Buddy Media "closes the loop," buys Spinback

Social media management and ROI analytics, all from a single company

Social media marketing company Buddy Media announced Thursday that it has acquired Spinback, creator of a social plugin and analytics dashboard for online retailers.

With the latest comScore data reporting that Facebook now accounts for nearly one in three display ad impressions in the U.S., this acquisition couldn’t be more timely.

While Buddy Media already provides brand advertisers, retailers and publishers with a social media management platform, Spinback will help Buddy “close the loop” by offering those same clients social commerce and analytics tools for tracking the return on investment (ROI) for their social media efforts.

The EasyShare social plugin, by Spinback, lets customers easily share content, products and purchases to Facebook, email, Twitter and blogs. Spinback’s other primary product, EasyTrack Analytics, measures and tracks those shares, so clients can see exactly how social media is translating into sales.

Though it only launched in October 2010, the company has already signed up more than 20 clients.

“I am proud to say that the Buddy Media team was the first to launch a Facebook page management system in March 2009, soon after the Facebook Page product launched,” writes Michael Lazerow, founder and CEO of Buddy Media. “We were the first to launch a global solution that geo-targeted content based on the user’s location and language. We pioneered the concept of a fully integrated Facebook Wall moderation and management suite. And let’s not forget that we invented the drag-and-drop Facebook tab environment, as well as many other firsts.

“So it should come as no surprise that this deal makes Buddy Media the first and only social management platform to close the loop on tracking true ROI both on Facebook and off.”

The entire Spinback team will be joining Buddy Media full-time. (It’s not a big physical move, since both companies are based out of New York City.)

Buddy Media has raised over $38 million in capital from several notable investors, including Peter Thiel, Mark Pincus, Bay Partners, Greycroft Partners and Softbank. Last fall, the company secured a $28 million Series C round led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), with participation from WPP Digital and a few of the aforementioned investors.

Though terms of the transaction were not disclosed, both Lazerow and Spinback’s co-founder and CEO, Andrew Ferenci, will go into more detail about the deal during an exclusive presentation at the Mashable Connect conference tomorrow in Orlando, FL. Additionally, a webinar will be hosted on Monday June 13th at 2pm EST to answer more questions.