Act-On was founded in 2008 by Raghu Raghavan, formerly a founder of Responsys, after he saw "potential for a sophisticated, but affordable SaaS marketing tool mid-market companies could easily use." Act-On initially sold through alternate channels, but later created its own sales team. Entering the market after several competitors had been established, Act-On had a second-mover advantage, learning from the success and failures of earlier market entrants. Raghavan commented in a 2013 interview, "We came in, we saw all of the things that had not been done right in this space, and I think it allowed us to build a company in a whole new way to attack what we saw in the monsters' market."