Button Becomes Platform of Choice for Scaling Mobile Partnerships Among Leading Retailers

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Mar 2, 2017) - Button, the leading platform powering connections across the mobile economy, today announced commerce giant eBay as the latest to join the Button Marketplace. As a marketplace where mobile accounts for over $9 billion a quarter in GMV in 2016, eBay will work with Button to scale and integrate partnerships across today's growing mobile landscape. eBay will be launching across a host of Button Publishers including Huffington Post, loyalty publishers such as Ibotta, and others over the next couple of months.

"Mobile commerce is a significant growth driver for us, and partnering with Button will enable more mobile app partners to quickly integrate shopping on eBay into their apps," stated John Toskey, Director, Global eBay Partner Network. "Button has developed an elegant, high performing solution that solves challenges for both advertisers and publishers, and we are excited to be partnering with their innovative mobile network."

"With apps converting at a rate of 300% more than mobile web, according to Criteo, Button is tackling the challenges retailers face with mobile performance marketing, a channel that is often cited as driving nearly 20% of all ecommerce transactions as Business Insider recently reported," added Michael Jaconi, Founder and CEO of Button. "We're thrilled to have one of the world's largest marketplaces as part of Button's platform. Their endorsement of our technology and the scale we bring to mobile partnerships is a powerful signal that Button's Marketplace is a meaningful part of a leading mobile growth strategy."

The Tale of Two Retailers and Their Success

As mobile commerce continues to drive upwards, with in-app commerce specifically growing 70% year-over-year versus desktop at 15% according to Comscore, retailers are turning more of a focus on increasing mobile acquisition and overall revenue. With mobile acquisition costs continuing to rise, Button enables brands to expand and scale the channels in which they acquire new app installs, while spending marketing budgets more efficiently. Retailers on Button's platform have seen purchase conversion rates of nearly 4 times that of search and 8 times higher than social. Button drove tens of millions of sales on top of its marketplace over the holidays -- and the movement to mobile is only accelerating.

Two retail leaders -- Groupon, the leading local commerce marketplace offering a vast array of savings on things to do, see, eat, and buy in your community, and Jet, heralded as the closest challenger to Amazon's retail dominance -- found solutions to mobile acquisition efforts with Button. After becoming part of the Button Marketplace, both Groupon and Jet were able to scale new mobile partnerships across an array of brands, in a turnkey manner without consuming additional engineering resources.

In analyzing its mobile acquisition strategy, Jet turned to Button to modernize its approach with new, high-volume contextual partnerships and evolve past traditional channels. With publishers such as loyalty app Ibotta and digital media maven Huffington Post, Jet has been able to integrate its app alongside relevant content in both mobile experiences, expanding its reach and opening up new opportunities for commerce.

"In a short amount of time, Button has become one of our most effective channels we use for driving mobile acquisition," stated Lauren Picasso, Director of Marketing at Jet. "We have millions of products for a variety of consumers, so being able to tap into different publishers with relevant offerings not only drives sales within our app, but new, high-value repeat purchasers as well." 

Similarly, after joining the Button Marketplace, Groupon has also seen conversion rates that are higher than many other channels across a range of global partnerships. This includes integrations with Hotels.com, Ibotta, Foursquare, and many others. In only six months, Button has driven hundreds of thousands of orders through its contextual commerce engine. Additionally, Groupon was the first to leverage Button's Customer Segments product, making it possible to segment deals within the Ibotta app based on Groupon's customer purchase history for new, existing, and lapsed users.

"The opportunity within Button's Marketplace has opened up endless possibilities to scale Groupon's mobile efforts," stated Brian Fields, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Groupon. "Button is a popular channel we use for driving mobile acquisition and has become a go-to path for partnerships in mobile."

"With brands spending an average of $114 on acquiring mobile users, it's exciting to implement a solution that helps partners find something better than other channels out there," added Jaconi. "With retailers like Groupon and Jet, having aggressive mobile growth goals, we're able to make their acquisition spend more efficient, ultimately solving one of the biggest challenges inherent in performance marketing."

Button will be giving a keynote at eTail West today, March 2, providing more insights into its approach with retailers as well as announcing exciting new products. To learn more about Button and the opportunity for today's retailers, visit www.usebutton.com. 

About Button
Button (www.usebutton.com) connects the mobile economy, making it easy for consumers to discover and purchase what they want, when they want it -- with the tap of a Button. The company provides the easiest way for mobile brands to connect with one another, facilitating discovery and transaction among consumers with a contextually-relevant experience. Current partners on the platform feature industry leaders such as Uber, Condé Nast, OpenTable, Hotels.com, Foursquare, and more.

The company was founded in 2014 and was voted the number one place to work in New York. Button has raised more than $34 million in Seed, Series A, and Series B funding from Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Greycroft Partners, DCM Ventures, Accomplice Ventures, VaynerRSE and others.