LinkedIn Expands its Martech Capabilities With Acquisition of Oribi

With LinkedIn’s marketing solutions business accelerating by 43% in terms of year on year  revenue, it's hardly surprising that they have gone out to the market to find a business that matches what they and their customers are craving. That’s more data and more useful insights that can be actioned.

That craving has been met, at least in part by Oribi, an Israeli startup, which LinkedIn acquired this week for $80m - $90m.

This is a startup with such good product videos that if you told me that the entire due diligence process by the LinkedIn M&A team was 'we watched the videos', I’d say fair enough.

 

I can’t remember the last time I watched all the product videos on a website and that’s probably because I haven’t. Whilst they are a bit Google Analytics bashing, they really do identify the pain points of a modern marketer who needs better analytics.

If improving CX and omnichannel marketing is close to the top of your to-do list, then Oribi is likely to be on the short list of martech tools you’ll hope your Marketing Ops team (if you have one) will/should be looking at.

It's those same reasons that LinkedIn have decided to push the button. “Acquisition of Oribi will accelerate our marketing attribution capabilities”

A big pain point continues to be the context of data and analytics, particularly if you don’t have a big budget. “Measurement is the foundation of everything”, according to Thanassis Thomopoulos, Head of Global Marketing & Commercial Analytics at eBay.  “Nothing can really be improved without measuring them first”.

If you’re looking for a longer answer, “Is CX a Differentiator? Your Customer Experience FAQs Answered” is an excellent resource for what to measure and why. 

LinkedIn says as much in its blog announcing the Oribi acquisition: 

“Our investment in Oribi builds on our focus to create solutions that connect organisations with their professional audiences. With more than 57 million global businesses building their brands on Pages and more than 24,000 virtual events being created each week, LinkedIn has never been more important in connecting organisations and professional communities while creating value for businesses.”

It clearly understands that even on their own platform, marketing and sales attribution is a tough slog. 

I’ve loved and loathed LinkedIn insights for years as it teases me with something almost useful. It will be interesting to see quite how much of Oribi’s smart attribution tech it gives away, especially considering the high monthly cost that Oribi normally commands.

It is of course entirely possible that Oribi technology could be soon seen in Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools. It would be nice to see more crossover between MBWT and LinkedIn’s own insights for even better insights and a much stronger competitor to Google Analytics.

All that said, Oribi had raised just under $28 million in funding during its startup journey, so it looks like $80m-$90m hasn’t provided a great return for investors.

As part of the agreement, LinkedIn is also opening its first office in Tel Aviv, Israel. Also, founder, Iris Shoor, is expected to join LinkedIn and will be based in the Tel Aviv office.

“Oribi’s team brings deep analytics expertise that will help us accelerate the capabilities of our attribution technology across our lines of business - from helping a marketer find better leads to a recruiter identifying the right candidates.”

As the Oribi website now states:

“Soon, LinkedIn advertisers and users will be able to enjoy Oribi’s codeless analytics capabilities.”

I’m very excited to see where and how it is implemented in LinkedIn’s own stack and the codeless element certainly excites me for ease of adoption. The potential improvement in advertising and content that could come as a side effect.

Hey, I’m a glass half full kinda guy. I can dream...