IDC Reports on Marketing Automation Software

SAS has been recognized by IDC as the revenue leader in marketing automation software.

The most recent IDC study ("Worldwide Marketing and Sales Automation Applications 2004 Vendor Shares: A Rising Tide", IDC #33661, July 2005) examines the marketing and sales automation applications market for 2002-2004. The study lists SAS' marketing automation revenue at $149.1 million, now capturing a 9.1 percent market share.

"SAS' success in this sector is in no small part the result of a fundamentally analytic orientation that focuses on delivering actionable customer intelligence," says Robert Blumstein, research director, CRM Analytics and Marketing Applications at IDC.

"SAS has continued to lead in marketing automation based on a mantra of optimization coupled with scalability derived from its analytic DNA," continues Blumstein. "The careful analysis and prediction that SAS Marketing Automationand SAS Marketing Optimizationprovide marketers gives them the guidance to adjust their programs and challenge both internal benchmarks and external competition."

"For the third year in a row, SAS is the revenue leader for marketing automation applications. This demonstrates the market's trust in SAS' technological leadership and ability to deliver rapid ROI," says Jim Davis, chief marketing officer at SAS. "The release of new versions of SAS Marketing Automation and SAS Marketing Optimization, combined with the continuous evolution of the Enterprise Intelligence Platform, makes SAS the only vendor to provide marketing automation and business intelligence on a unified and highly extensible enterprise-class platform, ensuring our continued momentum in this market."

The IDC report defines marketing automation as software applications that automate a wide range of individual and collaborative activities associated with the various dimensions of the marketing process.

These dimensions include: ad management/placement, lead qualification/distribution, brand management, list management, campaign execution, marketing resource management, campaign planning and management, media and analyst relations, collateral management/distribution, personalization, database marketing, primary research, direct marketing, reactivation, electronic catalog, up-sell and cross-sell programs, event/trade show management, Web activity analysis, focus groups/media testing, Web advertising, and fulfillment status linkage.