It’s been a nearly 12-year journey for Integrate to-date and I couldn’t be prouder of what our team has built and accomplished. But what I’m most excited for is our road ahead.
Today, we announced that Audax Private Equity acquired a majority stake in Integrate, providing us with the resources and expertise to fast-track our product innovation, geographical expansion, and make new strategic acquisitions. This is a new chapter for us as we continue to define and own the Precision Demand Marketing category, become a product-led, global enterprise company, and become the B2B demand platform of record in the years to come.
The Backstory
I co-founded Integrate in 2010 after I retired from my Olympic skiing and NFL career, took classes at Wharton Business School through an NFL program, and began my business career in marketing. I saw first-hand how inefficient the customer acquisition journey was and sought to “integrate” and connect what seemed at the time to be an inordinate amount of point solutions. The number of martech companies in existence at the time according to Scott Brinker? 142 companies. Today, that number exceeds 8,000 solutions.
While this exponential growth in the martech landscape over the past decade is a testament to the evolution and advancement of B2B marketing, it also speaks to both the complexity of today’s B2B world and the vast market opportunity we must address for marketers’ unmet needs.
The Opportunity
It’s clear that today’s B2B world is markedly different than just 20 months ago, much less 12 years ago. It’s remote and digital, and buyers have changed how they work, consume content, and engage. Sales teams can no longer simply set up high-touch, in-person meetings with prospects, and events have pivoted to online and hybrid models.
In short, it’s a buyer’s world and we need to adapt accordingly.
Marketing strategies need to evolve beyond their current capabilities and we need to go beyond our tried-and-true B2B marketing toolkit. Traditional demand gen and even ABM are no longer enough to flexibly adapt strategies and tactics to align with our buyers. Marketers need to meet buyers where they are with the right message at the right time. They need to take a buyer-driven, omnichannel, Precision Demand approach.
The Precision Demand Marketing Chapter
Today, we are pioneering the Precision Demand Marketing category and empowering marketers to be more precise, connected, and agile. What started out as a lead generation platform for advertisers in 2010, with content syndication as the main channel, has grown to an account-based, buyer-driven, omnichannel SaaS platform called the Demand Acceleration Platform (DAP).
Our connected channel capability spans across content syndication, digital ads, social, events (in-person, virtual, and hybrid), webinars, and sales, not to mention our vast ecosystem of partners, publishers, events, and trade shows. As part of DAP, our unique governance engine standardizes and validates incoming and outgoing data, rejects unqualified leads, and complies with global regulations to ensure all data is properly vetted and consent provided, so our customers can increase lead conversion.
The Road Ahead
I am incredibly proud of the technology our team has built, the connections and partnerships we’ve forged, and the high-performing team of Integrators that I get to work with every day. We’ve had a tremendous year of growth as we leaned into Precision Demand Marketing. This growth is reflected in our strong business strategy, team, and market opportunity, which will only become stronger with Audax’s support as we move forward in our journey. Thank you to all our employees, customers, partners, and community. We can’t wait to see what’s next!
Onward!
