Service-as-a-software (Saas) company Marketo is riding the trend of real-time analysis of customer behavior, making it one of the fastest enterprise software companies in the venture market and a solid IPO prospect for 2011.

The company, a startup founded in 2006, recently surpassed 600 customers in July. Marketo’s revenue is approaching the $20 million level, based on estimates from company sources that the average annual sales per customer is in the $30,000 rage. While the company is not yet profitable, it looks to be a solid IPO candidate for later in 2011 or 2012.

There is a lot of buzz, hype, critical analysis, and downright drivel out there about trends in marketing and ad spending. Some have even asked whether advertising is dead. They're wrong.

Advertising is not dead folks, it has become more vibrant and complex than ever. It's growing in the online world where aggressive metrics and analysis demand instant accountability.

Here's an experiment: Try to go the next five minutes without seeing some kind of add. Ooops, too late, already happened, right?

In the Q4 of 2009, online advertising hit a new all-time quarterly high of $6.3 billion. What's changing about advertising is that its morphing, and the metrics and data used to track it are becoming more sophisticated than ever.

Take the famous "Cog" ad by Honda. Reportedly took $6M and more than three months to develop this high-concept, cross platform viral video ad. It got lots of media attention too: