This week Teradata became the latest Enterprise Marketing Software Suite vendor to extend its commitment to mobile, announcing the acquisition of Appoxee, an Israeli-based mobile marketing SaaS provider. Appoxee complements Teradata’s Digital Messaging Center (based on the 2012 acquisition of eCircle) with technology capabilities for messaging personalization, contextual targeting, in-app notifications and mobile analytics.

Marketing cloud vendors with digital pedigrees (e.g., Adobe, Salesforce.com) have claimed mobile advantages over their more traditional cross-channel campaign management competitors. Building on that lead, Salesforce.com launched its customer journey builder for mobile apps last September. Similarly, Adobe expanded its mobile capabilities across the Adobe Marketing Cloud in November, including campaigns, experience manager, media optimizer, social, and mobile services. IBM and Oracle acquired additional mobile capabilities with their respective acquisitions of digital marketing providers Silverpop and Responsys. The Appoxee acquisition therefore adds needed mobile app functionality to the Teradata Integrated Marketing Cloud.

For customer insights professionals, embracing the mobile mind shift is a business imperative in the age of the customer. Mobile push and in-app communications are top growth channels for marketers, along with social media (which also leverages mobile touchpoints). A 2014 Forrester survey shows only 21% of marketers leverage mobile apps today, but another 50% expect to support mobile app functionality in the next two years. That’s in addition to the 50% who are already leveraging mobile for SMS or MMS and the 29% who have plans to add mobile messaging to their strategies.

If you want to discuss mobile as part of your enterprise marketing technology strategy, feel free to send me an email or set up an inquiry.