Reply.com to acquire US local business owners network MerchantCircle

May 31, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Reply.com, the auction marketplace for the acquisition of locally-targeted and category specific customer prospects, is to acquire MerchantCircle, a largest online network of US local business owners, for $60 million in cash and stock. The transaction is expected to be completed in Q3 2011. Reply! founder and CEO, Payam Zamani, will be CEO of the combined companies, which will be called Reply! Inc. Individually, each company is profitable, and the combined company projects revenues of over $100 million in 2012.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Reply! will be comprised of two components: Reply! Marketplace and Reply! Media. Founder and CEO of MerchantCircle, Ben T. Smith IV, will be President of the Reply! Media Division, reporting to Zamani.

“There is a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity in providing a practical and scalable online marketing solution for powering locally-targeted commercial transactions,” said Reply! founder & CEO, Payam Zamani. “Reply!’s Marketplace, combined with MerchantCircle’s network of local merchants and millions of local consumers, position the company to revolutionize locally-targeted online marketing and solve a major problem for locally-targeted businesses, who are frustrated by the complexity and lack of effectiveness of search engine marketing and display advertising.”

USA, San Ramon, CA

Related articles:

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, Marketing/Advertising, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

Social media agency Punktilio acquired by Essence

May 30, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Digital agency Essence has acquired specialist social media agency Punktilio Limited. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Punktilio’s website says, ” Social is already of considerable importance to many brands – and for some is central to their brand strategy. We believe its importance will only grow – and with that the need for social to be wholly integrated with a brand’s overall digital strategy will become fundamental. With that in mind, we wonder if the days of the specialist social media agency are numbered? And perhaps this deal may become seen as a transformative moment for the industry.”

Michael Birch, founder of Bebo and now a shareholder in Essence following the deal, agrees: “In my mind there will be no room for a ‘specialist social media agency’ in two years. The future is all about joined up thinking. I see huge potential for this combined business and my ongoing commitment to the agency will continue.”

Punktilio, an agency co-founded by former Bebo exec Hal Stokes.

UK, London

Posted in Marketing/Advertising, ~Europe. Leave a Comment »

Local online marketing business Yodle has acquired ProfitFuel

May 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Local online marketing business Yodle has acquired ProfitFuel, Inc. ProfitFuel, based in Austin, TX, is the largest and fastest growing provider of local search engine optimization (SEO) services to small businesses across the United States. With over 11,000 clients, ProfitFuel has achieved breakout growth serving small businesses that have a moderate marketing budget. Outrank, the company’s main service, is designed to generate inbound phone calls and emails cost effectively by delivering prominent rankings on top search engines for clients.

Historically, Yodle has focused its local online marketing services on small business advertisers that typically spend larger budgets of $1,000+ monthly and national brand advertisers; Franchise, Multi-location, and Manufacturer/Dealer organizations that advertise locally across hundreds of locations. With the acquisition of ProfitFuel, Yodle now adds a product and a sales force capable of serving a much broader set of clients who have smaller marketing budgets, but who still want the accountability of measuring their marketing performance.

“With ProfitFuel, Yodle is doubling down on its approach of providing a clear ROI to the local advertiser, delivered through a combined 450 person sales and client service team,” said Yodle CEO Court Cunningham. “ProfitFuel’s dedication to customer results and sales excellence made it a natural fit with Yodle. I look forward to bringing Yodle’s expanded suite of SEM, SEO, Social and Display marketing products to market more quickly in collaboration with ProfitFuel’s world class team.”

David Rubin, previously CEO of ProfitFuel, will join Yodle as SVP of Sales. Mr. Rubin has a proven 20 year track record as a successful CEO and sales leader in the technology space. Prior to ProfitFuel, Mr. Rubin was founder and CEO of HomeCity, an online real estate brokerage that pioneered utilizing web-based content to acquire clients. Before founding HomeCity, David held leadership positions at various companies including Intraware as Vice President of New Services Development, BITSource as founder and CEO and Computize as National Sales Director.

Yodle plans to grow ProfitFuel’s Austin, TX office, making it a major hub, and to fully integrate the company’s infrastructure and technology by year’s end.

USA, New York, NY & Austin, TX

Related Articles:

Yodle, a local online advertising and lead generation company,has completed a $10M funding round Posted on February 2, 2010

Posted in Marketing/Advertising, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

dunnhumby to acquire social marketing company BzzAgent

May 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

dunnhumby Ltd is to acquire Boston-based social marketing company BzzAgent, Inc. Following completion of the deal, BzzAgent will become a subsidiary of dunnhumby and operate as a stand-alone business. Dave Balter, CEO and Founder of BzzAgent, will continue in his current role and will report directly to Simon Hay, CEO of dunnhumby Ltd. Balter will also join the dunnhumby executive team. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition is a marriage of one of the leaders in shopper marketing with a social marketing pioneer. dunnhumby analyzes shopper data that helps consumer goods companies and retailers better understand the behavior and motivation of their customers. BzzAgent helps marketers reach their customers, encouraging brand advocacy and product recommendations among them. Together, the companies will use the power of peer influence and word-of-mouth to improve customer insights and product sales for consumer goods companies and retailers.

“The customer today is as influential as the marketing gurus were a decade ago. Customers’ choices are influenced in many places and social media and word-of-mouth are playing a key role for brands and retailers,” said Simon Hay, CEO of dunnhumby Ltd. “Not only does BzzAgent leverage a base of 800,000 influential customers in the word-of-mouth space, it is focused on measuring return on investment and the role of social media. Our focus has always been on building loyalty. With BzzAgent, we believe we can now help our clients understand advocacy and use this knowledge to earn more loyal customers for retailers and brands,” Hay continued.

“dunnhumby has built a stellar reputation in the retail and CPG space by focusing on customer attitudes and behaviors,” said Balter. “BzzAgent shares that focus and we are excited to leverage dunnhumby’s unmatched targeting and analytic capabilities to provide our programs greater scale and proof of impact. Together we think we have a huge opportunity to connect the dots between shopper marketing and social media.”

BzzAgent, founded in 2001, a pioneer in the word-of-mouth marketing space, enlists “agents” to generate awareness for consumer goods and services among their peers. The company’s network of 800,000 consumers helps its clients create word-of-mouth endorsements of its products. Clients include some of the world’s largest marketers, including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, L’Oreal and Michelin. BzzAgent has completed more than 2,000 programs for 500-plus companies since it was founded.

Cowen and Company is acting as exclusive financial advisor to BzzAgent, Inc. in connection with the transaction.

UK, London & USA, Boston, MA

 

 

 

Posted in Marketing/Advertising, ~Europe, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

Yahoo! to acquire 5to1 Holding Corp

May 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Yahoo! has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 5to1 Holding Corp. 5to1 is an online advertising alliance consisting exclusively of major media publishers. Built on a proprietary publisher-controlled platform, 5to1 offers top brand advertisers premium inventory at mass scale. The acquisition of 5to1 will enable Yahoo! to build upon its publisher partnerships and expand its premium inventory.

“5to1’s innovative platform and premium private marketplace will further enable Yahoo! to extend our advertising leadership,” said Wayne Powers, SVP, Advertising Sales for the North America region. “5to1 provides additional access to publishers and unlocks the value of unsold inventory for premium brand advertisers.”

5to1 focuses on premium brands and media partnered in a marketplace environment, enabling major media publishers to fill unsold inventory with premium advertisements. 5to1 works with more than 20 premium publishers.

“We’re thrilled for our media partners that Yahoo! is backing our platform and the alliance,” said James Heckman, 5to1 CEO and co-founder. “The 5to1 team is looking forward to joining Yahoo! at the close of the transaction and being part of its global reach.”

Yahoo! expects to close the acquisition in the second quarter. After the close of the transaction, the 5to1 team will be joining Yahoo! as part of the Ad Marketplaces group.

USA, Sunnyvale, CA

Related articles:

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, Marketing/Advertising, Publishers, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

Publicis Groupe to acquire digital marketing agencies Rosetta

May 19, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Publicis Groupe is to acquire Rosetta Marketing Group. Rosetta is one of the largest and fastest-growing independent digital agencies in North America. Rosetta employs around 1,100 interactive marketing professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The transaction is expected to close during the second or third quarter of 2011.

Rosetta will operate as an autonomous, stand-alone brand within Publicis Groupe under the leadership of Rosetta’s founder & CEO Chris Kuenne, who will remain at the head of the agency, reporting to Jean-Yves Naouri, Chief Operating Officer of Publicis Groupe. The addition of Rosetta to its other digital businesses – which include Digitas, Razorfish and Publicis Modem – will bring Publicis Groupe’s annual revenue derived from digital activity to more than 30%.

Maurice Levy, Chairman & CEO of Publicis Groupe, commented, “The acquisition of Rosetta is a key next step in our strategy to become the ‘human, all digital agency group.’

France, Paris & USA, Princeton, NJ

Related articles:

Posted in Marketing/Advertising, ~Europe, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

Aegis Group acquires Qualitè Search Marketing

May 13, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Aegis Group plc, the media communications and market research group, has acquired Qualitè Search Marketing, a performance marketing business based in Norway.

Qualitè, which specialises in search engine marketing and advertising, web analytics and social media, will be merged with iProspect’s existing business in Norway to create the market leader in performance marketing. As at 31 December 2010, Qualitè had gross assets of £0.1m.

Jerry Buhlmann CEO of Aegis Group Plc, said: “Aegis’s acquisition of Qualitè is further evidence of our strategic focus on bolt-on acquisitions which provide scale, infill and innovation. Qualitè’s client list, assets and expertise will complement iProspect’s performance marketing offering in Norway, ensuring the combined business has a market-leading presence there. This will support Aegis Media in providing an integrated service proposition to our clients in that market.”

Magne Uppman, CEO of Qualitè commented: “We are extremely proud to be joining iProspect’s leading digital search and performance network, with a presence in the world’s major digital economies. This transaction provides the opportunity to deliver market-leading solutions to our national and international clients.”

UK, London & Norway, Oslo

Related articles:

Posted in Marketing/Advertising, ~Europe. Leave a Comment »

Adconion Media Group raises £21M to support acquisition plans and general operations

May 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Adconion Media Group, one of the largest independent global audience and video content network, has secured nearly £21 million in financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the commercial banking division of SVB Financial Group (Nasdaq: SIVB) and financial partner to technology companies worldwide. The newly secured funds will be used to support both acquisition and working capital requirements to continue the global growth of the company.

Commenting on the deal Tyler Moebius, CEO of Adconion, said: “We have benefited from a great partnership with Silicon Valley Bank since early 2010 and we are pleased to have the opportunity to develop this relationship further. It is refreshing to work with a bank that understands how technology companies operate; a bank that is able to offer flexible financing solutions to service our international needs.”

USA, Santa Clara, CA & UK, London

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, Marketing/Advertising, ~Europe, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

WebMediaBrands acquires Inside Network and its Social Media Research and Data Services, News Publications and Industry Conferences

May 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

WebMediaBrands has acquired Inside Network.

Inside Network publishes the well-known blogs Inside Facebook, Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps; industry-leading research services focused on the Facebook platform and social gaming ecosystem including Inside Facebook Gold, Inside Virtual Goods and Facebook Marketing Bible; AppData, a service used by developers, investors, marketers, and analysts interested in tracking application, or app, traffic on social platforms; and trade shows such as Inside Social Apps.

Justin Smith, founder of the Inside Network, will continue to operate the business and will become WebMediaBrands’ Vice President, Social Media and a member of its board of directors. Terms for the transaction included payment of $7.5 million in cash and 4,183,130 shares of the common stock of WebMediaBrands.

“Inside Network Inc. is a leader in covering the Facebook and social gaming ecosystem through reporting, research, and events,” stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of WebMediaBrands. “When combined with our leading social media blogs such as AllFacebook, SocialTimes, and AllTwitter, I believe that WebMediaBrands is now the leading source of news and information about Facebook, social gaming, Twitter, and social media. We plan to move aggressively with initiatives designed to grow our combined editorial, research, and events operations, as well as dramatically augment our online education coverage of social media and our job board presence in the social media arena,” added Meckler.

“WebMediaBrands has created a powerful platform for delivering news, research, education, and events to the social media industry,” said Justin Smith, Founder and CEO of Inside Network. Since our founding, Inside Network has always focused on providing the highest quality information, research, data, and events for the social app ecosystem. Combining our efforts should naturally enable us to move even faster to deliver products and services to this rapidly growing industry in multiple areas, including industry news and research, conferences and events, and job listings for the social and mobile application ecosystems.”

USA, New York, NY

Related articles:

Posted in Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Marketing/Advertising, Mobile Apps, Publishers, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

Digital data collection business e-Rewards is to acquire Conversition Strategies

May 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Digital data collection business e-Rewards is to acquire Conversition Strategies.

Founded in February 2009 by former IPSOS executives, Conversition performs market research within the social media channel. The primary product offered by Conversition is EvoListen. A patent-pending technology, EvoListen collects data sourced from online social media outlets, cleans and filters the data collected, utilizes scientific sampling and weighting to report the results, and then formats it into quantitative data sets.

“With over half a billion consumers worldwide engaging in social media platforms today, we believe social media listening will continue to become an increasingly important way for businesses to collect valuable insights around the needs and wants of their customers,” said Chris Havemann, President and Chief Executive Officer of e-Rewards. “Our acquisition of Conversition will allow us to further accelerate our social media strategy while enhancing the research capabilities we offer. We remain committed to equipping our clients with innovative products that help with the collection and analysis of digital data.”

USA, Plano, TX

Posted in Content Media, Internet Media, Marketing/Advertising, ~North America. Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Newer posts »