Social Loyalty Platform PunchTab Launches Agency Platform; Touts Customers Like eBay & Arby’s

Social loyalty platform PunchTab, which raised its $4.4 million Series A in November, is rolling out its new platform for agencies, allowing them to run customized incentives campaigns to promote customers’ brands on any social network. That’s a differentiating factor between PunchTab and some other social loyalty plays which often only focus Facebook and Twitter. With PunchTab, agencies can also target popular networks like Instagram and Foursquare, for example. The fully branded programs are available both as standalone experiences or embedded in Facebook.

The company has already signed up some notable customers in Q1 of this year, including Arby’s, eBay, and the Toy Industry Association.

PunchTab, for those unfamiliar, allows publishers to dole out reward points to users who engage with the company or brand through the usual means: visits, Facebook likes, tweets, comments, etc. Visitors can later redeem the points they earn through a customized rewards catalog. The company also allows its business customers to build a user community on their own websites and blogs through the use of special PunchTab badges, which reward users for their participation.

The new product for agencies will officially arrive on Tuesday and will be called the “Agency Campaign Manager.” According to PunchTab founder (and YouSendIt founder) Ranjith Kumaranwill, the product will allow for easy execution of social incentives programs for web, social media and mobile. And it will include a full analytics dashboard to measure campaign performance, too.

Currently, Arby’s is running an incentives campaign with a $10K grand prize for the launch of their new sandwich, and is using PunchTab to encourage customers to post pictures of their dining experience on Instagram tagged #gourmazing. In the first four days of the campaign, over 4,000 posts were added to Instagram. Because Arby’s wants to drive foot traffic as well as awareness on Facebook and Twitter, PunchTab is also monitoring Foursquare checkins in addition to Twitter hashtags and friends invited via referral links.

eBay is also using PunchTab to promote its Green Driving initiative by giving away a 2012 Prius, with a goal of generating Facebook messages that will send traffic to a page on green.ebay.com.

Meanwhile, The Toy Industry Association used PunchTab to build buzz on its blog by rewarding users for engaging in the community. It then allowed attendees to continue to play at the Toy Fair in New York by rewarding Foursquare checkins at sponsoring hotels and restaurants, and gave away a grand prize of airfare + hotel stay on New Year’s Eve in New York.

PunchTab now powers over 8,000 loyalty programs, Kumaranwill tells us. That’s up from the 3,000 it powered in November, to give you an idea of its growth. It also now reaches 22 million consumers every month, up from 7.5 million, also in November.