Is Twitter Becoming A Shopping App?

Twitter TWTR confirmed Monday that it would acquire mobile retargeting firm TapCommerce. Although the price was not announced officially, sources told Re/Code it would be in the neighborhood of $100 million.

Retargeting involves getting consumers to reopen and begin using mobile apps they downloaded but no longer use. In particular, retargeters focus on shopping apps such as those provided by Tap client eBay EBAY

The move, VentureBeat said, would likely help Twitter continue to grow its revenue stream from mobile ads. The Tap Commerce acquisition dovetails nicely with Twitter’s acquisition of MoPub Marketplace last year.

According to the original Twitter blog post on the acquisition, “MoPub’s technology lets mobile application publishers manage their inventory and optimize multiple sources of advertising — direct ads, house ads, ad network, and real-time bidding through the MoPub Marketplace — in a single product.”

Related: Twitter, As A Social Media Platform, Isn't Dying Just Yet

TechCrunch speculated that the acquisition of TapCommerce could provide a pathway that would allow Twitter to enhance its just announced mobile app install and engagement ads. Utilizing what are known as “deep links,” these ads take consumers to download sites (or to the apps themselves).

In the blog post, Twitter vice president of global online sales Richard Alfonsi said, “Together with the TapCommerce team, Twitter will be able to offer mobile app marketers more robust capabilities for app re-engagement, tools and managed service solutions for real-time programmatic buying, and better measurement capabilities. Combined with our other ad solutions, advertisers will be able to drive conversions and ROI with mobile consumers on and off of Twitter, across the full user lifecycle — from acquiring new users through app installs, to engaging existing users who already have the advertisers’ apps on their device. And if you’re an everyday mobile user, we expect this will mean better and more relevant ads in the apps you use.”

Alfonsi told TechCrunch it was too early to offer details on how TapCommerce would be integrated with Twitter. “We’re still in the basic team integration stage,” Alfonsi said, “showing them the bathroom, those kinds of things, but we’re starting to think about the product roadmap and we’re excited about where this could go.”

Meanwhile, Twitter accented its deep dive into mobile advertising and the shopping experience Monday with the appearance of a new “Buy Now” button that appeared on multiple tweets and linked back to a shopping site called Fancy, according to Re/Code.

According to Re/Code, the “Buy Now” buttons appeared only on Twitter’s mobile app and did not appear to be functional – yet.

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco  had no position in any mentioned securities.