Pinterest Inc. today acquired roughly half of the team behind URX, a mobile-focused startup that worked on developing deep-linking technology.
Deep linking, which some have called the “missing link in mobile advertising,” is a technique in which advertisers automatically send a consumer into an app after he clicks a link on his mobile device from an email, ad or website. The app often offers a richer mobile experience than can be found on a website.
The social network is not taking on any of URX’s assets or technology. URX CEO John Milinovich will join Pinterest as a product manager. In that role, he and some of his URX team will focus on helping Pinterest better understand the kind of content consumers pin, recommend and click on. Other former URX employees will work on Pinterest’s engineering and partnerships teams.
“The URX team are experts at understanding the content on a web page, coming up with recommendations to the user based on what’s on that page, and deep linking from the page to the relevant app where the user can act on the content,” says a Pinterest spokeswoman. “We’re focused on better understanding the kind of content people pin, recommending the best content based on what they’re pinning, and creating seamless actionable experiences for people when they want to click through the pin and do something.”
By better understanding users’ behaviors and actions, Pinterest hopes to bolster its fledgling mobile advertising business.
“We’re focused on building useful and relevant experiences to help people discover ideas and bring those ideas to life,” says Jack Chou, Pinterest’s head of product. “We can now accelerate our efforts with the URX team, who are leaders in mobile content understanding, recommendations, monetization and discovery.”
Prior to co-founding URX, Milinovich worked at Google on the Google Analytics team, where he helped launch the search giant’s Groupon-like Google Offers daily deals product.
Pinterest declined to share terms of the URX deal.
The URX deal came a day after Pinterest announced it would begin to give U.S. advertisers more insight into the impact of their campaigns, including how their promoted pin campaigns affect purchase intent and brand awareness. Pinterest previously only provided metrics such as impressions, clicks and repins.
Milward Brown gathers its data by delivering surveys to consumers within the Pinterest app in the same space where they saw the ads.
Millward Brown’s service, which it calls Brand Lift Insights, is available to medium-to-large advertisers that work with the Pinterest sales team.
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