Webtrends has bought Transpond, an application publishing tool for Facebook and smart phones, in a private deal.

Webtrends confirmed the acquisition in a blog post today. The company has spent the last two months integrating the Transpond platform and company and plans to offer the tool as a new service called Webtrends Apps.

The acquisition also gives Webtrends new clients in media, such as Fox TV, Lifetime networks and AOL.

The point of the tool is to allow marketers to create and manage digital marketing campaigns, including customer engagement around polls, quizzes and games, without the need to code. Transpond fits in with Webtrends’ existing tools for social media measurement, management, analytics and optimization.

Justin Kistner, senior manager social media marketing at Webtrends, told ReadWriteWeb that there was a lack of people who knew how to code for Facebook applications and this software helped plug the gap. “There is a major shortage of developers that know anything about Facebook,” he said. “Getting anything done in Facebook is expensive and tends in have too many cooks in the kitchen. Those providers are inundated and that’s causing all the campaigns to cost too much and take too long.”

Webtrends chief executive Alex Yoder told MediaPost that Transpond was one of the few software tools of its kind on the market. “The majority of solutions in this space come from creative agencies providing a service,” he said. “We found in Transpond a fully developed technology platform that will allow our customers to be self-directed.”

Yoder estimated the infant app market was worth about $3 billion when it comes to creative development and distribution.