Oracle: The Forgotten Marketing Cloud
Oracle's martech portfolio is often unfairly dismissed as an outdated platform for large enterprise. Yet, they're actually at the forefront of B2B marketing.
Eloqua was one of the pioneers of marketing automation at a time when digital marketing was in its infancy. It remained at the forefront of the martech community, even after the acquisition by Oracle in 2012. There has been some attrition in the size of the Eloqua customer base due to a drift among smaller customers to less expensive platforms. However, it maintains a steady market presence, particularly among large enterprises with complex governance or integration requirements.
Yet, Eloqua's status within the industry has declined, along with Oracle's position as a thought leader in marketing technology. It is now perceived as a legacy platform, even though it still receives plenty of development and a steady stream of new features from Oracle. The platform was a notable early adopter of AI, a capability which was recently extended to include Generative AI features. That's a significant advantage compared to the relative lack of AI capabilities in several rival marketing automation platforms.