While Microsoft may not be getting into wholesale online retail to likes of Amazon, the company has just made a strategic purchase that could help integrate some of its software toolsets into the sector.
According to Microsoft’s Advertising blog, the company just announced its acquisition of PromoteIQ, the company happens to be among on the leading firms of marketing technology to online retailers and brands. Today’s announcement puts PromoteIQ in Microsoft’s back pocket of integrated solutions to help its clients not only execute technically but find new monetization avenues via modern digital marketing strategies.
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Digital vendor marketing is a critical source of high-margin revenue for global e-commerce retailers. The PromoteIQ platform makes it easy for brands to promote products in a native and unobtrusive way – facilitated by the retailers with full control over the end-user experience.
Microsoft has been in the process of overhauling its advertising platform by first establishing a new brand direction that shifts the focus away from Bing and leverages the higher valued association of Microsoft’s brand while also expanding its feature set by incorporating a new LinkedIn targeting dashboard.
PromoteIQ boasts about its ability to be the connective tissued between brands and vendors while at the same time cutting out the middlemen platforms such as AdWords and Microsoft Advertising, but it’ll be interesting to see if the company software-as-a-service (Saas) becomes yet another integrated marketing tool for Microsoft.
ZDNet is reporting, that for now, Microsoft doesn’t seem inclined to make any major waves in the day to day operations of PromoteIQ, opting instead to allow the company to retain its own brand as well as its headquarter offices in New York City for the time being.
Obviously, the two companies will work in the near future on integrating technologies and services, be it bringing PromoteIQ to the Microsoft Advertising platform or getting the company to hawk Microsoft wares alongside its custom digital marketing services.
Whatever the outcome, we can presume PromoteIQ’s client portfolio of large North American retailers such as Kohl’s, Kroger and Overstock.com will at some point be inundated with Microsoft technologies soon.
Further reading: Amazon, Kohl’s, Kroger, Microsoft, Overstock.com, PromoteIQ, ZDNET
