Digital Marketing

Promotion and pricing intelligence leader Market Track has acquired Competitrack to bolster its digital and electronic media capabilities and provide richer insights to retailers and consumer goods companies.
 
Chicago-based Market Track provides clients with retail promotion, real-time e-commerce and pricing intelligence solutions in North America while New York-based Competitrack is a leading provider of directly placed product and image data across 22 media channels including TV, print, radio, online display, online video, social and mobile advertising.

Wayne, N.J. – Toys ‘R’ Us is launching its digital wish finder, a dedicated website providing an online version of its “The Great Big Toys"R"Us Wish Finder” holiday catalog, on Nov. 2. The retailer is also launching The Toys"R"Us Wish List Wizard, a free iOS and Android app that turns parents’ smartphones into a scanner and lets kids scan items they want in-store for automatic inclusion on a digital wish list.

San Jose, Calif. -- Lance Thornswood, longtime general manager of user experience, e-commerce and creative for Target.com and interactive marketing, has been tapped to head up inRetail, a new division being launched by The Stephenz Group, one of Silicon Valley’s largest independent branding, marketing and digital agencies. The specialized division will address the growing consumer demand for omni-channel retail.

First Data Corporation, a leading global e-commerce and payment processing provider, has acquired Perka, a smart loyalty platform.

Perka became a First Data subsidiary on Oct. 4, and continues to operate autonomously as an innovative entrepreneurial company led by its current management and product development team. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
 

Pittsburgh – GNC Holdings Inc. will use customer-centricity solutions from dunnhumbyUSA across all facets of its marketing to more effectively segment and engage with in-store and online customers. This will include personalized communications and offers to shoppers through both online and offline channels.

GNC will be leveraging Dunnhumby’s customer-centricity solutions across all facets of its marketing to more effectively segment and engage with in-store and online customers. This will include personalized communications and offers to shoppers through both online and offline channels.

Seattle -- Starbucks is now offering gift cards that can be sent via Twitter. Under the company’s new “tweet-a-coffee program,” customers in the U.S. can sync their Starbucks account to their Twitter account and tweet to @tweetacoffee and the Twitter handle of the gift recipient, which will then send the recipient a $5 digital eGift.

Rakuten LinkShare saw strong third quarter results in its global performance marketing network. Along with double-digit growth, the affiliate network reported a significant increase in the percentage of sales transacted on mobile devices.

The company reported an increase in same store sales in the U.S. of 22% year-over-year, and an increase in same store sales in the U.K. of 34% year-over-year.