Dotdigital Group plc just made a big and smart move by buying Social Snowball Holdings, Inc., a U.S.-based platform that focuses on affiliate, influencer, and referral marketing, for USD 35 million. This transaction, which was announced on June 26, 2025, is a first in the martech business. Dotdigital becomes the first customer experience and data platform (CXDP) to fully integrate influencer and affiliate marketing into its product suite. This is a big change in how firms may connect with customers and expand their businesses in the digital world we live in today.
Bringing Together Two Powerful Marketing Worlds
Customer experience platforms and tools for influencer or affiliate marketing have been distinct until recently. Dotdigital's purchase of Social Snowball fills this gap by letting marketers use their own customer data to do word-of-mouth marketing directly. This means that influencer and affiliate efforts are no longer merely an extra channel for brands, and they are now a natural element of their overall marketing plan.
Social Snowball makes it easier to do the hard work of onboarding brand champions, keeping track of their influence, and handling payouts. Its analytics-based platform does more than just measure clicks and views, and it also shows marketers exactly how much money their influencer and affiliate partnerships are making. This openness helps marketers focus on what really makes things grow.
Why this Matters in Today’s Marketing Environment
Paid advertising in the past is getting harder. Changes to privacy, including those made by iOS, have made it harder to follow people, yet the expense of advertising keeps going up. Companies are now looking for smarter and cheaper ways to get customers. At the same time, Gen Z consumers, who are predicted to be the biggest group of buyers by 2030, want artists and communities they trust to engage with them in a real way that reflects their beliefs.
Dotdigital helps organizations diversify their marketing by adding influencer and affiliate marketing to a data-driven customer experience platform. This makes reliable, scalable growth engines powered by first-party data that meet the needs of both modern customers and smart marketers.
Financial and Strategic Upside
The deal to buy the company is worth up to USD 35 million. This includes a USD 20 million cash payment up front and an earnout of up to USD 15 million based on how well Social Snowball does in the future. The transaction will be paid for with Dotdigital's existing cash reserves, and it should immediately increase earnings. Social Snowball's excellent growth, with a 200% increase in sales in 2024, reaching USD 3 million, and a run rate of over USD 5 million at acquisition, shows that the company is on the right track. The business has enough money coming in to pay its bills and no debt.
This purchase not only increases Dotdigital's potential customer base, but it also makes its value offer stronger. Dotdigital's relationship with Shopify gets stronger with the addition of Social Snowball, which has over 1,500 subscription customers, including well-known companies including G Fuel and True Classic. This helps Dotdigital get more business in the fast-growing e-commerce industry, which made up 30% of its sales in the first half of 2025.
What the Leaders are Saying?
Milan Patel, the CEO of Dotdigital, talked on how important the purchase was "The creator economy isn't just about awareness anymore, and it is about revenue." Social Snowball adds a new performance channel to our product stack that fits nicely with how smart marketers want to grow: by showing quantitative ROI, being culturally authentic, and connecting directly to consumer data. He stressed that this move makes Dotdigital the go-to place for smooth, cross-channel marketing automation.
Noah Tucker, the founder and CEO of Social Snowball, said he was excited to join Dotdigital since they have the same vision and culture. He stated, "Together, we will help brands create influencer marketing programs on a scale that has never been possible before, turning partnerships with influencers into powerful ways to get new customers."
Changing the Future of Marketing:
This purchase is part of a growing trend in which influencer and affiliate marketing are no longer optional extras but necessary aspects of full consumer engagement plans. Dotdigital is helping companies reach audiences with trustworthy content and incentives by bringing together customer experience, data, and creator marketing into one platform. This turns partnerships with influencers and affiliates into scalable, performance-driven growth engines that use first-party data.
Conclusion:
Dotdigital Group plc's USD 35 million purchase of Social Snowball is a historic event that brings together influencer, affiliate, and referral marketing into a top-notch customer experience and data platform. This strategic move solves today's marketing problems, takes advantage of the growing creative economy, and improves Dotdigital's product range and market reach. Dotdigital's enhanced platform is a powerful, unified solution for organizations that want to connect with customers and make money in the digital age. It helps brands find real, data-driven ways to do this.
Source: Financial Times and Business Wire
