The merger offered a strong point of differentiation between Outbrain and its main rival, Taboola. Outbrain is focused cementing on improving demand-side video operations while Taboola has been doubling down display and performance marketing, according to sources speaking to Digiday.
October: Zeta Global buys LiveIntent for $250 million
In a nod to the growing importance of first-party data, Zeta Global, an AI-powered marketing cloud platform that uses AI and first-party data to help brands analyze customers’ pre-purchase actions and behavior, got access to LiveIntent’s assets, publisher network with 2,000 publisher relationships, and identity graph. LiveIntent’s technology helps publishers sell ads in email newsletters with an identity graph that includes 235 million hashed email addresses.
Several weeks after the announced acquisition, LiveIntent laid off 35 people, roles that “were duplicative with existing Zeta resources.”
November: Mediaocean buys Innovid for $500 million
Last month’s big strategic acquisition news—that ad solution platform Mediaocean will merge adtech platform Innovid with Mediaocean’s ad-serving subsidiary Flashtalking—had onlookers excited about the new entity’s potential to challenge Google’s adtech supremacy.
Mediaocean says the deal will give advertisers more control over their data and where to spend their ad budgets.
With the majority of ad spend focused on Google, Amazon, and Meta, Mediaocean’s Wise believes there is “power in independence, power in neutrality, and power in scale,” he told ADWEEK. Wise believes that based on recent conversations he’s had since the announcement, there’s more evidence that “large marketers do not want to always work with Google.”
December: Experian buys Audigent for an undisclosed amount
In December, data giant Experian announced it was welcoming data activation and identity firm Audigent to its family. In doing so, the firm showed how adtech’s latest darling, curation—or the process of selecting quality inventory to target specific audiences—is influencing the market.
Audigent has been a leader in curation, moving audience targeting to the sell side as the slow death of third-party cookies makes broad audience targeting through DSPs less viable. The companies have worked together since 2022, including integrating Experian data into the Audigent SmartPMP. Audigent launched in 2015, and its leaders reportedly had been looking for an exit for some time.
But the recent flurry of brands and tech companies standing up curation products adds more heat to the buzz.
