Today we’re excited to announce that Brandwatch has acquired Paladin, a complete influencer marketing management platform. 

We are proud to welcome the entirety of Paladin, from its employees to its customers, into the Brandwatch family. We make this move knowing it will play a vital role in the future of our social suite.

The thinking

Before I expand upon Brandwatch’s ambitious goals and vision for our future, it’s important to explain why we’ve made this decision.

The foremost reason we’re acquiring Paladin is because we listen to our customers and we take their needs and challenges to heart. For some time now influencer marketing workflows have been requested by our customers. This makes sense when you consider 67% of brands today measure the ROI of their influencer campaigns. We continuously work to deliver the solutions our customers need most, and, given the number of requests we’ve seen from them, the time for influencer marketing is now.

When looking around the digital/social media ad space, influencers and creators are in a unique position of power. If a brand is hoping to meaningfully connect with a carefully crafted and curated audience based on shared interests, there is no better way to accomplish this than teaming up with a creator.

Influencers and creators are searching for brands, too. The influencer marketing industry has grown by more than 40% each year over the last five years. Tens-of-millions of creators are monetizing their content while cultivating audiences by simply generating content they like and find interesting. There has never been a better time to financially gain from creating content you’re passionate about. The problem is, the entire process of a brand and a creator finding one another is convoluted, especially when the match needs to be perfect. We aim to change that.

What you can expect​​

Importantly, no current customers should expect any disruption to their current services. Paladin’s solutions will enter our social suite as a pure value add-on, with customers having the option of choosing which functionalities they need most.

Paladin is the perfect addition to the Brandwatch social business unit because it’s so product-driven. It’s a SaaS company at its core, and we look forward to welcoming this functionality into our social suite. We’ll service the full breadth of influencer marketing from engaging creators and/or brands on behalf of interested parties, to establishing administrative or executional campaign workflows, to actually paying creators in-platform. There will be campaign measurement and reporting in the platform too, right alongside all the social media data and scheduling our current customers are so used to.

The future

This is a compelling time to be at Brandwatch, and we’re thrilled Paladin is joining us on our journey. Our excitement stems from all the innovation we have in front of us and what we hope to accomplish. 

Our mission is to “increase people’s ability to understand and be understood.” This acquisition is an earnest step toward that vision. A key component of being understood is being heard, and creators play a critical role in connecting brands and consumers. This is also a step toward the democratization of airtime, attention, entertainment, and media. Our suite is one-of-a-kind in its ability to both listen and now speak. 

We’ve always prided ourselves on the flexibility and adaptability of the products we provide to our customers. Paladin adds another major solution to our toolbox.