Addresses Massive Gap in Influencer Analytics and the Dark Sales Funnel
SAN FRANCISCO – gShift, a worldwide provider of web presence analytics for brands and agencies, announced today from Booth 309 at the MarTech Conference, it has acquired InNetwork, an influencer marketing platform company based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in an all-stock deal. The integration of the two companies’ platforms provides digital agencies and brands with a unique marketing technology suite for planning, optimizing, amplifying and reporting on content marketing strategies and investments.
@gShiftLabs Acquires @InNetworkInc: Bringing #SEO & #InfluencerMarketing together in one platform. #martech
“A modern digital marketer with a content-centric approach to building awareness for a brand and driving the customer journey is always thinking about developing and positively impacting their audiences,” says Krista LaRiviere, CEO at gShift. “Acquiring InNetwork and adding influencer identification and management to gShift’s existing suite of software strengthens the entire content campaign process and helps marketers get their message to target audiences, through highly-targeted social influencers.”
The gShift acquisition empowers marketers to answer many difficult questions:
• What types of content should I create?
• What keywords should I target to maximize discoverability in search and social?
• Who in the social ecosphere has the audience to match my target market?
• How do I track the ROI of my content by channel & influencer in real time?
• Which pieces of content, by channel and/or influencer, produced a marketing lead and/or sale?
gShift’s customer base now has access to influencer marketing capabilities and InNetwork’s customer base has access to gShift’s web presence data, smart URL technology and reporting.
Influencer marketing is a critical component to a brand’s digital marketing mix with 60% of brands planning on increasing their influencer marketing budgets (Adweek). Social media and influencer marketing are responsible for a massive shift in the publishing and engagement of off-site content, with 90% of the customer journey now happening off a brand’s website (Forrester). gShift calls this dilemma the Dark Funnel, which is having a negative impact on sales and marketing teams. The combined technologies of gShift and InNetwork help to illuminate the Dark Funnel through influencer and off-site analytics.
“Influencers have the ability to amplify marketing messages and are an extension of SEO, content marketing and social investments,” says Chris Keevill, Cofounder & CEO of InNetwork. “When you combine these strategies with the use of gShift’s kontextURL smart URL system, brands gain insight into the Dark Funnel, showing true engagement of off-site content by channel and influencer. This level of off-site analytics has previously been unavailable and enables marketers to measure the impact influencer marketing is having on overall web presence optimization.”
The entire InNetwork team will join gShift and both the Barrie and Halifax offices will be maintained. A collaborative team of engineers will be working to fully integrate the InNetwork application into the gShift platform.
“This acquisition makes complete sense for both gShift’s and InNetwork’s customers. We understand the dynamics between influencer marketing, social and search. We are passionate about helping brands to recognize it as well,” adds LaRiviere.
About gShift
gShift’s industry leading Web Presence Analytics Software platform helps brands and agencies efficiently understand and improve on the impact and engagement of a content across its web presence. gShift is passionate about simplifying the lives of digital marketers and have built the Content Performance Cloud, a collaboration of modules and integrated technologies in one single sign-on platform. gShift’s software has been collecting and storing web presence and SEO data since 2009. gShift delivers this data along with insights on influencer marketing, audience development and smart URL tracking for on-site and off-site content, enabling marketers to gain a deeper understanding of true content engagement and performance. More than 10,000 brands in 24 countries benefit from gShift’s software and data to optimize their time and improve the discoverability and engagement of their content. gShift placed 29th on the PROFIT HOT 50.
About InNetwork
InNetwork is an online platform enabling marketers to connect with influencers for launching social media outreach campaigns. The influencers are carefully selected and are scored against high standards of professionalism, social media reach and influence. The platform provides marketers with access to influencers who will participate in both paid and non-paid campaigns. Paid campaigns are priced based on influence scoring, frequency and reach. InNetwork solves the challenge many marketers face; leveraging social media to reach consumers in an efficient and measurable way. Our proprietary scoring system, pricing model and SmartBrief make it easy for agency planners, brand managers and PR professionals to easily search for, select and engage influencers they can trust to deliver content.
