Big Data Push to MarTech Continues as Google Taps Looker for $2.6 Billion

Sudipto Ghosh

June 6, 2019

Upon the close of the acquisition, Looker will join Google Cloud

MarTech is getting its major Big Data push. MarTech 150 RADAR Company — Data Analytics and Visualization platform Looker is settling to become a Google-owned company following a $2.6 billion acquisition deal. Previously, Looker and Google have partnered in providing Cloud Computing services to the Marketing, Sales and Business Intelligence customers. Currently, Looker customers leverage the Company’s multi-Cloud functionality to integrate with SaaS application platforms such as Salesforce, Marketo, and Zendesk.

With Google Cloud taking over Looker’s capabilities, customers would benefit from a cohesive layer built on contemporary Cloud platforms. These Cloud come from Amazon Redshift, Azure SQL, Snowflake, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server or Teradata, in addition to Public Clouds or in-premise data centers.

In an official blog, ex-Oracle Cloud brain and current CEO of Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian revealed their plans to acquire Looker to bring together Cloud Computing. Big Data and BI into the realm of Embedded Analytics. Thomas confirmed, “The acquisition of Looker is expected to be complete later this year and is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals. Upon the close of the acquisition, Looker will join Google Cloud.”

Straight Talk on How MarTech is Faring Amidst the Big Data Deluge

Why Looker?

If you closely dissect the products and services that Looker provides to MarTech customers, you can gauge the value it would bring to Google Cloud. Last year, Google introduced Google Marketing Cloud to take on the established players in Marketing Cloud space. Thomas explained the true genesis of buying Looker for tying in MarTech with their Enterprise Big Data and Embedded Analytics products.

Thomas said, “Looker extends our business analytics offering with two important capabilities—first, the ability to define business metrics once in a consistent way across data sources. This makes it easy for anyone to query data while maintaining consistent definitions in their calculations, ensuring teams get accurate results. Second, Looker also provides users with a powerful analytics platform that delivers applications for business intelligence and use-case specific solutions such as Sales Analytics, as well as a flexible, embedded analytics product to collaborate on business decisions.”

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Post-acquisition, Looker would strengthen the Marketing and Sales Analytics alignment. This would empower their joint customers to leverage Lookers Data Visualization within Google Cloud framework. Thomas said, “The addition of Looker to Google Cloud will help us offer customers a more complete analytics solution from ingesting data to visualizing results and integrating data and insights into their daily workflows. It will also help us deliver industry specific analytics solutions in our key verticals, whether that’s supply chain analytics in retailing; media analytics in entertainment; or healthcare analytics at global scale.”

Heather Brunner, Chairwoman and CEO, WP Engine explained that the Google-Looker combination would accelerate improvements in WordPress Digital Experience by virtue of powerful Big Data Intelligence in BI. Heather said, “By combining our BigQuery data warehouse with extended BI and visualization tools from Looker, we’ll be empowered with faster, more actionable data insights that will help drive our business forward and better serve our customers.”

Earlier this week, Looker earned its fourth consecutive position as an overall leader in both the Customer Experience and Vendor Credibility models. At that time, Howard Dresner, president, founder and chief research officer of Dresner Advisory Services, said, “Looker is once again ranked as an overall leader in our Customer Experience and Vendor Credibility market models, both of which are driven solely by the voice of the customer.”

Howard added, “The company continues to perform significantly above the overall sample for every measure, and maintains a perfect recommend score — all the Looker customers who participated in the survey would recommend them. We congratulate Looker on their strong performance in this year’s study.”

In the coming weeks, we expect Google Cloud to drive agile Digital Transformation journeys with Partners and Technology Affiliates, providing Looker team with a deservedly rosy roadmap ahead. The Big Data push in the MarTech industry is only going to get stronger and more electrifying. We are certain that Google Analytics would continue to transform the Analytics and Big Data intelligence ecosystem.