Adobe Buys Social Media Specialist Efficient Frontier

In the US, digital publishing giant Adobe is to acquire ad buying platform Efficient Frontier, which offers customers tools and services to help them build, manage, monitor and measure their brand presence across social media. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sunnyvale, California-based Efficient Frontier also has offices in New York, Chicago the UK, France, Germany and India. Its platform enables automated bidding using proprietary algorithms built on advertiser performance from the search, display and social media marketplaces, as well as conversion data from client web sites and off-line sources.

Adobe acquired social marketing management agency Context Optional in May, and the combined companies offer a solution for brands to acquire, activate and drive value from fans on Facebook and Twitter.

Adobe says the latest buy will add multi-channel ad campaign forecasting, execution and optimization capabilities to its existing Digital Marketing Suite, while bringing a social marketing engagement platform offering tools to help build and measure brand presence across the social web. The firm will combine this with its own SocialAnalytics solution, which enables marketers to monitor, measure and monetize social media via a single application.

According to Efficient Frontier President and CEO David Karnstedt: 'Adobe's vision of digital marketing is perfectly aligned with the Efficient Frontier approach - use data and intelligence to manage risk and drive ROI across a growing number of digital channels.'

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of Adobe's 2012 fiscal year.

Web sites: www.adobe.com and www.efrontier.com .