October 17, 2014 – This week, MediaMath announced its acquisition of Upcast, a powerful social advertising technology platform. Thought not disclosing the terms of the deal, the partnership is set to further empower agencies and brands to take advantage of the growing digital marketing opportunities afforded by Facebook, Twitter, and other emerging social media companies.
Headquartered in the U.K. and with a presence in Singapore, Berlin, Dublin, and Warsaw, Upcast is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) and Twitter Marketing Platform Partner serving clients worldwide. Through seamless integration with these social networks, Upcast enables marketers to create, manage, and optimize large-scale social advertising campaigns, and provides full visibility into campaign performance to help marketers improve ROI. The acquisition expands upon MediaMath’s current social offerings via the Facebook Exchange (FBX) and Twitter Tailored Audiences solutions.
According to Ari Buchalter, MediaMath’s Chief Operating Officer, they evaluated dozens of companies in their search, looking for a market leader integrated with multiple social platforms. The company wanted to partner with someone who had robust and flexible technology, a proven best-in-class product that could deliver against the needs of large social marketers, a truly global presence, and a strong team with a proven track record. When everything was set out, he says Upcast was far and away the clear choice.
“Our mission is to empower marketers with the tools to unify marketing efforts across all digital channels, and we felt it was critical to expand on our existing social offering with the acquisition of a leading platform in the space,” said Buchalter. “We evaluated dozens of companies in search of a market leader integrated with multiple platforms, with robust and flexible technology, a proven best-in-class product, a truly global presence, and a strong team with a proven track record. Upcast was far and away the clear choice. We’re excited to integrate their technology into the TerminalOne platform.”
The addition of Upcast’s social ad management tool reinforces TerminalOne’s position as the central operating system for marketers who are looking for a single platform to effectively engages target audiences across various media landscapes. As native advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms grow, social media is beginning to offer new advertising solutions to engage users across their devices.
“Our mission is to empower marketers with the tools to activate data, automate execution, and optimize performance across all digital channels. Historically, DSPs haven’t played in the PMD space such as native marketing on social platforms like Facebook,” Buchalter explained. ”But with marketers increasingly breaking down the silos between media channels, and measurement of social media increasingly focused on the same metrics as other digital marketing, we felt it was important to lead the charge to unify social with rest of digital media.”
MediaMath’s clients will benefit from the acquisition immediately, Buchalter assured. Clients will immediately be able leverage Upcast’s solution to run native marketing in the Facebook Marketplace and on Twitter, with other platforms being added soon. That includes the ability to leverage Facebook data for targeting, accessing a greater number of native ad types not currently available on the Facebook Exchange (including mobile and video), and using specialized features like Facebook’s Custom Audiences and Twitter Tailored Audiences to reach key segments of consumers, just to name a few.
In addition, Upcast’s clients will immediately be able to leverage the benefits of MediaMath’s TerminalOne to unify all of their digital marketing efforts, including access to programmatic premium and RTB display, video, mobile, and email channels, full data management capabilities, automated machine learning, transparent analytics, over 300 integrated partner solutions & apps, and more.
“As social channels expand their advertising capabilities, marketers and brands will require the right technology partner that is capable of developing robust and differentiating features with great speed and agility,” said Patrick Dawson, Managing Partner of Upcast. “By marrying Upcast’s agile technology with TerminalOne, marketers gain a more complete view of their digital advertising, maximizing scale and efficiency across all channels.”
Grant Muckle, Managing Partner of Upcast, also commented, “MediaMath shares our vision for a dynamic, technology-driven, and SaaS-centric future for marketing, and we look forward to continuing to deliver on the promise of social media advertising as part of the MediaMath family.”
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