• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, September 8, 2015

Taptica on Tuesday announced it has acquired mobile demand-side platform (DSP) AreaOne for $17 million, which will be paid in cash and shares over a two-year period.

AreaOne, formerly known as SocialClicks, is a social-focused ad platform and a Facebook Marketing Partner.

Taptica is also a mobile DSP, but it did not have a strong social media offering, which led them to AreaOne.

The Taptica-AreaOne deal is not significant in scale, but it is noteworthy because it features a blend of so many trends: mobile, programmatic, social and cross-channel advertising. Taptica now boasts that it supports “mobile, social and video channels.”

Mobile ad spend is booming, per recent eMarketer figures, and programmatic is playing a key role, 

Of course, Verizon’s recent acquisition of AOL -- followed by AOL’s acquisition of Millennial Media -- was all the proof really needed to show that marketers are eager to apply programmatic to mobile (which includes social). We can think of these smaller, Taptica-AreaOne-like deals as aftershocks. (And the AOL-Millennial deal as a significantly larger aftershock of Verizon-AOL.)

And the aftershocks are everywhere -- not just in M&A activity. Instagram recently launched its programmatic ads API, and has been steadily naming beta partners over the past several weeks. AdRoll is among those new partners. AdRoll is a retargeting firm that has doubled down on mobile and social -- not unlike Taptica.

The Taptica-AreaOne deal will not reshape the industry by itself. It is, however, evidence of a reshaping industry.