Marketers are eager to know what users of Facebook and Twitter are interested in so they can get an inside track on how to pitch them more effectively. Enter Offerpop. The New York-based company has developed a platform that lets marketers create brand campaigns on those popular social networks, as well as to gather information about topics and activities that are attracting consumers. The three-year-old company has thus far raised nearly $4 million according to Mark Cooper, co-founder and chief marketing officer. “We’ll probably close a round of financing by this fall,” he says.
For a subscription fee, Offerpop’s platform lets users create marketing campaigns such as photo contests, sweepstakes, and special discount offers that appear on Facebook and Twitter. Marketers simply choose the appropriate app from a Web-based dashboard, add the text and graphics they want, and then the platform puts it all together automatically. “We handle a lot of the complexities on the back end,” Cooper says.
The campaigns appear on the users’ brand sites on Facebook and Twitter. Then, if consumers opt in, the brands can track information like the types of offers and other links related to the brands on those social networks that they click on.
Cooper says such features have attracted major brands to Offerpop, including Unilever, Wal-Mart, American Express, Viacom, Disney, Gap, American Eagle Outfitters, and Microsoft. Online fashion and e-commerce represent a large portion of Offerpop’s business, he adds. “We do a lot of work with Birchbox, Rent the Runway, and Gilt Groupe,” he says.
Offerpop released the Twitter version of the platform in 2010 and landed car maker Audi as a client. According to Cooper, Audi used the platform in conjunction with a marketing campaign to promote a new convertible advertised during the 2011 Super Bowl. After people tweeted with a hashtag associated with the campaign, Audi chose the top ten responses and those Twitter users were given the chance to
