Google Inc. has acquired WAterloo, Ont.-based PostRank Inc., a company whose hosted software measures user engagement with topics, brands, authors and content across social media sites.
PostRank’s analytics data is used by publishers and advertisers to determine, respectively, the popularity of content and the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
For a company like Google, which generates most of its revenue from advertising, offering analytics tools to its customers is essential to its business. With the skyrocketing popularity of social media, a lot of relevant “conversations” about brands and content happen in sites like Twitter and Facebook, and in discussion forums and blog comment sections.
“We’re always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we’re excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable. They have developed an innovative approach to measuring web engagement, and we think they can help us improve our products for our users and advertisers,” Google said in a statement.
PostRank products are designed to monitor and aggregate social media data relevant to publishers and advertisers. It’s very likely that the PostRank technology will be used to extend the functionality of Google Analytics.
The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Founded in 2007 as AideRSS, PostRank is based in Waterloo, Ont., but the staff will move to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
