• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 10, 2013

Ampush is the latest firm to join the select group of Facebook ad partners known as Strategic Preferred Marketing Developers (sPMDs). The designation applies to a set of only 14 social media marketing firms and developers that get the highest level of support from Facebook.

Specifically, that includes things like access to alpha and beta trials, faster turnaround on ads review, participating in product development sessions, in-depth training on Facebook tools, and consulting with the social network’s engineering staff.

San Francisco-based Ampush -- which has been a regular Facebook PMD since 2011, helps clients, including MasterCard, LivingSocial and Kellogg’s -- runs advertising campaigns on Facebook through its AMP Social Marketing Platform. The company has been certified with a badge for Ads -- one of the four qualification areas for marketing firms on Facebook that also include Pages, Apps and Insights.

All of the sPMDs to date have earned at least the Ads badge; it underscores the importance that Facebook places on expertise in paid advertising as a criterion for elevation. Ampush’s sub-specialties include targeting and custom audiences, reporting, mobile, and conversion tracking for clients across industry categories such as financial services, CPG, gaming and retail, as well as working with ad agencies.

In March, Ampush won a Facebook competition themed “The Era of News Feed,” in which PMDs were challenged to come up with a marketing product that effectively leveraged the news feed as a paid media placement. The company took top honors with Project YOGA, or Your Open Graph Applications, which offered analytics and ads integration to help marketers amplify app activities through the news feed.

“Ampush continues to build and deliver innovative technology that enhances the performance of their brand partners on Facebook,” said Blake Chandlee, vice president of partnerships at Facebook. Other Facebook sPMDs include AdParlor, Glow, Kenshoo, Salesforce, and 77Agency.