The news: Ad agency holding companies, including the Interpublic Group, Publicis, WPP, and Omnicom, are rapidly acquiring ad tech firms to bolster first-party data and reclaim control from tech giants like Google and Amazon. 

Mergers and acquisitions around companies with strong data, identity, and retail media capabilities aim to fight back against walled gardens while addressing evolving client needs, per The Current.

Zooming in: Recent acquisitions reveal ad agencies’ hunger for data sources that make them more resilient against larger players. Some examples:

• In December, IPG bought Intelligence Node for $100 million to deepen ecommerce intelligence.
• Also in December, Omnicom announced plans to absorb Interpublic Group to create an end-to-end marketing and sales company.
• In March, Publicis announced a deal to pick up Lotame, citing the urgent need to connect AI, media, and commerce.
• In April, WPP acquired InfoSum for $150 million to absorb its privacy-safe data collaboration tech.

All four hold stakes in Mediaocean, a campaign management platform.

Key stat: 49% of CMOs worldwide are enriching their first-party date with identity solutions, per Merkle.

Copying a page from retail’s acquisition playbook: These agency M&A moves mimic retail strategies, such as Walmart investing in ad tech to better compete with Amazon. Obtaining first-party data, identity resolution, and advanced targeting platforms directly addresses cookie deprecation. 

Acquisitions are also a step toward AI competitiveness—CMOs view owned tech and data as foundational for future relevance against ad giants like Google and Amazon.

The caveat: By absorbing key platforms and locking down access, holding companies sideline smaller players and reduce interoperability. 

This could result in fewer choices for brands, higher costs, and closed ecosystems that mirror the very walled gardens agencies are trying to challenge.

Our take: As holding groups consolidate power, CMOs must protect flexibility by evaluating in-house tech stacks and partnering with independent platforms while safeguarding direct data access. Whoever controls the data controls the strategy.