Salesforce's Datorama is rolling out an app store for marketers, and it's the latest sign that the tech giant is encroaching on digital advertising
- A year after acquiring analytics platform Datorama for a reported $800 million, Salesforce is getting deeper into marketers' tech stacks.
- Datorama is rolling out an app store to help marketers do things like compare the performance of Facebook, Google, and Pinterest ads.
- The store will be free at first but Salesforce is exploring charging for apps down the road.
- It's the latest example of how data-focused mar-tech companies are trying to push into digital advertising.
Salesforce is getting deeper into marketers' data.
Datorama, the marketing analytics platform Salesforce acquired for a reported $800 million last year, is rolling out an app store aimed at making itself more essential to marketers.
Datorama is launching 14 apps in June to help companies measure the performance of their marketing. That number will include apps created by companies including AT&T's AppNexus and Pinterest and Salesforce's own apps that measure Facebook, Google and Twitter campaigns and email and lead-generation marketing.
Marketers' need to understand how their digital advertising performs has given rise to other mar-tech companies including Improvado and Pathmatics. The Datorama marketplace is the latest effort from Salesforce to push into digital advertising. Salesforce has been building out its marketing cloud over recent years. It acquired Krux, a data-management platform, in 2016. Datorama helps marketers gather, measure, and move around marketing and advertising data.
Jay Wilder, senior director of product marketing at Datorama, said the goal is to get more partners plugged into Datorama. Developers can apply to become certified and create specific apps for marketers that live in Datorama and Salesforce's larger AppExchange. Datorama plans to roll out more apps in the coming months.
"Marketers today have a challenge in the sense that they use many different platforms and systems to engage with their customers," he said. "Datorama provides that value to centralize all that data into one place so you can understand the performance of AppNexus campaigns right next to what's going on with Pinterest and email campaigns."
The apps will initially be free for Datorama customers, but Salesforce is exploring a model similar to Apple and Shopify's app stores where marketers would pay to download an app.
Read more: Salesforce continues to invest in AI by acquiring startup Datorama for a reported $800 million
Tightening up marketers' data
Until now, Datorama clients had to export data into Excel sheets or built their own applications to sort all of their data. With the marketplace, Datorama is trying to reduce that work and become marketers' main source of software for data.
Lauren Walker, chief data and digital officer of EMEA at Dentsu Aegis Network, said that the agency uses Datorama to help brands understand how their digital and TV campaigns perform. Dentsu then helps match the data with marketers' first-party data like sales logs. From there, marketers can tweak their campaigns based on their goals.
Dentsu already has 300 staffers in Europe, Middle East and Africa who are trained in using Datorama's software for clients, and the agency is developing an app for Datorama's marketplace.
Dentsu also has its own platform called M1 that it uses to track and measure digital advertising, but Walker said Datorama helps the agency compare the performance of campaigns that run on so-called walled gardens with those that run on traditional media.
"We have a lot of clients who need to look at multiple channels, even into TV and out-of-home," she said. "When we're looking for a cross-strategy platform, that's where Datorama gives us an opportunity."