In an
effort to refine its offerings, Facebook marketing firm Buddy Media on Thursday said it acquired social commerce and analytics provider Spinback. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
With the acquisition, "we can now answer the question -- What is the ROI of social media? -- better than anyone else in the market in a holistic way, both on Facebook and off, and on Twitter
and email," Buddy Media founder and CEO Michael Lazerow told Online Media Daily on Thurday. According to Lazerow, Buddy Media already works with eight of the 10 top global advertisers. Yet
citing "tremendous opportunity" amid the continued rise of social media, he said Buddy remains focused on growth and service innovation.
"We're still only in the early innings," Lazerow said of
social media marketing. "2011 will continue to be all about integration and ROI, two things we are positioned better than anyone to address."
Rivals in the space include Vitrue and Syncapse, which
is considered the social media marketing leader by some. It just recently raised an additional $25 million in funding.
Regarding media speculation that Buddy Media is itself a Facebook
acquisition target, Lazerow said he could not comment on speculation, adding: "It's not happening."
New York-based Spinback specializes in social commerce tools like EasyShare -- a social
plug-in that lets consumers share products and purchases via Facebook, Twitter and email. Conversely, its EasyTrack is an analytics dashboard for companies to measure social sharing and the resulting
traffic, conversions and sales.
While Spinback primarily serves retailers, Buddy Media plans to expand the offering to serve its client list of marketers and agencies.
Since launching in
October 2010, Spinback claims to have built a client base of some 20 retailers. Spinback also claims that companies using its tools have seen, on average, $2.10 in incremental revenue from each
Facebook "wall post," and a 10.9% conversion rate for Facebook "shares" that lead to purchases.
Spinback's entire team will join Buddy Media full-time, working out of the company's U.S.
headquarters in New York. To date, Buddy Media has raised $38 million in capital from WPP, Softbank Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, GGVC, Greycroft Partners, Facebook investor Ron Conway,
Facebook board member Peter Thiel, Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus, and Roger Ehrenberg, among other notable investors.