Microsoft buys PromoteIQ For Expanding Into Retail Advertising

Microsoft acquired New York-based PromoteIQ on Monday, a startup that helps retailers build their digital advertising and e-commerce offerings and also to compete with Amazon in another market - public cloud. PromoteIQ is known for pioneering the private marketplace approach to digital vendor marketing, he wrote, and the company’s strategy complements Microsoft’s retail advertising offerings.

PromoteIQ has done work with retailers like B&H, Kroger, Office Depot and Overstock.com are among the retailers. The company, which continues to operate under the same name, will become a division of Microsoft Advertising. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nor did the companies share insights on the direction Microsoft will take the assets from the acquisition.

Amazon Web Services leads the business into cloud, computing and storage infrastructure for rest of the companies to use, but at the same time the focus of Amazon is mainly into online and offline retail. Some retailers like Walgreens and Walmart have chosen Microsoft for their public cloud needs in recent years.

Now, Microsoft has selected retail as a key industry for its sellers and marketers to focus on. Now the company has made an acquisition that could help it work with retailers as they seek to compete better with Amazon. Product advertising represents a growth spot for Amazon.

“PromoteIQ’s technology strategically complements Microsoft’s current retail advertising offerings, and together, we can enable retailers with a portfolio of technology solutions to modernize their e-commerce platforms and maximize their monetization opportunity,” Rik van der Kooi, corporate vice president for Microsoft advertising, wrote in a blog post on Monday.