SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Nexmo, the global cloud communications platform leader, and Marketo, Inc., the leading provider of marketing software, today announced their partnership to connect brands with customers via chat applications. For the first time, Marketo customers will be able to conduct marketing campaigns via chat applications such as WeChat, LINE and Viber without having to leave the Marketo platform.

Powered by Nexmo's Chat App API that seamlessly connects brands and CRM platforms to the chat apps they prefer, the partnership is the latest in Marketo's product line to help marketers engage customers with the right messages at the right time, wherever they are. With everything handled directly within the Marketo platform, marketers will experience seamless integration and easier campaign management.

"Marketo offers a complete platform for marketers to engage their customers everywhere, and we are excited to extend that engagement capability to the massive audiences of chat applications," said Mike Stocker, Director of Business Development at Marketo. "Marketo is thrilled to have Nexmo as an integrated partner in our LaunchPoint® Partner Ecosystem."

Chat apps like WeChat, Line, KakaoTalk, Viber and WhatsApp have amassed over 1 billion monthly active users, surging to become the top six of the 10 most-used apps globally, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Mary Meeker. Both Forrester and IDC say chat applications are the new face of social media due to their unique interactivity, privacy and customer loyalty, creating significant opportunity for customer engagement.

Marketers have been experimenting with advertising on these platforms, but these activities have happened outside of marketing automation and CRM platforms. As a result, brands have lacked a turnkey, streamlined way to reach their customers on chat as part of their greater omnichannel strategy. By combining Marketo's customer engagement platform with Nexmo's Chat App API, marketers will be able to engage with chat audiences in a personalized and dynamic manner.

"When we launched the Nexmo Chat App API, we set out to help platforms connect their customers to the chat apps in a simple, streamlined way," said Chris Moore, CRO at Nexmo. "We are thrilled to help Marketo realize its vision of empowering brands to engage with their customers wherever they are by harnessing the power of the chat app channel."

Nexmo's Chat App API allows brands to communicate with their users across chat apps with a single, simple integration. With Nexmo's Marketo integration, brands can seamlessly include chat apps in their omnichannel campaigns.

The integration will be available to Marketo's customers via LaunchPoint. To learn more, visit http://launchpoint.marketo.com/nexmo/1985-chat-app-connectivity-from-nexmo/

About Marketo

Marketo (NASDAQ:MKTO) provides the leading marketing software and solutions designed to help marketers master the art and science of digital marketing. Through a unique combination of innovation and expertise, Marketo is focused solely on helping marketers keep pace in an ever-changing digital world. Spanning today's digital, social, mobile and offline channels, Marketo's Engagement Marketing Platform powers a set of breakthrough marketing automation and marketing management applications to help marketers tackle all aspects of digital marketing from the planning and orchestration of marketing activities to the delivery of personalized interactions that can be optimized in real-time. Marketo's applications are known for their ease-of-use, and are complemented by the Marketing Nation®, a thriving network of more than 450 third-party solutions through our LaunchPoint® ecosystem and over 50,000 marketers who share and learn from each other to grow their collective marketing expertise. The result for modern marketers is unprecedented agility and superior results. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in Europe, Australia and Japan, Marketo serves as a strategic marketing partner to more than 4,100 large enterprises and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries. For more information, visit www.marketo.com.

About Nexmo

Nexmo is the global cloud communications platform leader providing innovative communication APIs and SDKs for voice, text, messaging and phone verification services. Nexmo enables applications and enterprises to communicate with their customers reliably and with ease, no matter where in the world they are located. High-volume communication companies such as Alibaba, LINE and Viber send millions of messages per month using Nexmo APIs. Nexmo was recognized by analyst firm Gartner as a 2014 Cool Vendor in Communication Services, has been recognized by Roaming Consulting Company as a Tier 1 A2P SMS Messaging Vendor in 2015 and was selected as an Aragon Research Hot Vendor in Real-Time Communication and Collaboration Platform as a Service in 2015. http://www.nexmo.com

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SOURCE Nexmo