During an Advertising Week event Thursday afternoon, the blogging network named Union Metrics a "preferred" third-party analytics provider. Marketers can use the service, which will remain in invite-only mode until November, to trace the sharing of individual posts, as well as track popular content, blogs and topics, engagement levels and trends, and influential contributors and curators, Tumblr said in an emailed statement.
Until now, Union Metrics has focused on Twitter analytics through its main product, TweetReach. The company recently licensed access to Tumblr's data through Gnip.
It's about time marketers were given some tools to better utilize Tumblr -- particularly now that Tumblr is pushing advertising products at them. It's unclear whether more "preferred" providers will be named, or if Tumblr still intends to develop its own analytics tools at some point.
