gShift, a worldwide provider of web presence analytics for brands and agencies, announced that it has acquired InNetwork, an influencer marketing platform company based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in an all-stock deal. The integration of the two companies’ platforms provides digital agencies and brands with a unique marketing technology suite for planning, optimizing, amplifying and reporting on content marketing strategies and investments.

“A modern digital marketer with a content-centric approach to building awareness for a brand and driving the customer journey is always thinking about developing and positively impacting their audiences,” says Krista LaRiviere, CEO at gShift. “Acquiring InNetwork and adding influencer identification and management to gShift’s existing suite of software strengthens the entire content campaign process and helps marketers get their message to target audiences, through highly-targeted social influencers.”

The gShift acquisition empowers marketers to answer many difficult questions:

•      What types of content should I create?
•      What keywords should I target to maximize discoverability in search and social?
•      Who in the social ecosphere has the audience to match my target market?
•      How do I track the ROI of my content by channel & influencer in real time?
•      Which pieces of content, by channel and/or influencer, produced a marketing lead and/or sale?

Influencer marketing is a critical component to a brand’s digital marketing mix with 60% of brands planning on increasing their influencer marketing budgets (Adweek). Social media and influencer marketing are responsible for a massive shift in the publishing and engagement of off-site content, with 90% of the customer journey now happening off a brand’s website (Forrester). gShift calls this dilemma the Dark Funnel, which is having a negative impact on sales and marketing teams. The combined technologies of gShift and InNetwork help to illuminate the Dark Funnel through influencer and off-site analytics.

“Influencers have the ability to amplify marketing messages and are an extension of SEO, content marketing and social investments,” says Chris Keevill, Cofounder & CEO of InNetwork. “When you combine these strategies with the use of gShift’s kontextURL smart URL system, brands gain insight into the Dark Funnel, showing true engagement of off-site content by channel and influencer. This level of off-site analytics has previously been unavailable and enables marketers to measure the impact influencer marketing is having on overall web presence optimization.”

The entire InNetwork team will join gShift and both the Barrie and Halifax offices will be maintained. A collaborative team of engineers will be working to fully integrate the InNetwork application into the gShift platform.

“This acquisition makes complete sense for both gShift’s and InNetwork’s customers. We understand the dynamics between influencer marketing, social and search. We are passionate about helping brands to recognize it as well,” adds LaRiviere.