Deals & Moves

MiQ signed a March 2026 agreement to acquire only the LatAm business of Adsmovil (~150 employees, 12 markets) — creating the largest independent programmatic provider in Latin America. Adsmovil's US business remains independent under founder Alberto Pardo.

MiQ acquired Grasp in November 2023, adding pre-launch media QA and data-governance SaaS to its capability stack. Grasp continues as an independent business unit under MiQ ownership.

Publicis Groupe signed an agreement on May 17, 2026 to acquire data-collaboration platform LiveRamp for $2.2B enterprise value ($38.50/share, all cash). Deal expected to close before year-end 2026, subject to regulatory + shareholder approval.

Early ad-server consolidation: DoubleClick acquired NetGravity in stock deal that combined two leading early-internet ad-serving platforms.

Amazon outbid Google for the live-streaming platform. Twitch became Amazon's gaming + streaming + ad-supported video front-line.

Marissa Mayer's big bet on a younger user base. Yahoo wrote down most of the value in 2016; sold to Automattic in 2019 for ~$3M.

Identity resolution becomes a structural layer — Acxiom's LiveRamp acquisition made onboarding offline data into digital ads a packaged product. LiveRamp later spun out as standalone in 2018.

The defining dot-com merger: AOL acquired Time Warner in an all-stock deal at peak dot-com valuations. Considered one of the worst mergers in corporate history.

After 20 months of antitrust review, AT&T closed the Time Warner deal — added HBO + Warner Bros + Turner to the DirecTV + Xandr stack.

Verizon's first major media play — gave it AOL's ad stack (One platform, ad-tech), Huffington Post, and the foundation of what became Oath/Verizon Media.

Salesforce's push into social marketing — Buddy Media's tools for managing brand presence on Facebook + Twitter became part of Marketing Cloud.

Oracle's entry into the DMP business. BlueKai data became the audience layer of Oracle's marketing cloud (later Oracle Data Cloud).

Microsoft's biggest acquisition. LinkedIn's 433M-user professional graph became core to Microsoft's B2B + recruitment + advertising strategy.

The deal that created modern ad tech: Google's acquisition of DoubleClick gave it the buy-side ad-server stack and the foundation for what became Google Ad Manager + DV360.

Cross-channel campaign management — Neolane became Adobe Campaign, a core piece of the Adobe Experience Cloud marketing suite.

Marketing project management — Workfront filled the campaign-orchestration gap in the Adobe Experience Cloud stack.

Microsoft's biggest-ever ad-tech bet — buying aQuantive (parent of Atlas + Avenue A | Razorfish + DrivePM) to compete with Google's DoubleClick deal. Wrote off $6.2B in 2012.

Adobe's entry into web analytics + marketing measurement, foundation of what became Adobe Analytics + Adobe Experience Cloud.

Salesforce's biggest acquisition pre-Slack. Tableau's analytics + visualization layer became part of Salesforce's data + analytics push.

Comcast outbid Disney for the European pay-TV operator. Gave Comcast a major footprint outside the US.

Set the foundation for Xandr — AT&T's short-lived enterprise ad-tech business. AppNexus DSP + SSP became AT&T's buy-side / sell-side stack.

Filled the demand-side gap in Adobe Advertising Cloud. TubeMogul's programmatic video DSP became Adobe Advertising Cloud DSP.

Closed at a discount after Yahoo's data-breach disclosures. Combined with AOL to form Oath, later renamed Verizon Media.

Telco-meets-content: AT&T bought the largest US satellite TV operator. Set up later moves (AT&T + Time Warner) and the eventual Xandr ad business.