Up to now, performance marketer Adknowledge’s AdParlor platform has served agencies and advertisers solely on Facebook, but it will now extend its work as the newest Twitter API partner.
The company joins SocialCode, Voxsup, Kenshoo, Adaptly and other social-media marketing technology providers who have made the leap from Facebook to Twitter.
While similarities exist between the two social media outlets, Mladen Raickovic, AdParlor’s general manager, said they complement rather than duplicate each other.
“The context that Facebook finds itself in is more interest-driven – it’s about what your friends are doing and what they’re liking,” Raickovic said. “That allows for a greater array of avenues of different types of ad units. On Twitter, activity there is more conversation-driven. Therefore, conversations happen because of events that may not involve people you know or people who are like you and live near you. But it all takes place within a certain narrow moment in time. So with Twitter, the focus has to be targeting pieces of those conversations and making sure that timing is precise.”
AdParlor’s technology integration with Twitter matched up to what Facebook required, said Blake Smith, AdParlor’s senior product manager. Since Facebook’s advertising platform grew so quickly, with new tools and offerings coming almost weekly, the process helped prepare Adknowledge for whatever Twitter may throw at it.
“Facebook went through some growing pains and so we’re prepared for any of the potential challenges that come from Twitter’s platform,” Smith said. “Twitter has taken their time to set things up the right way, but if there are any hiccups along the way, we’re ready to take them on.”
As a performance specialist, AdParlor mostly works with direct response and lead gen marketers. But it’s starting to see brands like Coca Cola take an interest in hybrid campaigns that look to drive an immediate action as well as brand awareness and affinity. As a result, its pricing structures vary.
“We try to make it as simple as possible, so we’re pretty flexible when it comes to our pricing models,” Raickovic said. “For clients that are very sensitive to pricing fluctuations, we’ll offer a fixed price, whereas for others, we charge based on percentage of media spending. There’s also volume discounts that we offer depending on the scope of a campaign.”
AdParlor plans to introduce products specifically for Twitter that differ from what it does on Facebook. As such, it has already grown its staff by 25% over the past year, though it declined to provide a specific number of employees.
Adknowledge has been an active acquirer since its founding nine years ago. It bought AdParlor two years ago, and made its 10th acquisition (of SocialWeekend Labs) back in April.
