NetSuite’s Bronto Buy Signals Coming Changes to Online Commerce

mobile devices that enable consumers to price shop from anywhere—forcing companies that had previously competed on product and price to also compete on awareness of customer experience in order to gain competitive advantage.

Interest in personalization has led to recent mergers in the sector. Just over a year ago, IBM acquired marketing automation company Silverpop. Shortly after that deal, SAP acquired Boston-based behavioral marketing software firm SeeWhy. Silicon Valley companies have also been active in marketing automation deals. San Mateo-based startup Marketo (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MKTO]]), which has focused on marketing automation since its 2006 founding, has rounded out its offerings with acquisitions of its own in recent years.

Meanwhile, Redwood Shores, CA-based enterprise software giant Oracle (NYSE: [[ticker:ORCL]]) has bolstered its marketing automation capabilities with its 2012 acquisition of Eloqua, followed by its 2013 deal to buy Responsys. Gartner says that by 2018, companies that are fully invested in all types of online personalization for their marketing will outsell those who have not by more than 30 percent.

For its part, Bronto started out as a strictly e-mail marketing company. Colopy and Bronto co-founder Chaz Felix, both former employees of open-source software company Red Hat (NYSE: [[ticker:RHT]]), had bootstrapped Bronto since its 2002 founding. In the ashes of the dot-com bust, Colopy says, there was no investor money available. The company remained bootstrapped even as it grew in size and scale, and evolved from e-mail marketing to marketing automation. Projected revenue for 2016 is between $40 million and $45 million. Bronto has offices in London and Sydney, Australia; global expansion accounts for some of the company’s revenue growth.

With no outside investors pushing for a sale, Colopy says Bronto was not actively seeking to be acquired, though NetSuite was already familiar to the company as one of its business partners. Bronto and NetSuite have some 100 customers in common who use Bronto’s technology to develop marketing campaigns, while using NetSuite’s technology to handle the back end of commerce. The addition of Bronto’s marketing automation capabilities to NetSuite’s commerce software could also be indicative NetSuite’s longer-range goals, says Penny Gillespie, a research director at Gartner who focuses on electronic and mobile commerce.

“Much of the underlying technology that can be used for personalizing e-mail can be used for personalizing the online experience, which may be next in NetSuite’s roadmap,” Gillespie says, adding that other vendors are taking this step.

Bronto has already expanded beyond its core retail base. The company currently counts as customers a handful of sports teams, such as the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team, who use Bronto to drive ticket sales. Expanding the Bronto offering to tickets, travel, and other applications makes sense, says IDC’s Dover. While retail is the primary way that consumers encounter marketing automation right now, she sees the technology soon finding a place personalizing other transactions.

“Every company is a commerce company—everyone has something to sell,” Dover says.

Author: Frank Vinluan

Xconomy Editor Frank Vinluan is a business journalist with experience covering technology and life sciences. Based in Raleigh, he was a staff writer at the Triangle Business Journal covering technology, biotechnology and energy before joining MedCityNews.com as North Carolina bureau chief. Prior to moving to North Carolina’s Research Triangle in 2007 he held business reporting positions at The Des Moines Register and The Seattle Times.