Marin Software Acquisition of Perfect Audience FAQ
Why is Marin Software acquiring Perfect Audience?
The Marin Software vision is to provide the leading cross-channel performance platform for advertisers and agencies. The acquisition of Perfect Audience plays a key component in fulfilling that vision. Audience targeting now plays an increasingly critical role in unifying an advertiser’s cross-channel approach to buying media and driving revenue. Perfect Audience will enable any Marin customer to leverage their existing search intent data and combine it with first-party behavioral data to build highly valuable audience segments. In turn, the combination of Marin and Perfect Audience will enable advertisers for the first time to retarget those segments across any device on search, display and social from a single unified platform.
Who is Perfect Audience?
Perfect Audience offers advertisers a powerful, easy-to-use SaaS platform to retarget website visitors across the web, Facebook and Twitter. Leveraging first-party behavioral data to target audiences with pinpoint accuracy, Perfect Audience helps advertisers achieve more sales and conversions. Perfect Audience also offers dynamic ad creation that can leverage input from product feeds, allowing advertisers to display highly relevant ad creative based on behavioral intent.
Perfect Audience is a successful 14-person start-up, which quickly built a competitive retargeting platform. Brad Flora and Jordan Buller founded Perfect Audience in 2012 and built the company on the principle that every business should be able to easily and effectively personalize their marketing and deliver a high ROI; principles that align well with Marin Software’s core values.
How do Perfect Audience’s products and Marin Software fit together?
Perfect Audience’s platform is complementary with Marin Software’s current search, display, and social product offerings. Integration of the platforms will further streamline advertisers’ workflow and improve results and also enable advertisers to access through the Marin platform display and social ad exchanges, including Facebook Exchange (FBX), Google DoubleClick Ad Exchange, Twitter, and others.
How does this acquisition fit into Marin’s broader strategy?
Marin Software’s vision is to provide advertisers and agencies a powerful cross-channel performance platform through which marketers can measure, manage and optimize search, display, and social ad campaigns. Acquiring Perfect Audience provides Marin with powerful display and social retargeting capabilities and gives our customers the ability to leverage their existing search intent data to better target audiences across the digital landscape.
Is Marin Software planning any additional acquisitions?
Consistent with building shareholder value, Marin Software is always on the lookout for businesses that will further the company’s cross-channel marketing strategy and fit well with Marin’s core values.
The Deal
How much was Perfect Audience acquired for?
Under the terms of the agreement, Marin Software paid $22.8 million, comprised of approximately $5.4 million in cash and the remainder in common stock. In addition, Marin will grant $2.7 million of equity retention grants to continuing Perfect Audience employees. Marin completed the transaction on June 2, 2014. Marin will issue approximately 1.75 million shares of common stock for the acquisition and approximately 0.27 million RSUs as retention grants to Perfect Audience employees.
What is the financial impact to Marin Software?
For full year 2014, Marin Software expects the transaction will have no material impact on non-GAAP operating loss. The company will provide Perfect Audience’s revenue and impact to non-GAAP operating loss on our second quarter during the regularly scheduled Q2 2014 earnings conference call. At that time, the company will also provide updated financial guidance for 2014, including Perfect Audience’s expected contribution.
Benefits for Customers
What is the value for customers?
Key customer benefits of the acquisition include:
- The ability to better leverage existing search intent data and combine it with first-party behavioral data to build highly valuable audience segments for retargeting.
- Access to display and social ad exchanges through the Marin platform, enabling advertisers to retarget or target audiences across Facebook Exchange (FBX), Google DoubleClick Ad Exchange, Twitter MoPub Marketplace, Pubmatic, OpenX, and others.
- Enabling advertisers for the first time to retarget or target a given audience segment across any device on search, social and display, all from within a single unified platform.
How will Perfect Audience be integrated with Marin Software? How soon?
Marin’s open stack architecture ensures that data from Perfect Audience display retargeting campaigns can be quickly and easily integrated into the Marin platform. Marin Channel Connect enables advertisers to see performance data—such as clicks, cost and conversions—from search, social and display advertising campaigns in a single, unified dashboard. Work has already begun to expand Perfect Audience’s display audience-building capabilities beyond display to include both search and social. Specific Marin customers will be invited to participate in an upcoming closed beta program.
What will happen to Perfect Audience’s products and services?
The Perfect Audience team has built a powerful, easy-to-use retargeting platform that is of great value to advertisers. As such, Perfect Audience will continue to operate as normal. Marin Software will invest in the continued growth and development of Perfect Audience.
Organizational Impact
Will Perfect Audience employees be joining Marin Software?
Yes, all Perfect Audience employees will be joining Marin Software.
Will there be any layoffs?
No, there will not be any layoffs.
What will Perfect Audience’s CEO role be at Marin Software?
Perfect Audience CEO Brad Flora will join Marin’s product management team and CTO Jordan Buller will join Marin’s product development team.