Lotame, a platform enabling targeted advertising to customizable audiences through social media, has closed $13 million in series B financing led by Emergence Capital Partners with continuing participation from previous investors including Battery Ventures and Hillcrest Management.

The new funding will be used to support product enhancements, marketing and business development efforts to address the growing demand for Lotame’s targeted social media advertising technology solutions.

“This new investment from Emergence amplifies the immediate opportunity for Lotame given the firm’s investment leadership and acumen in the digital advertising marketplace,” said Andrew Monfried, CEO and founder, Lotame.

“Lotame has demonstrated leadership and a track record of success in monetizing the biggest opportunity in online media since the advent of search advertising,” said Jason Green, general partner at Emergence Capital.

Lotame provides a platform for easily building and addressing customizable consumer audiences based on social media activity in addition to implied or stated interests. Lotame has specifically designed its patented Crowd Control platform to take full advantage of the unique attributes of social media, using participation and user generated content as a foundation for improved campaign performance. Lotame is a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Lotame’s proprietary Crowd Control technology enables brands and advertising agencies to direct campaigns to audiences that have demonstrated recent interest in topics relevant to the campaign. In addition to general information offered by users of social media during registration and interests implied by the sites the users visit, Lotame anonymously collects data points on users’ social media participation – such as posting pictures, commenting on blogs or watching a video. The result is increased confidence in the audience’s deep and current interest in specific subjects at the time of the campaign.

Using Lotame’s Crowd Control, advertisers can target the most influential members of social networks and measure a campaign’s success as indicated by user generated content related to the brand. Lotame also measures which behavioral and demographic factors indicate audiences that are particularly receptive to the campaign, helping advertisers maximize results for current or future campaigns.