Travel-focused ad tech firm Sojern has bought Facebook (and Instagram) marketing partner Adphorus for an undisclosed sum.
Some reports in the Turkish press - Adphorus is based in Istanbul - suggest that the price paid was $42 million, although a spokesperson explained that this was a vagary of Google translate and that $42 million is the amount of capital raised by Sojern so far, as validated by its Crunchbase entry.
Adphorus raised $1 million in 2015, led by 500 StartUps.
The release announcing the deal said that Adphorus will continue to operate as a standalone company post-acquisition
Matthieu Betton, Sojern's commercial director for Europe, that Sojern has worked in partnership with Adphorus for a year or so and that the ultimate aim of the deal is for Sojern to fully understand - and present to clients - the complete path to purchase.
"There are two giants in the digital marketing world for travel - Google and Facebook. Sojern fully understands Google and by buying a Facebook specialist we're accelerated and enhanced our knowledge of that channel as well. We would have cracked Facebook [and Instagram] ourselves but Adphorus have already done, developed some really clever data science so the investment saves us time."
He noted that Google and Facebook are "walled gardens" for ad tech providers with restrictions on how data from one can be used to optimise the other. "It is impossible to get an understanding of the full path to purchase without understanding what happens within Facebook," he said.
Adphorus' home page lists some its customers and indicates the global reach of Facebook as a marketing platform and Adphorus' presence in that ecosystem, with India's MakeMyTrip, Indonesia's Traveloka and pan-Latin American restaurant booking site Restorando listed alongside Expedia, momondo and Kayak, among others.
Image from Adphorus' blog.