Online and mobile video presentations solution provider Brainshark has unveiled the Brainshark Mobile Player, an HTML5-based played designed to offer iOS and Android users a more interactive experience while viewing Brainshark video presentations on mobile devices.

Brainshark says the player will allow organizations to increase their level of engagement with mobile users. Companies can also use the mobile platform to improve the ease and effectiveness of their communications, according to a company press release.

Oracle announced today that it will acquire Eloqua, Inc. for $871 million. Oracle will pay $23.50 per share for Eloqua, a 31% premium over the marketing automation vendor's closing stock price of $17.92 yesterday.

According to an Oracle news release, it will use Eloqua's technology to create a "Customer Experience Cloud" offering enterprises a single, end-to-end suite of cloud applications to acquire, sell to, service and support customers. Specifically, Oracle apparently plans to rebrand Eloqua's marketing automation platform as the "Oracle Marketing Cloud" and to position it alongside its current customer experience offerings.

Twitter recently announced a new set of features designed to help marketers target Promoted Tweets within the social media site's search results.

The changes, detailed last week on the company's advertising services blog, include three new options for fine-tuning targeted keywords: exact match, phrase match and basic keyword match. Marketers can also select negative keywords to keep Promoted Tweets from appearing in an inappropriate situation.

Most B2B marketers understand the importance of lead nurturing, and they're eager to get started. The key to a successful nurturing campaign, however, isn't just about execution – it's also about preparation.

This was one of the key issues discussed during a recent webinar, Lead Nurturing: The Blueprint For Building Successful Campaigns, presented by Demand Gen Report and sponsored by lead generation consultancy BlueBird Strategies. While the webinar offered a number of tips on designing and executing lead nurturing campaigns, it also stressed the role that content, lead management and other foundational activities play in a successful nurturing strategy.

Marketing software vendor Influitive announced today that it has closed a $7.3 million funding round and added two new members to its board of directors.

According to a company news release, Hummer Winblad and Relay Ventures will lead the Series A funding round. Existing investors including Illuminate Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Resolute.VC will also participate.

B2B marketers are suffering from a costly disconnect between their long-term strategies and day-to-day tactical activities, according to a recent national study.

The study, conducted by DemandBase with assistance from Ziff Davis, found that many marketing organizations fail to allocate resources where they are most likely to serve strategic goals. While 56% of respondents, for example, consider focusing on industry verticals to be a strategic priority, just 49% dedicate the bulk of their resources towards this target audience.

Marketo this week announced the launch of new a client services offering for the company's Marketing Nation ecosystem.   

The company's Marketing Nation Client Services will provide support, education and expert consultation to drive marketing and sales best practices, according to a company news release.

Earlier this year, SiriusDecisions reported that while more B2B organizations are adopting marketing automation, few of them are satisfied with the value they're getting. In fact, 85% of these organizations told SiriusDecisions that they don't believe they're using marketing automation to its fullest potential.

As a result, more of these enterprises are turning to partners that can help them make the strategic changes required to take full advantage of their marketing automation investments. Forward-looking demand generation consultants, in turn, are stepping up to the plate.