Social media management company Sprinklr has acquired Facebook and Twitter ads platform TBG Digital in a deal estimated under $50 million, the companies revealed Thursday.
Sprinklr’s been busy on the acquisitions front. In February, it snapped up Razorfish cofounder Jeff Dachis’s social media marketing and services firm Dachis Group. London-based TBG Digital was founded as TBG London Limited in 2001 and manages more than $100 million in ad spend annually, according to a Sprinklr spokesperson. TBG has close to 100 employees and when the acquisition closes, Sprinklr will have close to 500 employees.
In 2012, TBG had its Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer badge removed for allegedly discussing Facebook product developments with clients. The company, however, still maintained access to the Facebook ads API despite its revoked preferred developer status. A TBG spokesperson claimed it will soon regain this status.
“My personal belief is we’re done with interruptive marketing,” Ragy Thomas, Sprinklr’s founder and CEO told AdExchanger in a recent interview. “There’s this whole fuss about content marketing, but content is only one component. There’s data, context, social connections and insights and I think we’re getting to ‘value-driven marketing’ where content finds you through your network.”
Sprinklr, which works with more than 650 enterprise brands like Virgin America and Intel, and raised a $40 million Series D round in April, sees a future in independent earned, owned and paid social media management. While a number of enterprise Marketing Clouds have incorporated social media into their broader stacks in a wave of social CRM investment, others have expanded on the “paid” part by partnering with some of the standalone point solutions.
“Simple, converged media management” is what brands and agencies want, Thomas claimed. A number of acquisitions have colored a rapidly maturing social space, from Brand Networks’ purchase of Optimal to Unified’s acquisition of Awe.sm. While the number (and deal size) has decreased since the giant $689 million sum Salesforce.com paid for Buddy Media in 2012, as Facebook and Twitter collectively continue their ads offense, there could be additional consolidation in the point solutions sphere.
