Montreal-based SweetIQ has been acquired by Gannett media company, which owns brands like USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, and AZCentral.
The acquisition is supposed to help one of Gannett’s digital marketing companies, California-based ReachLocal, expand its suite of products targeting small and medium-sized businesses. In September 2016, SweetIQ acquired a California-based company to establish a US presence. A short time after, the company partnered with Yelp.
SweetIQ’s platform helps digital marketing teams understand the performance of their physical stores online, and provides tools to generate and execute local marketing campaigns, and measure their offline impact. It also integrates with all major online directories to help businesses manage addresses, hours of operation for their store locations, and consumer reviews on the SweetIQ dashboard.
“We are thrilled to join the Gannett and ReachLocal team,” said Mohannad El-Barachi, chief executive officer of SweetIQ. “Since inception, we have had an unwavering commitment to solve online-to-offline attribution and help businesses better connect with hyper-local consumers. By leveraging Gannett’s and ReachLocal’s large sales forces and their deep relationships, we will be able to quickly expedite reaching these goals and further propel our rapid growth, cementing our position as a market leader in location and reputation management.”
Gannett said earlier this year that it has launched a phased rollout of ReachLocal to its 109 local markets across the USA Today Network, and expects to use SweetIQ’s technology to help businesses measure results of their digital marketing investments.
“Businesses want to work with one company that they can trust to help them with all of their digital marketing efforts,” said Sharon Rowlands, CEO of ReachLocal. “This acquisition adds strong product offerings in local listings and reputation management to our suite of digital marketing solutions and strengthens our value proposition with multi-location and national brands. By adding SweetIQ to our portfolio, we can further provide our customers with data-driven insights that drive real-world results.”