Is AdGrok Twitter’s next big acquisition?

Twitter may be in talks to acquire contextual keyword bidding platform AdGrok for less than $10 million, according to a TechCrunch report.

While AdGrok aims to simplify search engine marketing campaigns, the platform could be adapted and used by Twitter to help monetize promoted and trending tweets.

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Purchasing AdGrok could alleviate some of the criticism many have had toward Twitter, which lags far behind the competition in developing a clear advertising strategy for the site.

However, buying AdGrok could also signal that Twitter is ready to start providing statistics and relevant data to its users, which has traditionally been handled by third-party services like Hoot Suit, bit.ly and several others. The company has already started to distance itself from third-party services by apparently developing its own photo sharing feature and improving notification support — so, adding its own statistics wouldn’t be a complete surprise.

The deal has yet to be confirmed by either company, but TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis points out that the last person Twitter corporate development executive Jessica Verrilli followed on Twitter was AdGrok co-founder Argyris Zymnis.