Dotdigital Group plc, the leading SaaS provider of customer experience and data platforms (CXDP), has acquired Social Snowball Holdings, Inc., a US-based influencer, affiliate, and referral marketing platform for e-commerce brands, for $35 million USD.

“The creator economy isn’t just about awareness anymore, it’s about revenue,” said Milan Patel, CEO of Dotdigital.

The investment brings together two fast growing technologies that until now have been distinct categories within the martech landscape. It will see influencer marketing treated as an integral part of Dotdigital’s product stack, enabling marketers to activate the power of word-of-mouth marketing, using their own customer data.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Travis Clinger, Chief Connectivity & Ecosystem Officer @ LiveRamp

Addressing today’s biggest marketing challenges

With tracking on traditional paid channels increasingly limited, especially after iOS privacy updates, and paid media costs continuing to rise, many brands are shifting to more data-driven and cost-effective customer acquisition strategies. At the same time, Gen Z, who are expected to become the largest and most influential consumer segment by 2030 (Bank of America), are demanding more authentic, values-aligned engagement on the platforms they use most, and from the voices they trust: creators, peers, and online communities.

By uniting customer experience, data, and creator marketing, Dotdigital can empower brands to reach key audiences with trusted content and incentives. This helps diversify the marketing mix and transform influencer and affiliate partnerships into a scalable, performance-driven growth engine, powered by first-party data.

“The creator economy isn’t just about awareness anymore, it’s about revenue,” said Milan Patel, CEO of Dotdigital.

“Social Snowball brings an entirely new and highly complementary performance channel into our product stack, one that is fully aligned with how smart marketers want to grow – through measurable ROI, cultural authenticity, and direct connections to customer data. It enhances our market position as a one-stop-shop for seamless, cross-channel marketing automation and we’re thrilled to welcome Social Snowball into the Dotdigital family.”

Marketing Technology News: Beyond the Brand In-Housing Hype: A No-BS Guide to What Actually Works

Cultural and technological alignment to drive growth

Founded in 2020, Social Snowball empowers brands to activate prospects, customers, and creators as authentic advocates, offering incentives and rewards to promote products through trusted word-of-mouth, without requiring significant upfront investment. With sophisticated attribution and analytics built into the platform from day one, Social Snowball gives marketers full visibility into revenue generated, not just clicks or impressions.

With over 1,500 subscription-based Shopify customers including G Fuel, Brez, and True Classic, Social Snowball’s integration will accelerate Dotdigital’s reach in the fast-growing Shopify merchant ecosystem, aligning with its total addressable market expansion and product-led growth strategy.

Noah Tucker, Founder and CEO Social Snowball, commented: “We are super excited to be joining forces with Dotdigital. Together we’ll enable brands to build influencer marketing programs at a scale that was never before possible, helping them turn influencer and creator partnerships into a powerful customer acquisition channel. From the start it was clear Dotdigital was the perfect fit for our team, our culture and our customers and I look forward to what the future holds.”

This news follows Dotdigital’s acquisition of e-commerce personalization platform Fresh Relevance in 2023.