Marketing automation providers are adding more and more analytics functionality to their solutions as a response to salespeople’s’ increasing reliance on customer data in deal-making. SugarCRM Inc. joined the arms race this week with the purchase of Contastic Inc., a startup that uses natural language processing technology to help foster better relationships with clients.

The acquisition comes less than a month after another up-and-coming analytics provider called PredictionIO Inc. was bought by Salesforce.com Inc. for an undisclosed sum. It’s one of several firms whose software the vendor assimilated into its customer management platform over the past year to help organizations make better use of the client records they keep inside. SugarCRM, meanwhile, has been doing some shopping of its own in the background, albeit on a much more modest scale.

Contastic is the first of its acquisitions aimed at directly challenging Salesforce.com’s growing set of analytic capabilities. The service is able to search a user’s email account for neglected contacts and produce automated recommendations on how to approach the re-engagement effort. A suggestion may come in the form of a conversation topic generated according to the content of past exchanges with a lead, or a specific news article likely to match their professional interests. Salespeople have the option of having the content provided as part of a ready-made template message that only requires limited customization before it can be sent.

The technology will be incorporated into SugarCRM’s namesake platform to provide customers with the ability to orchestrate their re-engagement campaigns through the native interface.  Contastic founder Cy Khormaee is coming aboard as the new head of the company’s data crunching team to oversee the integration and direct its analytics roadmap, which is likely to see additional acquisitions further down the line if Salesforce.com’s current strategy is anything to go by.

Image via Geralt