SAN DIEGO and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2011 – Digital marketing industry leaders Covario and Skai announced a strategic agreement that includes software licensing and technology integration to deliver innovative search and social marketing solutions for enterprise advertisers.
Under the terms of the agreement, Covario, the nation’s largest independent provider of search engine marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) software solutions, will utilize Skai’s digital marketing software to enable scalable online media buying and optimization on behalf of several global enterprise clients for both paid search and paid social advertising.
Additionally, the companies will co-develop a fully-integrated paid and organic search solution for global digital marketers, leveraging Covario’s industry-leading SEO technologies, including Covario Organic Search Insight™ and Covario Organic Search Optimizer™, together with Skai’s award-winning online campaign management products Skai Enterprise, Skai Local, and Skai Social.
“We are delighted to be powering the search engine marketing practices of Covario, which has emerged as one of the nation’s leading search marketing agencies,” said Yoav Izhar-Prato, chief executive officer of Skai. “The advanced algorithms in our paid search and social media buying platforms will be an asset as Covario scales to serve an expanding base of global enterprise clients. I also look forward to working with Covario on the integration of their sophisticated SEO technologies with the Skai Universal Platform to develop a holistic solution for global search marketers.”
The companies cited three factors driving their partnership: the double-digit growth of paid search spending by enterprise marketers globally, the rapidly growing budgets for Facebook advertising and other paid social media campaigns, and the proven benefits of holistic management of paid search and SEO.
For instance, in its quarterly Global Search Spend Analysis of major technology and consumer electronics companies issued in July, Covario reaffirmed its projection for 15 to 20 percent annual growth in paid search spending in 2011. Meanwhile, eMarketer recently reported that “all roads lead to Facebook” in social network advertising, with a forecast for 2012 that call for the mega social network to command $5.74 billion in ad revenues worldwide. Additionally, Forrester Research, in its 2011 Wave of U.S. Search Marketing Agencies, asserted its belief that integrating SEO and paid search efforts is easiest when done through a single partner.
“The Covario-Skai solution will allow search marketers to drive improvements in the performance of both their paid and organic search programs through integrated analytics,” said Russ Mann, chief executive officer of Covario. “Skai is a leader with respect to biddable paid search and social media advertising software, while Covario was recently named ‘best in SEO technologies’ by Forrester Research. This partnership will have a turbo-charging effect not only on our agency services, but also in support of the joint clients we serve and the industry as a whole as our mutual technologies and strategies are optimized.”
With respect to timing, Covario has begun the onboarding process with Skai for a number of existing paid search clients. As for the integrated organic and paid search solution, a prototype will be unveiled in the months ahead.