Marketo's business-to-business marketing applications will complement Adobe's digital marketing business, which provides cloud-based tools to help create, manage and analyse advertising and marketing campaigns, the companies said. Marketo, started in 2006 as an email marketing service, was taken private by Vista for $1.8 billion in 2016. The San Mateo, California-based company generated revenue of about $321 million in 2017, according to credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service Inc. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Adobe's fiscal 2018 and Marketo Chief Executive Officer Steve Lucas will join the company's senior leadership team and continue to lead the Marketo team, Adobe said.