Adland records highest monthly M&A activity since start of 2020

July was another exciting month in terms of M&A transactions and activity. We noted 74 deals in the marketing services space – the highest monthly volume since the start of 2020 and continuing the recent upward trend.

We anticipate good ongoing levels of M&A activity in the space as private equity appetite remains high alongside an increasingly active strategic buyer landscape. Strategic acquirers transacted on 65 deals in July – a marked increase on recent months.

In July, 25 targets were acquired in North America, 13 in the UK and 15 in western Europe. We highlight a number of interesting deals:

• TRGT was acquired by Sideshow Group, which itself took investment from Waterland Private Equity in February. TRGT is one of the UK and Europe’s fastest-growing performance marketing agencies with a modern remote model. We will certainly see more acquisitions from Sideshow as it scales over the coming months.
• Bliss Point Media was acquired by New Mountain Capital-backed Tinuiti. Bliss Point is an ecommerce marketing company in the direct-to-consumer space.

There was also continued activity from traditional marketing holding companies, with Publicis Groupe acquiring creative agency Boomerang in the Netherlands and Dentsu combining with US-based LiveArea, which specialises in customer experience and commerce.

James Kesner is director at Results International
Campaign works with Results International on M&A analysis for Campaign's Advertising Intelligence, which tracks the latest new-business activity in the industry. Find out more here