• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 12, 2015

Liquid officially announced the acquisition Wednesday of San Francisco-based CommandIQ, which focuses on predictive customer relationship management (CRM). The company's former CEO, Noah Jessop, joins the Publishers Clearing House company as head of data for the analytics team.

Jessop also will focus on formulating the company's product road maps and the broader business plan. PCH acquired Liquid in 2011 and turned the company into a services group for technology and advertising built off the company's first-party registration data, about 150 million profiles.

Liquid has retired the CommandIQ brand and the technology has been integrated into its own platform. The move also builds on the company's West Coast presence, with an office in San Francisco.

Steve Bagdasarian, GM at Liquid, said the latest acquisition is part of a larger strategic vision for the company. He said the next phase supporting CRM makes the PCH data more actionable.

CommandIQ's platform enables large B2C companies with more than 1 million users to integrate activity data into one interface, allowing the marketing team to build out automation in campaigns, such as emails, apps or Web site features.

For example, someone signs up to use Pinterest or browses on Google Shopping, and two days later they receive a how-to tutorial email, explains Jessop.

Targeted ads often take the role of shoes or swimsuits that follow consumers around the Web for what seems like forever -- but content such as how-to tutorials can do just as much, and sometimes more, to secure a relationship between the brand and consumer.