ExactTarget

Pre-acquisition market leader in enterprise email and cross-channel marketing automation; became the foundation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud post-acquisition

ExactTarget was a cloud-based digital marketing automation company founded in Indianapolis, Indiana in 2000. The company built one of the most comprehensive email marketing and cross-channel campaign management platforms of its era, enabling enterprise marketers to design, execute, and measure campaigns across email, mobile, social, and web channels. ExactTarget grew rapidly through organic expansion and strategic acquisitions — most notably Pardot (B2B marketing automation) and iGoDigital (personalization) — establishing itself as a dominant force in the marketing technology landscape before going public on the NYSE under the ticker 'ET' in 2012. At its peak, ExactTarget served thousands of enterprise clients globally, competing directly with Oracle Eloqua, Adobe Campaign, and IBM Unica. Its platform was distinguished by robust deliverability infrastructure, deep segmentation capabilities, and a developer-friendly API ecosystem that attracted a large partner network. The company's revenue had grown to approximately $292 million in fiscal 2012, reflecting strong demand for scalable, data-driven marketing automation. In July 2013, Salesforce acquired ExactTarget for approximately $2.5 billion — one of the largest SaaS acquisitions at the time. Salesforce integrated ExactTarget's technology as the cornerstone of what became Salesforce Marketing Cloud, retiring the ExactTarget brand over subsequent years. The acquisition dramatically expanded Salesforce's CRM footprint into marketing automation and cemented the company's position as an end-to-end customer engagement platform. ExactTarget's legacy lives on through the Marketing Cloud product suite, which remains one of the leading enterprise marketing platforms in the industry.