Why Sprinklr Acquired TBG Digital

While much has been written about the integration of paid, earned and owned for social, not much has really been done to bring these disparate technology solutions together natively.

With the obvious and inevitable decline of organic reach, paid is increasingly the only lever that can predictably control brands’ reach across channels. It’s absolutely critical that brands learn to coordinate messaging across paid and owned.

Imagine being able to plan your owned and paid on the same calendar.

Imagine being able to overlay earned impact on the same report as your owned and paid.

Imagine being able to amplify posts that are working well with one click.

Imagine being able to run multi-variate tests and auto allocate additional dollars to winning combinations.

Imagine executing in-feed and right rail messaging in tandem.

Imagine being able to understand true reach and conversion while tracking the true impact of paid.

Imagine being able to optimize paid by utilizing the learning from owned. Or vice versa, running a small paid test to figure out what to post to your millions of fans and followers.

Imagine budgets being dynamically allocated across teams based on performance.

The possibilities are endless.

Sprinklr has been chasing this dream since we started building out a completely integrated paid media module in October of 2013. We launched an early version to our definition partners earlier this year. Today we are thrilled to announce, that we are acquiring TBG Digital to help us bring this converged media solution to our existing and future clients.

For more than 10 years, TBG Digital has been a top global social paid solution company and one of the pioneers of social advertising. I’ve known Simon Mansell, the Founder of TBG Digital, for many years and have always been impressed with the talented team he had assembled globally. We’ve shared office spaces in New York and San Francisco for many months now, and know we both share the culture and passion to make our clients successful.

This acquisition makes Sprinklr the world’s first converged media solution that enables brands to seamlessly plan, execute, measure, and optimize their paid activities in the same environment as their owned and earned engagement.

The addition of TBG makes Sprinklr an even more complete social solution, that now:

• serves more than 650 enterprise brands
• processes more than $100 million in annual media spend
• employs nearly 500 people across the US, UK, France, Germany and Asia
• supports over 20 social platforms and customer data sources
• maintains formal relationships with all of the major social platforms including Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google.

This is another milestone in an exciting year for Sprinklr, including the acquisition of Dachis Group in February and our $40M series D funding in April. Most importantly, it will continue to fuel growth and Sprinklr is on track to deliver another incredible year.

The social consumer demands a consistent experience across every touchpoint. Today it becomes a bit easier for brands that truly care about their customers to enable exactly that. Please join me in welcoming our newest Sprinklrites.

– Ragy

P.P.S: Here is our official press release on the acquisition news:

Sprinklr Acquires Leading Paid Social Company, TBG Digital; Helps Brands and Agencies Maximize Social Reach

Serving $5bn Market Opportunity, Acquisition Creates World’s First Enterprise Converged Media Solution

New York, NY, August 14, 2014 Sprinklr, the leading independent end-to-end social relationship infrastructure, today announced the acquisition of a top global paid social solution, TBG Digital. The combination of TBG Digital and Sprinklr provides large brands with the world’s first converged social media solution. As the only enterprise provider with the full set of capabilities across paid, owned and earned social media, Sprinklr enables enterprises to:

• maximize reach across paid, owned and earned social content
• integrate planning of content and campaigns across paid, owned and earned channels
• conduct automated optimization and amplification of organic content with paid budgets
• rapidly determine and close the loop on the ROI of digital advertising

Converged media is a critical need for large brands according to the Altimeter Group. The number of major social media sites has exploded in the last 3 years to over 200, while simultaneously, the number of Facebook Pages “liked” by a typical user grew by 50%. The future demand for extending social reach shows no signs of slowing with social media initiatives poised to consume nearly 18% of total marketing budgets in 5 years with an additional $5 billion forecasted in paid social media alone.

“Understanding how media spend works across all channels and touchpoints is important to us,” said Gary Evans, Director, Online Sales and Marketing, Sky, the UK and Ireland’s leading home entertainment and communications company. “More and more of our customers and potential customers are connecting with us via social and it’s pretty clear that the only way to manage all of this effectively is through great, integrated technology.”

Recognized by Forrester Research as “the most powerful technology on the market,” Sprinklr released the industry’s first integrated paid social media module in April. With TBG Digital, Sprinklr adds 10 years of experience serving large clients such as Vodafone and Dell and a strong pedigree of innovation to round out the converged media solution. TBG Digital was an early adopter of ad campaigns on Facebook and was also one of the first 3 firms to join X, formerly Twitter’s Marketing Platform Partner Program.

Until the announcement by Sprinklr of a converged social media solution, enterprises have been “forced into integrating disparate systems, which handicaps their ability to use … tools to provide a consistent customer experience,” according to Altimeter. With a Sprinklr converged media solution that is purpose-built for large enterprises, brands and their agency partners can focus on managing and optimizing social reach across all touchpoints instead of playing the role of systems integrator or spreadsheet wizard.

“We’ve worked with some of the most innovative companies in the world when it comes to social,” said Simon Mansell, CEO of TBG Digital. “While many companies approached us about converged media, only Sprinklr had the proven ability to convert our domain knowledge into actionable software that can be deployed to thousands of brands globally.”

“Simple converged media management is the dream that brands have been asking for,” said Ragy Thomas, CEO and Founder of Sprinklr. “This is another milestone along the path we’ve intentionally taken since the beginning, to bring large companies closer to their customers in a nimble, scalable, and passionate way. Our goal is to continue to be the most complete social infrastructure for large brands.”

Subject to customary closing conditions, Sprinklr now:

• serves more than 650 enterprise brands
• processes more than $100 million in annual media spend
• employs nearly 500 people across the US, UK, France, Germany and Asia
• supports over 20 social platforms and customer data sources
• maintains formal relationships with all of the major social platforms including Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn and Google.

Initial customers of Sprinklr’s new converged media solution have seen a 25% improvement in performance. Existing clients may contact their success manager for more information.

About Sprinklr

Sprinklr provides the technology that enables large brands to manage customer experiences at every social touchpoint across teams, departments, divisions and geographies. Unlike tools and platforms, Sprinklr is the only fully integrated social relationship infrastructure, ensuring that the voice of the customer is heard throughout the enterprise. Called “the most powerful technology in the market” by a leading analyst, Sprinklr is headquartered in New York City and serves more than 650 brands worldwide including Microsoft, Intel, Virgin America, IHG and 4 of the top 5 US banks.

About TBG

TBG – we give social a business purpose. TBG is a full service social media partner to brands and agencies offering strategy, creative, media and measurement services. Operating for over 10 years and working at the forefront of social since 2007, TBG employs over 120 social specialists working in the UK, the US and Germany. Clients include Vodafone, Dell, Heineken and Zynga.