Users set up a “my info” page with contact information, store hours, directions, and other details. Even though customer data remains with the channel partner, Balihoo inserts tracking codes and captures aggregate response information so it can judge the effectiveness of different programs. Balihoo entered the “local marketing automation” business in 2008 and now has more than thirty enterprise clients serving more than 100,000 local businesses. These products are part of the marketing automation industry, although their specialized nature places them on the periphery. MORE >>

Portrait itself brought an agglomeration of previous acquisitions, having expanded its original customer relationship management system by purchasing Quadstone analytics in 2005 and Million Handshakes marketing automation in 2008. Foundation integrates the information it gathers and passes it to IO through a Web services interface. In his classic Harvard Business Review article Marketing Myopia , Theodore Levitt argued that railroad companies could have survived the rise of the automobile had they considered their business to be providing transportation, not running trains. MORE >>

Client counts are reported only for 2008 through mid 2011. Operating expenses grew sharply through 2008, nearly outpacing revenue. In the absence of real information, I’ll just blindly speculate. Summary: Eloqua's registration statement offers new and interesting details about its business. My analysis is below. Hopefully it's accurate -- I think that SEC rules prevent them from commenting if it's not. Eloqua last week filed for an initial public offering of its stock. Eloqua’s was no exception. Let’s start with what they showed. So much for what Eloqua said. years (1.0 +.80 MORE >>

To gather this information systematically, I need a framework that lists standard features and options within those features. The connections are set up during system implementation and then used in real time to look up information about a specific individual during an interaction. One important difference among real time decision systems is whether they look up information each time they are asked for a decision, or whether they look it up once at the start of an interaction and then retain it in a session until the interaction is complete. Predictive models are optional. MORE >>

m using “business intelligence” in the broad sense of “how companies get information to run their businesses”. Quality” raises its own issues of definition, but let’s view this from the business manager’s perspective, in which case “quality” means something along the lines of “producing the information I really need”. We can put cost aside for the moment, because the out-of-pocket expense of most business intelligence solutions is insignificant compared with the value of getting the information they provide. First, some context. This all seems reasonable enough. Sorry.) MORE >>