Unified, a company that helps brands with social ad buys, has acquired social analytics startup Awe.sm for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced Thursday.
Unified is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer and Twitter Ads API Partner. The core of its product is a “Social Operating Platform,” a cloud-based tool that combines social marketing capabilities ranging from audience and performance analytics to automated ad-buying on Facebook and Twitter.
Unified was one of five social ads platforms to be inducted into LinkedIn’s Certified Sponsored Updates Partners program last week.
Now with the acquisition of Awe.sm, Unified could potentially gain access to broader marketing datasets beyond the social sphere. Awe.sm’s CEO Fred McIntyre told AdExchanger in a recent interview that the company, yes, connects brands and agencies with users in a social context, but also tackles “multichannel attribution” challenges, such as tracking the trail of social shares and links that led to an in-dealer purchase in the case of customer BMW.
Awe.sm, which was founded in 2009, is backed by a number of investors like Foundry Group and kbs+ Ventures. The Awe.sm team is small (Startuply.com pins the number at around 10) and a Unified spokesperson says five members will join the acquiring company. Awe.sm CEO Fred McIntyre, a former AOL exec, will support the transition and remain on as an advisor to the company.
Unified cited Awe.sm’s support of “social action tracking” across all channels, including offline points, as one of the precipitators for the acquisition.
Although more social media management platforms are ramping up paid media components to compete more effectively with the ever-diminishing organic reach on Facebook, the marketplace still values content creation and social listening. This is evident in the case of Twitter, which acquired social data tool Gnip.
Unified wants to build an end-to-end system “to measure referral traffic from paid and owned channels that drive increased adoption and installs of mobile applications.” The company is used by more than 500 brands and agencies including Toyota and Unilever.
