Integrate today announced its acquisition of London-based B2B event lead capture company Akkroo, adding a new, innovative way to capture and process leads in real time at in-person events. Integrate’s customers will now be able to send event leads to sales teams as they happen, rather than waiting for event organizers to share lists post-event or manually processing paper forms and business cards. This real-time handover to sales will help personalize the lead follow-up and accelerate pipeline-to-revenue from in-person trade shows, conferences and events, which represent the largest area of B2B marketing investment.

The $34 million acquisition is Integrate’s second in three months, underlining its aggressive strategy to unify all top-of-funnel marketing channels into a single platform. In January 2019, the company announced its acquisition of New York-based ListenLoop to grow its set of tools and solutions for account-based marketing (ABM) advertising. Integrate customers can now combine their face-to-face events, demand generation, social, and ABM digital advertising into a single platform, helping to solve the inefficiencies created by marketing fragmentation.

“Revenue acceleration happens when you unify the top of funnel,” said Jeremy Bloom, founder and CEO of Integrate. “With this acquisition, we have now integrated one of the largest and most-leveraged demand marketing channels that historically has the least amount of ROI visibility. With Integrate and Akkroo, our customers will understand how in-person events contribute to pipeline and revenue while having access to a best-in-class, global solution for collecting, processing and managing event leads at scale.”

Akkroo’s Pioneering Approach to Event Lead Capture and Processing

Accounting for 18 percent of B2B marketing spend, face-to-face events have become the No. 1 demand tactic for B2B marketers, yet for B2B marketers that frequently exhibit, the process of collecting leads is inefficient and outdated. The time that it takes event organizers to send back leads from these events can take days, sometimes even weeks. As a result, teams miss out on opportunities to create revenue from in-person events because it takes too long to cultivate and nurture quality leads.

Akkroo’s team of over 50 employees have developed a category-defining solution that gives power to B2B marketers by letting them collect leads at any trade show or event using the Akkroo iOS and Android app. Since its 2013 launch, Akkroo has reached impressive scale by doubling revenue every year since 2014. The company has achieved this success through serving hundreds of global customers and collecting over 9 million leads from over 12,000 events.

“Today’s event technology is largely developed for the benefit of the organizer, leaving B2B marketers and exhibitors to navigate unstandardized and incomplete lead data,” said Chris Wickson, co-founder and CEO of Akkroo. “Akkroo’s technology is built for the marketer, putting them in the driving seat when it comes to owning the lead capture process at face-to-face events and allowing them to take immediate action to nurture leads. We are delighted to embark on our next chapter with Jeremy and the Integrate team, who share the same vision and values as Akkroo.”

Shared Customer Perspectives

“As Avalara grows, we continue to improve and streamline our lead flow and process. Avalara currently works with Integrate in the U.S. for demand orchestration and with Akkroo in Europe for event lead management. Combining Integrate and Akkroo gives us yet another process that we can look to streamline globally,” said Pamela Guyton-Micheles, senior manager of demand generation marketing and international programs at Avalara. “Avalara participates in hundreds of events in the U.S. and abroad, and there is always room to improve the onsite and post-event lead management process. We have a proven and trusted relationship with Integrate, and we look forward to our continued work together following this smart acquisition.”

“Every CMO knows you are only as good as your data,” said Jaime Punishill, chief marketing officer at Lionbridge, the global leader in translation and localization for global enterprises. “At Lionbridge, we’ve transformed our organization to put high-quality data at the center of our marketing universe, and Integrate helps us keep our database free of data pollution. We’re excited about this acquisition, which enhances our ability to generate and pursue leads from events that ultimately drive revenue and help us scale as a high-growth company.”

Integrate’s Global Expansion and Akkroo Integration

Akkroo’s London office will become Integrate’s EMEA headquarters. Akkroo’s team of over 50 employees will join Integrate, including Chris Wickson as general manager, events and Andy, co-founder and CPO of Akkroo, as vice president, event products.

In conjunction with the acquisition, Integrate announced an integration with Akkroo to connect its enterprise-grade SaaS platform with Akkroo’s event lead capture solution. Integrate customers will be able to collect and process qualified leads at events in real time and automatically validate, standardize and enrich this data before it is sent to their marketing automation or CRM systems.

As part of their follow-up, Integrate customers can drive additional awareness and engagement with account-based leads using the company’s ABM advertising platform. They can also use Integrate’s measurement services to properly attribute event investment and link event-generated leads to pipeline creation.

For more information, visit www.integrate.com/solutions/events.

On April 30, Integrate will host a live webinar on “Capture, Connect, Control: How Top Marketers Win at Event Lead Management” featuring marketing leaders. Register here: https://www.integrate.com/events-webinar/