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Acquisition Thursday: HubSpot Buys Marketing Software Company Performable

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According to a release, David Cancel’s Performable (AdExchanger.com Q&A from Sept. 2010) has been purchased by HubSpot (AdExchanger.com Q&A from August ’09). Read the release.

David Cancel is the original creator of Ghostery (the Firefox plug-in which tracks cookies and was sold to Evidon in early 2010) and a former member of the Lookery team among other recent entrepreneurial exploits. Performable is/was very focused around landing page optimization which includes the goal of creating better performing copy among other things (see more in the comments below). Cancel will become Chief Product Officer at HubSpot.

Hubspot recently took a whopping venture round of $32 million which included investment from Google Ventures, Salesforce.com and Sequoia Capital. Both HubSpot and Performable are Boston-area companies.

Key trends here include the ongoing need for marketing automation particularly as it relates to small and medium-sized businesses. Though, these tools can be used by the big guys, too. HubSpot and Performable provide access to analytics and optimization levers to help the marketer increase traffic, grow conversions, etc.

Need more? Looks like Performable and HubSpot are offering a demo later this month.

By John Ebbert

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