Firms like Eloqua and Vtrenz provide a mix of features—essentially, email and Web campaigns for lead generation and nurturing—that don’t match my usual categories. MORE

Here are the questions I asked, with summaries of answers from the five vendors in the current Raab Guide ( Eloqua , Manticore Technology , Market2Lead , Marketo , Vtrenz ) plus two I’ll be adding shortly ( Marketbright and Neolane.) Question Eloqua Manticore Technology Market2 Lead Marketo Vtrenz Market bright Neolane Is there a distinct company table linked in a one-to-many relationship with individual records? MORE

Last Tuesday, email marketer Silverpop announced it was acquiring Vtrenz , which provides an integrated email / Web marketing suite. I think it’s the most intriguing of the three, because the other two primarily added analytical capabilities, while Vtrenz adds a strong Web marketing component. This makes Vtrenz more of an integrated online marketing solution than the other two—or, at least, it will if and when the Vtrenz technology is actually linked with Silverpop. MORE

Marketo competes with products such as Eloqua , Silverpop Engage B2B (formerly Vtrenz), Marketbright and Manticore in the marketing automation / demand generation space. Marketing automation software vendor Marketo today announced the launch of its Marketo Lead Management 3.0 software suite. MORE

Summary: Based on Web traffic rankings, new demand generation vendors with low prices are gaining market presence. Pardot and (perhaps) Genius.com look particularly strong. But Eloqua , Silverpop and Marketo remain industry leaders. Last November, after much consideration of alternatives , I settled on Alexa three-month Web traffic rankings as a reasonable way to measure the relative market presence of demand generation vendors. You can see that post here. MORE

The question here is whether most demand generation systems ( Eloqua , Vtrenz , Marketo , Market2Lead , Manticore , etc.) Back in March, I wrote a fairly dismissive post about on-demand business intelligence systems. My basic objection was that the hardest part of building a business intelligence system is integrating the source data, and being on-demand doesn’t make that any easier. MORE

nbr responses vendor 8 Marketo 6 Eloqua 3 Genius.com 3 LoopFuse 3 Pardot 2 Market2Lead 2 Treehouse Interactive 1 eTrigue 1 Vtrenz (Silverpop) 7 No Response 36 Another intriguing bit of contextual information is the deployment date of the systems. I've been having a dandy time analyzing the results of my Demand Generation Implementation Survey. Responses are still coming in but I thought I'd at least post some preliminary results to whet your appetite. MORE

I do recognize that they are the best known vendors in the space (with apologies to Vtrenz , whose identity is somewhat blurred since its purchase by Silverpop ). My new obsession with Twitter (follow me as @draab) has led to several messages from people who seemed to have trouble choosing between Eloqua and Marketo. MORE

So it came as a pleasant surprise to find that marketing automation vendor Vtrenz’ ( www.vtrenz.com ) series “Effective Relationship Marketing” presented a fairly comprehensive overview of its topic, including several points with no obvious direct relationship to Vtrenz products. The Vtrenz series is long for this sort of thing: three 16-page papers, one each on nurturing, growing and retaining customers. MORE

And we’ll probably see marketing capabilities added by SaaS vendors in related industries such as email services (early example: Silverpop ’s acquisition of Vtrenz, now Engage B2B) and Web content management (see my reviews of Marqui and SiteCore ). Summary: Consumer-oriented marketing automation systems have been slower to adopt the Software-as-a-Service model than business marketing (demand generation) systems. MORE

4) “Pure play” lead management – this group is lead by Eloqua , but there are a LOT of firms throwing their hat into this ring including Vtrenz, Hubspot, Manticore, Market2Lead, Marketo, LoopFuse, einsof, iHance, Precience, among many others. MORE

Over the past few months, I’ve had conversations with “demand generation” software vendors including Eloqua , Vtrenz and Manticore , and been on the receiving end of a drip marketing stream from yet another (Moonray Marketing, lately renamed OfficeAutoPilot ). MORE

I would put the lead management automation crop here: Eloqua, Loopfuse, Manticore Technologies, Market2Lead, Marketo, and Vtrenz. MORE

So far the original list of Eloqua , Vtrenz , Marketo , Manticore Technology and Market2Lead has proven a good set of choices. One wrinkle is that Vtrenz is owned by Silverpop , so Silverpop.com presumably siphons off a great deal of traffic from Vtrenz.com. On the other hand, Silverpop is a major email service provider in its own right, so a large share of the Silverpop.com traffic probably has nothing to do with Vtrenz. MORE

Will joined Silverpop in 2007 following the company's acquisition of Vtrenz, where he was President and CEO. This is one of a series of occasional interviews with top practitioners on topics of interest to B2B lead generation, marketing and new business development professionals. MORE

Again, there was already one transaction: Silverpop/Vtrenz in 2007. Summary: consolidation isn't new among marketing software vendors. When campaign management systems consolidated in the late 1990's and early 2000's, most were bought by enterprise software companies. The pattern will likely repeat itself. MORE

Demand generation systems like Vtrenz , Eloqua and Manticore combine email with some Web page creation and analytics. A few of the recent acquisitions (Acxiom Impact / Kefta, Omniture / Touch Clarity, Silverpop / Vtrenz) marry particular pairs of capabilities. What with all the recent acquisitions in the digital marketing industry, I thought I’d draw a little diagram of all the components needed for a complete solution. The results were a surprise. MORE

Silverpop Engage B2B (formerly Vtrenz) on Monday rele ased its first visual campaign builder, finally matching a feature offered by nearly all its competitors. MORE

Products including Silverpop Engage B2B (formerly Vtrenz), Market2Lead and Marketbright also let marketers set up small, sequential campaigns and embed them in selection framework. I’m going to diverge just slightly from my current obsession with usability to talk about a conversation I had today with Marketo President and CEO Phil Fernandez, who previewed the 3.0 release of his flagship product, scheduled for March 3. The changes that Fernandez described seemed good but subtle. MORE

A proper e-commerce site will be available shortly, but if anyone really can't wait, the salient details are: - 150+ point comparison matrix and detailed tables on: Eloqua, Manticore, Marketo, Market2Lead and Vtrenz, based on extensive vendor interviews and demonstrations - price: $595 for single copy, $995 for one-year subscription (provides access to updates as these are made--I expect to add more vendors and update entries on current ones). - MORE

But I also knew that some of the vendors focused on complex programs ( Market2Lead , Marketbright and arguably Silverpop/Vtrenz ) embed similar-looking list-style campaigns within a larger flow logic. Marketbright and the new Market2Lead interface use an actual flow chart; Silverpop/Vtrenz uses non-visual rules. If you suspected that my last two blog posts were a way to avoid writing a post that ranks vendors on usability, you’re probably right. MORE

I’m glad to know about Manticore because people do occasionally ask about this sort of system and balk at the cost of Eloqua and even-more-expensive Vtrenz (just purchased by Silverpop ; see last week's post ). Somehow I received a copy of “ Increasing Revenue Through Automated Demand Generation ” (registration required), the kind of title that sends chills up my spine. MORE