I had the opportunity to attend the Pardot ‘Elevate’ user conference about two weeks ago.  Overall, it was a great event, and I want to extend my thanks to CEO David Cummings (Twitter: @david_cummings), COO Adam Blitzer (Twitter: @adamblitzer) and VP Sales Derek Grant (Twitter: @derekgrant) for inviting me to attend.

Let me first admit that given Left Brain Marketing’s focus on enterprise/mid-enterprise clients, I did wonder if the demand generation content at Elevate was going to be relevant for me and the segment I work with.  (Also, as a disclaimer:  Left Brain Marketing is 100% vendor agnostic – a policy recently highlighted by our founder, Malcolm Friedberg.  And as of the publication date for this blog post, we do not have any clients currently using Pardot.  So to be clear:  There is no sub rosa agenda in this blog post.)

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Eloqua recently announced it had “terminated [its] relationship with one of [its] resellers, The Pedowitz Group” — a move that raises important questions about the relationship between demand generation agencies and marketing automation technology vendors.  What is the appropriate relationship a demand generation agency should have with its technology vendors?  Should agencies be resllers?  And how transparent should this relationship be to the agency’s clients?

In the wake of this news, DemandGen Report put together a comprehensive round-up article that examined Eloqua’s decision and that captured reactions from Pedowitz and others in the demand generation space.

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