Terminus buys BrightFunnel, adding multichannel analytics to its ABM-targeted ad campaigns

The purchase is one step in Terminus’s plan to expand beyond display ads.

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Atlanta-based Terminus, which provides account-based ad targeting, announced today that it is acquiring B2B marketing analytics and attribution provider BrightFunnel.

As a result of the purchase, Terminus CEO and co-founder Eric Spett told me, his company will now be able to offer multichannel analytics and attribution that go beyond its previous analytics, which had been focused on engagement and sales from Terminus-directed display ads.

In a typical Terminus use case, he said, a marketer might decide to target website ads at accounts meeting certain criteria, such as ones that recently opened new offices. Those accounts are pulled from the marketer’s customer relationship management system, with the intention to focus on, say, directors and above.

Terminus has obtained data about those executives at those businesses, including their cookies or mobile device IDs. The ad creative is uploaded to Terminus, and when those execs show up at participating sites, the targeted display ads are presented.

Before it acquired BrightFunnel, Terminus was one of its customers. With its own campaigns set up in Salesforce, Terminus employed BrightFunnel to see what marketing tactics across channels affected pipeline and revenue, including Terminus’s account-based ad campaigns, webinars, e-books, white papers, conferences, events, direct mail and visits to the Terminus website.

Spett indicated that the new acquisition is part of Terminus’s effort to move beyond display ads. In addition to BrightFunnel’s multichannel analytics, he said, Terminus will be adding other kinds of ABM-targeted ads later this year.

BrightFunnel’s team will remain in its San Francisco office. Terminus said its platform — launched in 2015 — is currently employed by 400+ companies, while BrightFunnel says it has almost 100 corporate customers.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Barry Levine
Contributor
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.

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