Omniture acquires yet another solution to complement a growing application set for interactive marketers. Last week Omniture announced that it was acquiring Offermatica. I can’t say that I am surprised by the announcement. Omniture had signaled its intent to aggressively pursue its vision of an integrated solution for online marketing with its acquisitions of Touch Clarity and the announcements of SearchCenter and the Genesis platform in the last year. At that time we thought it was a good idea but Omniture needed to – 1)integrate multiple acquisitions 2) handle a large and growing network of partners and 3) learn to compete in new markets. While these imperatives remain true today, two additional themes become particularly relevant. The need to: 1) harmonize the platform around one single data collection and optimization engine and 2) convince the partner network that they intend to collaborate on integrating their tools. The second theme is particularly challenging – What signals is Omniture sending its burgeoning partner network when it cherry picks point solutions like Offermatica? How do they execute an aggressive acquisition plan while nurturing relationships with other innovative optimization and online marketing partners? Their chances of succeeding as a online suite will depend on their ability to rationalize the redundant technologies and extend their solutions organically and through the partner network.

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