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Twitter acquires startup TapCommerce to enhance ad strategy

Twitter’s been making quite a few acquisitions lately as it works on trying to improve its user experience and explores different ways of generating more ad revenue.

The latest startup to come under its ownership is TapCommerce, a mobile ad technology firm based in New York.

Both companies announced the deal Monday, though declined to say how much money had changed hands. A Re/code report earlier in the day said “sources familiar with the situation” put the value of the deal at around $100 million.

TapCommerce’s work with marketers involves helping them to retarget mobile users with ads in an effort to get them to re-engage with apps already installed on their handsets or tablets.

“Advertisers spend aggressively to get new users, but reactivating existing or previous users can provide just as attractive a return on investment,” Twitter said in a post announcing its latest acquisition.

Companies with apps offering goods or services in areas such as travel or retail are believed to find TapCommerce’s service particularly useful.

Twitter said the acquisition will enable it to “offer mobile app marketers more robust capabilities for app re-engagement, tools and managed service solutions for real-time programmatic buying, and better measurement capabilities.”

The move is part of a wider revenue-generating strategy that also involves the inclusion of direct paid-for links in the Twitter timeline to app installs. Twitter can make money from marketers paying to post these links, and again if a user clicks on the link and downloads an app.

The San Francisco-based company is looking for ways to increase revenue through mobile ads at a time of frustratingly slow user-base growth.

The site has been buying up a range of startups to support its service and generate ad revenue, building relationships with brands and organizations in the process. Just last week it announced it’d acquired SnappyTV in a move designed to increase user engagement with the microblogging site and ultimately bring in more TV-related ad revenue.

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