，目前從這種局面中受益最多的就是營銷自動化軟件行業的“三駕馬車”——Marketo公司、甲骨文Eloqua公司和Silverpop公司，“三駕馬車”加起來壟斷了整合行業銷量的近一半。

????這三家公司之所以業績突出，主要歸功于它們產品的成熟度和覆蓋的廣度。比如以Silverpop公司為例，這家公司的CEO兼董事長比爾?納西在IBM宣布收購他的公司之前就曾表示，Silverpop在早期就獲得了許多想要確定最合適的潛在客戶的B2B營銷部門的青睞。現在，它的重點已經擴展到了B2C企業，客戶包括康泰納仕（Conde Nast）、謳歌（Acura）、Mint.com、托馬斯庫克（Thomas Cook）以及金佰利（Kimberly Clark）等。納西說：“必須在顧客還沒開口之前就搞明白他們到底對什么感興趣。”

????These days, most purchasing decisions -- not just the big-ticket ones -- are finalized long before someone reaches for their wallet. As a result, it's more important than ever for marketers to influence potential customers at the dawn of the sales cycle, without being too obvious.

????That new reality is galvanizing interest in marketing automation software that personalizes messages on the fly. In late 2012, Oracle (ORCL) bought one of the most promising players, Eloqua, for about $810 million. Last week, IBM (IBM) made its own play for share, announcing that it will buy one of the category's fastest growing players, Silverpop, for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter.

????IBM will combine Silverpop's cloud-hosted services with its own extensive portfolio of marketing and customer analytics software, an ecosystem that includes more than 140 different services and applications. "The acquisition of Silverpop turbocharges IBM's ability to put the customer at the center of any organization," said Craig Hayman, general manager, Industry Cloud Solutions for IBM, when the deal was announced. "Now, nearly any marketing, commerce or customer service professional from any business will have the ability to deliver the kinds of personalized customer experiences that make a measurable impact on the brand experience and the bottom line."

????The timing seems ideal. After a breakthrough year in 2013, revenue for the marketing automation category will reach $1.9 billion by 2020 compared with $550.7 million in 2013, according to new forecasts from research firm Frost & Sullivan. (The forecast number doesn't include software focused on marketing process optimization.)

????Growth in 2014 will be especially rapid in North America, western European countries including the United Kingdom and Italy, and parts of Asia-Pacific like Singapore and Australia, said HiralJasani, digital media analyst for Frost & Sullivan. So far, most early adopters have come from the technology industry, but companies in financial services, health care, retail and telecommunications are increasingly exploring use cases.

????"The velocity of online customer conversations, fueled by proliferation of devices, is becoming difficult to manage for most organizations," Jasani said. "Marketing teams are getting frustrated by multiple customers touch points. Multi-channel marketing is the need of the hour."

????The main beneficiaries of this frustration so far have been the de facto "Big Three" players in this category -- Marketo, Oracle Eloqua, and Silverpop -- which last year drove almost half of the new deals, according to Frost & Sullivan's analysis.

????What makes these companies unique is the maturity and breadth of their offerings. Silverpop, for example, scored many early wins with business-to-business marketers trying to identify the best-qualified prospects for their sales counterparts, the company's CEO and president Bill Nussey told Fortune before the IBM acquisition was announced. It has since expanded its focus to business-to-consumer companies, and some of its clients include Conde Nast, Acura, Mint.com, Thomas Cook, and Kimberly Clark. "You have to understand what the customer is interested in, without them telling you," he said.