Market Track acquires Competitrack
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.
“This combination will be incredibly valuable to clients of both firms,” Market Track CEO Wayne Mincey said of the deal. “The unique media and content coverage that each of our organizations brings to this partnership will quickly allow clients from both companies access to a more comprehensive view of what is hitting the market and influencing their customers.”
For example, he said Market Track plans to integrate Competitrack’s promotions-related TV, radio and mobile coverage, while Competitrack clients will have access to Market Track’s Internet ads featured in more than 200 retailers’ websites as well as deeper print and FSI coverage.
Bob Moss, founder of Competitrack, said the combination of the companies was a good fit because of a shared culture of client service, commitment to innovation, technological leadership and product excellence.
“Both companies provide comprehensive market and media coverage, highly detailed datasets, and an understanding that speed of information is critical to the decision makers we serve,” Moss said. “The combined expertise and complementary datasets of the two firms will enable us to offer what I am confident will be the strongest competitive tracking and analytics capabilities available.”
Moss will remain with Market Track in an advisory capacity and serve on the board of directors while Competitrack president Ginny Tuckman will remain in her role.
Market Track’s acquisition of Competitrack follows an investment in Market Track by Los Angeles-based Aurora Capital Group last year.
“What we see here are two companies with highly complementary capabilities and the shared attributes of core intellectual property, a premier client base with extraordinarily strong renewal rates, and some of the highest Net Promoter Scores we have seen in the software and information services space,” said Josh Klinefelter, a partner at Aurora Capital. “Together, we are highly confident that these two great companies will continue to innovate and bring additional insights to their customers.”
Market Track is best known for its Web-based software-as-a-service platform called FeatureVision which enables retailers and manufacturers to monitor and analyze causal data, including real-time e-commerce data, to maximize the value of promotional and pricing campaigns. FeatureVision is used as a competitive intelligence tool to determine how products and brands are being promoted and to ensure compliance with trade promotion agreements.
Competitrack approaches the marketplace from a different angle as a full service competitive advertising tracking firm. Its coverage spans all major industries and includes more than 75 of the nation’s top 100 advertisers and their ad agencies. The company engages in creative monitoring, competitive spending, ad message content analysis and data inputs for marketing mix models. Competitrack’s FastTrack media reporting provides highly granular spend data for 11 media across more than 1,700 media channels within four days of the close of each week and delivers breaking creatives for leading media within six to 24 hours of first appearance. The firm boasts a creative archive of more than 11 million ads from the U.S. and more than 60 countries.