Online marketing and advertising are dying a slow death and are being replaced by the rise of the creator, according to some. One of the companies hoping to make a killing on that shift is announcing some funding and an M&A move today.
Mavrck, which operates a platform for brands and media companies to source and engage with influencers for marketing campaigns, has raised another $135 million, and with that it has acquired Later, a startup that first made its name with a social media scheduling tool.
The Linkin.bio service is an interesting asset to pick up, as Linktree, a big competitor in that space, just last month raised $110 million at a $1.3 billion valuation.
Canadian startup Later hadn't raised much money, but it was already a influence in the influencer world, and the Linkin.bio service has seen 2 billion users. According to Mavrck, it works with 5,000 marketers across 500 consumer brands to connect with 3 million creators, paying out over $200 million to date.
The Linkin.bio click/engagement analytics will now appear in the Mavrck dashboard, and there will be more integration.
Summit Partners was the sole investor when Mavrck raised $120 million in December last year. That, and Linktree's valuation, both speak to how heated the creator economy is right now, although Mavrck isn't adding more fuel to that fire by revealing its own valuation today.
The creator economy is a fascinating force in the world of marketing, social media, and the consumer internet. Billions of people use social media platforms, which are both mainstream but also focused on particular interests, and some argue that they are the engine of the consumer internet today.
What motivates those social platforms? Sometimes it's engaging with friends, but increasingly it's getting a look into the lives of people who you don't know at all, who create content that's entertaining or thought- provoking, or annoying but engaging anyway. They are the glue for how people use services. Your friends might not post all the time, or be that interesting, but you can always count on following some key and reliable creators to keep the timeline humming, and when you don't have that worked out already, Instagram is ready and willing to suggest.
At a time when more standard advertising and marketing formats are under the gun over how data is tracked used across the internet, that becomes prime real estate for marketing and advertising. The format is less valuable for the ad buyers and publishers if they opt out of it all, as people have gotten less happy about all that tracking. Strategic placement of products or services with influential people circumvents all that.
Mavrck and companies like it believe that while some adtech and martech plays will look to incorporate more tools on their platforms, to help media buyers engage with that enconomy as part of their bigger spend, it is likely to be.
The creator economy is growing fast enough that it will be a solution on its own. He noted that the space has grown more than 40% in the last year and that there are around 50 million creators out in the world today.
It will spill out beyond social, too, which may well also fall out of fashion over time. It's hard to believe but you never know. Currents in virtual reality, for example, will change the landscape dramatically.
We built a platform that helps small businesses and entrepreneurs manage their digital marketing, commerce, and customer relationships all in one place. The scale is a result of the commitment we have placed on our role within that community. We will nurture a relationship between brands and creators, helping both to grow their businesses.
Content creators and brands that seek to harness their influence can be helped by Later and Mavrck.
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