Zeta Global acquired the digital survey technology company Apptness for $41 million, with up to $20 million in additional incentive-based payouts, according to an SEC filing on Monday.
Apptness is a tool for publishers to create surveys and gather responses (and those golden email opt-ins) from users. Its main business is working with sites and apps for hiring and employment – with tech that powers job boards, sites and platforms where businesses list open positions, hiring and headhunting companies.
The Apptness product will work closely with Disqus, Zeta Global ZEO David Steinberg told AdExchanger.
Disqus is Zeta’s publisher tech business, offering sites products such as commenting sections and tools for rating or sharing articles. As the end of third-party cookies approaches, Disqus is the backbone of the company’s identity data set, since people provide their email or must log in to Disqus or the publisher to comment on or share an article.
Apptness will be an incremental addition to Zeta Global’s data cloud profiles, Steinberg said. But new jobs and hiring are “life events” with outsized value as audience data sources.
“We know people who recently changed jobs often change wireless service providers. They often request to be issued new credit cards. They may drive farther, buy a car and be looking for new automotive insurance,” Steinberg said, as examples of how the Apptness employment data and survey product might be applied for its large marketing technology clients.
Within 90 days, Apptness will be a free addition to any of the six million publishers that use Zeta’s Disqus technology.
Apptness CEO Dominik Szabo will become EVP and general manager of Zeta’s Actions division, the customer acquisition unit. Apptness’s CRO Jonah Lovens will become CRO of the division.
Steinberg said Apptness ended up Zeta Global’s radar after a years-long partnership, as has been the case with all the other companies Zeta has acquired.
“We’re always looking for cool tools that enable publishers to manage their business better,” he said. “And, frankly, create more data for our Data Cloud.”
