You can never tell what’s behind that light at the of tunnel, but let’s think positive. Firmex, which helps companies to share confidential data during investment negotiations, reports that merger and acquisition advisors are more optimistic about deal volume and valuations than any time since the start of 2022. Deals are also taking longer to close and include more contingent compensation, but we’ll take any good news we can get.
This Acxiom report finds shoppable advertising is more widespread than you may realize: 45% of brands say they’ve used it with good results and 66% of consumers appreciate the convenience. The report also provides in-depth discussions of AI-based customer service, loyalty programs, sustainability, and predictive personalization. While 47% of consumers say they engage more with personalized offers, they strongly prefer that personalization to involve loyalty rewards (56%) than personalized support (35%) or products and services (31%).
As if on cue, we have news that programmatic media services provider MiQ is buying Grasp, which offers media governance and data quality technology. As you surely know, the programmatic buying chain is convoluted, opaque, and other bad things, so Grasp’s ability to reduce errors can only help. MiQ purchased “privacy-first” audience platform (is there any other kind these days?) Air Grid one year ago almost to the day.
CDP and marketing cloud vendor Zeta Global announced an agreement to purchase LiveIntent, which helps companies do email-based advertising. The deal will let Zeta expand its identity graph, enter the publisher monetization business, and accelerate its mobile and retail media products. Zeta will pay $77.5 million in cash and $172.5 million in common stock, with potential for additional payments based on performance.