YAAP, a Dubai-based specialized influencer marketing company, has entered an exclusive partnership with data-driven social intelligence platform Tagger Media. The landmark partnership marks the US-based company’s official entry into the Middle East. Tagger’s platform combined with YAAP’s market expertise is set to usher in a new era of excellence in data-driven influencer marketing.
Tagger’s foray into the Middle Eastern influencer marketing ecosystem further expands its global presence which spans six continents and 17 global offices. YAAP, with its extensive operational experience and a large network of clients in the Middle East, complements Tagger’s best-in-class technologies and platform, creating an outstanding synergy that brands and individual entities in the Middle East have longed for.
“Global innovation meets local excellence in the partnership between Tagger Media and YAAP. The data-driven approach embodied by Tagger’s one-stop platform and the market knowledge of YAAP are poised to revolutionize influencer marketing in the Middle East. This market possesses a sizeable appetite for social intelligence and insight-led influencer marketing, and we will soon be catering to this demand,” said Atul Hegde, Founder of YAAP.
An award-winning entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience working with global brands, Atul is the driving force behind YAAP’s success. The company has posted an impressive top-line growth of 97% and a 5X jump in profitability in FY21-22. Its client portfolio includes Bayut, Visit Dubai, Apparel Group, Fitbit, Kaya Skin Clinic, RuPay, American Express, Disney, Amazon, and Square Enix, among other leading brands in the Middle East & India.
Tagger Media, for its part, boasts a client roster that includes Omnicom, Bose, Tinder, HBO Max, and Pepsico. Over the years, Tagger has emerged as the market leader in end-to-end influencer marketing services by leveraging real-time data and helping clients build campaigns for maximized ROI and impact. Its easy-to-use platform provides access to data points of over 15 billion high-quality social posts and over 278,000 brands worldwide.
“Tagger Media was built on the promise of data. Over the years, we have augmented the platform with customization, workflow integration, linguistic, multi-currency payments and CRM capabilities. Today, our database is unparalleled in the influencer marketing ecosystem, giving our clients the edge in an ever-competitive market. I believe we have timed our entry into the Middle East well, taking into account the exemplary digitalization and burgeoning influencer culture in this growth market,” said Dave Dickman, CEO of Tagger Media.
In a YouGov survey, 94% of in-house marketers in the UAE said they believe that social media influencer marketing plays a major role in the success of their brands. However, brands often find it challenging to reconcile the influencer marketing budget with the expected ROI due to a lack of insights, and challenges in accurate forecasting and business intelligence visualization. Tagger’s integrated platform, which offers a full suite of services while ensuring the highest-level security standards and utmost compliance with GDPR, CCPA and the like, has thus found takers across global markets.
Incidentally, it is the creation of full-suite services that recently led YAAP to fully acquire Crayons Communications, a reputable advertising agency in the Middle East. Following the acquisition, YAAP also launched a first-of-its-kind Metaverse Grant, offering up to a million dirhams for UAE-based companies to fast-track their metaverse and Web 3.0 adoption. The exclusive partnership with an organization of Tagger Media’s calibre is yet another testament to YAAP’s purpose-driven growth strategy.
