Pathmatics acquires WhatRunsWhere

A still image from a video on the WhatRunsWhere site

Santa Monica, California-based Pathmatics allows enterprises to monitor their competitors’ advertising. WhatRunsWhere offers a similar service, but it’s targeted at small and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Today, Pathmatics announced that it has acquired WhatRunsWhere. Terms of the deal were not made public.

Both will retain their individual brands and their separate platforms. Pathmatics CEO Gabe Gottlieb told me that eventually, the two backends will be integrated to some degree so software and data can be better shared, but that will be invisible to customers. Here’s a screen from Pathmatics’ platform:

While both companies provide similar services, he emphasized that Pathmatics offers greater detail and breadth for its enterprise customers.

“Acquiring WhatRunsWhere really became a buy-versus-build decision,” Gottlieb said. “While there was some overlap in product and technology, WhatRunsWhere had the brand, reach and client roster we needed in order to serve this new market” of smaller businesses.

Both companies say they had been referring clients to each other. Pathmatics’ clients include publishers, ad tech companies and brands, while WhatRunsWhere’s client base is more oriented toward independent marketers, small agencies and other SMBs.

Gottleib and WhatRunsWhere CEO/co-founder Max Teitelbaum said that there are three general uses cases for its clients: getting a sense of the ad campaign your competitors are running; seeing which other advertisers are running ads on the same publisher inventory as you are; and auditing your own buys.

They pointed to WPP’s Kantar Media as a frequent competitor to Pathmatics and Adbeat as a key one for WhatRunsWhere, but added that, since they will remain separate, their newly combined company will not be positioned differently in the marketplace.

WhatRunsWhere said that co-founder Michael Cojanu will “explore new opportunities,” while its other six employees, including Teitelbaum, will become Pathmatics employees. WhatRunsWhere will stay in Toronto and will expand its product development.

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About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.