Linkedin Acquires Oribi: Implications and Alternatives [2022]

Why is Linkedin acquiring Oribi?

On March 31st 2022, Linkedin announced its acquisition of Oribi — an Israel-based marketing analytics company, for over $80 million. An agreement was reached with Oribi CEO, Iris Shoor, after several conversations about product and value alignment. Linkedin’s purchase of Oribi is part of a larger strategy to expand features across Linkedin Marketing Services (LMS). But what are the implications of this acquisition? and how does this affect former-Oribi customers? Let’s find out.

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“Understanding which channels and messages have the greatest impact on the decision to take a desired step, such as a buyer requesting a product demo or a job seeker applying to a job posting, is critical to the effectiveness of any marketing campaign. Through the integration of Oribi’s technology into our marketing solutions platform, our customers will benefit from enhanced campaign attribution to optimize the ROI of their advertising strategies” - Tomer Cohen, CPO, LinkedIn

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How will Linkedin use Oribi’s technology? 

As previously mentioned, Linkedin acquired Oribi with the intention of expanding its LMS portfolio with industry-leading marketing and web analytics software. In particular, Linkedin will likely employ Oribi to improve LMS insights tag implementation, drive audience insights for retargeting and CRO, and create customer journey funnels for Linkedin campaigns. Campaign attribution and ROI reporting are other Oribi use-cases Linkedin will seek to leverage for LMS.

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As part of the agreement, Linkedin also opens its very first office in Tel Aviv, Israel. The majority of the Oribi team is set to join Linkedin’s LMS division as well. The social media giants will open opportunities for enterprise sales in Tel Aviv once a legal entity has been established.

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“Oribi’s team brings deep analytics expertise that will help us accelerate the capabilities of our attribution technology across our lines of business – from helping a marketer find better leads to a recruiter identifying the right candidates. The acquisition will expand our international presence so we can continue delivering products that meet the evolving needs of our global customers and members.” - Tomer Cohen, CPO, LinkedIn

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What does Linkedin’s acquisition of Oribi mean for customer data?

A couple of things. First, any data captured following Oribi’s integration remains in the control of customers and adheres to all commitments set by Linkedin’s standard ads agreement. Second, Linkedin will not be combining legacy personal data between Oribi and Linkedin. This means that there will be no historical data exchanged between either platform. Finally, there are no plans for Linkedin to alter the data it currently collects from users — simply to enhance existing data using Oribi’s technology. 

What does Linkedin’s acquisition of Oribi mean for former Oribi users?

According to several reports, Oribi shut down services and canceled customer contracts just weeks after the agreement was reached. Based on conversations with former Oribi-users (dozens of whom, by the way, have successfully switched to Factors in recent weeks), its revealed that Oribi has offered its customers a couple of options: 

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1. Try out Oribi/LMS’s early-stage pilot program 
2. Switch to an alternate marketing/web analytics solution

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The problem with the first option is that as a result of Linkedin’s acquisition, the pilot program is heavily limited. Several core features including but not limited to attribution and visitor aggregator are set to be culled. Integrations with third-party ad platforms like Google and Facebook look likely to be restricted as well. Accordingly, option 2 is the popular choice. Especially since historical data will not be preserved, now seems to be the best time to switch to an alternative solution for Oribi.

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In fact, Oribi prescribed a list of possible Oribi alternatives. This included Heap (which is a powerful solution, but suited more for product analytics), Wicked Reports (which is a robust tool for attribution, but not much else, Plausible (which is a very intuitive tool, but does not provide much analytical depth), and more. While the list consisted of some great solutions, none were perfect replacements for Oribi. 

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Factors has been seeing a great fit for former Oribi users across B2Bs, E-commerce, Ed-tech, and more. Like Oribi, Factors delivers intuitive web analytics, CRO, attribution, and funnels. Unlike Oribi, Factors also provide end-to-end customer journey mapping across campaigns, web, & CRMs. You can learn more about how we compare against Oribi here. 

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In conclusion…

Linkedin’s acquisition of Oribi is a great signal for the marketing analytics and attribution industry. It highlights the growing value of high-quality, intuitive analytics to marketing teams. Now, more than ever, marketers feel the need and importance of monitoring their efforts and making data-driven decisions to ensure they’re earning the most back for their buck. The role of marketing analytics will only become increasingly important as even conventionally offline events like seminars and conferences turn digital. 

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Schedule a personalized demo with Factors.ai to learn more about our work. 

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