Contact: Scott Denne
ReachLocal makes another move beyond media sales and into subscription software with the purchase of Kickserv. The target adds online appointment booking and related management software to go with ReachLocal’s focused marketing and sales software – a stack it has been building out as its original business has decelerated and shrunk.
The company was built around providing software to manage and optimize the digital advertising efforts of small businesses, especially search engine marketing. ReachLocal has expanded further down the sales funnel with lead management and other software. This acquisition gets it a step closer to covering the full funnel, from lead generation to conversion. In particular, Kickserv is an attractive target because, like ReachLocal, it’s strongest in home services, a vertical that’s less competitive for booking software than other SMB segments like medical and legal.
Reach Local’s path to becoming a SaaS vendor has been bumpy. Revenue dropped 11% year over year this quarter to $118m, largely the fallout from a reorganization of its sales team to align with its strategy to reach beyond digital marketing. Last year it attempted to build its own online bookings capabilities, but the offering’s lack of functionality led to ReachLocal’s divestment of that product line.
For more real-time information on tech M&A, follow us on Twitter @451TechMnA.