Last month, marketing automation software company Marketo, one of the vendors we evaluate in our Digital Marketing Technology stream, filed an S-1 registration, which is one of the first major steps towards an IPO. Along the way, many details about Marketo's business have emerged publicly for the first time. Here are some key things for enterprise marketing technology buyers to note.

Marketo has seen rapid growth – revenues are up from $14 million in 2010 to $58.4 million in 2012. Losses too have mounted – they went up from $12 million to $34 million during the same period. The company spent a whopping $38 million (65% of revenues) on sales and marketing – twice as much as they spent on product engineering ($19 million). In short, the company is buying growth, on the back of some heavy spend on sales and marketing.

Note that this “growth over profitability” is not an uncommon strategy and is pursued by many other technology companies as well (including some of Marketo peers we evaluate). But as a buyer when you are short-listing vendors and evaluating their technologies, make sure you are buying the steak and not the sizzle.  Also get ready for a potentially turbulent ride. 

Marketo's S-1 reveals that 79% of its customers integrate it with Salesforce.com for CRM.  As we note in our evaluation, you can integrate Marketo’s Sales Insight module with other CRMs, like Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite, in theory. In practice, Marketo is really geared for use with with Salesforce.com, which is a risk going forward if Salesforce ever acquires another marketing automation vendor. (Salesforce.com for its part is replacing it’s implementation of Eloqua after rival Oracle bought that platform).

Marketo notes that the majority of its revenues (80%) comes from SMBs (which they define as companies having fewer than 1500 employees). Revenue from customers outside the United States is about 13% of the total. Marketo has many ambitions -- targeting larger enterprises, landing more B2C customers and expanding globally -- but going by these early numbers, the company's sweet spot remains small to mid-sized B2B customers in the United States.

As for a critique of their product offerings themselves, subscribers can get a comparative evaluation of Marketo (and other leading vendors) here.