Ad Agency Holding Company, Desperate for Customer Data, Pays $4.4B for Epsilon

Publicis will pay about $4.4 billion for Epsilon to give it a leg up in digital marketing and to help clients personalize their connections with consumers.

Today, data is worth more than a mountain of gold on a platinum platter.

“Our clients are facing increasing pressure from the rise in consumer expectations,” Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun said. “The only response is to deliver personalized experiences at scale. They have to transform to meet this new market imperative.”

The CEO may have meant to say, “We have to transform.” Epsilon is already well down the marketing transformation road.

The acquisition gives Publicis access to Epsilon’s data capabilities. For example, Epsilon has more than 250 million unique consumers identified in the U.S. and sends over 71 billion personalized emails each year. Epsilon can also build on top of a client’s first-party data with its own assets, like behavioral and transactional data.

Every brand experience should be personal and purposeful, and every customer wants to be recognized, respected, and protected.

Epsilon is selling one-to-one at scale and Publicis, along with the ad industry as a whole, is buying.

A word of caution…the bulk of both Publicis’ and Epsilon’s business comes from the U.S. where privacy laws are becoming increasingly strict. According to Digiday, the future of third-party data — and those companies looking to profit from it — is uncertain to say the least.