Visual IQ's acquisition of Munich-based Refined Labs, a cross-channel marketing attribution and customer journey analytics software provider, gives the company a footprint in the second-largest market in Europe -- Germany.
The addition of Refined Labs’ attribution and analytics, search and TV offerings strengthens Visual IQ's ability to provide brands and agencies with technology that matches their respective measurement and optimization needs.
While Manu Mathew, co-founder and CEO of Visual IQ, says the first reason for acquiring Refined Labs focuses on geographic expansion, the second supports the ability to "upsell to their clients" such as Swiss, Scout 24, and Blue Summit.
Refined Labs has more than 60 customers, who will all gain immediate access to Visual IQ's support staff and its advanced measurement and optimization capabilities. The acquisition strengthens Visual IQ's presence across EMEA -- not only in Germany, and the addition of Refined Labs' dynamic engineering, client services and sales teams will further advancements in business development, support services, product enhancements and more.
"The attribution space has a lot of noise in it," Mathew said, especially when it comes to privacy in EMEA.
In Germany, and throughout Europe, privacy is a huge topic, so the ability to track consumers in a country compliant way is important. Advertisers must follow rules very clearly, Mathew said.
Specific to Germany, the category of attribution is pegged into a phrase called customer journey analysis, which describes the attribution," he said.
Refined Labs' two dozen employees will become part of Visual IQ, effective immediately, and in time, Refined Labs offerings, including its robust API integrations, will be incorporated into the IQ Intelligence Suite.