Acxiom sells marketing solutions business to IPG for $2.3bn

Aftermath of Facebook-Cambridge Analytica affair and GDPR starting to bite online advertisers?

Ad tech firm Acxiom has sold its Marketing Solutions division to advertising agency Interpublic Group (IPG) in a $2.3 billion cash deal.

Acxiom Marketing Solutions is a data broker, while IPG is the holding company behind the McCann Worldgroup advertising agency, as well as Deutsch and IPG Mediabrands.

Pretty much all that will be left of Acxiom after the deal will be the advertising technology called LiveRamp, which enables clients to combine customer data from various online and offline sources.

Its key element is called IdentityLink, an ‘omni-channel identity resolution tool', according to Acxiom, that enables "data owners to better monetize their assets by supporting brands' people-based marketing initiatives".

The Acxiom purchase provides IPG with access to anonymised customer data, helping markets and agencies target advertising to groups of consumers by interest, and is also able to measure their effectiveness.

However, the implementation of GDPR in the European Union, which effectively gives internet users in the EU the right to opt-out of targeted advertising, not to mention similar laws being implemented elsewhere - California recently followed suit - could make it a risky purchase for IPG.

Following the Cambridge Analytica affair, social media giant Facebook pledged to tighten up its platform against marketeers, such as Acxiom.

In March 2018, Facebook wound up its Facebook Partner Categories service, which provided audience targeting options by leveraging third-party data providers, including Acxiom's own Audience Solutions division.

For Acxiom, the deal will enable the organisation to cash-in on its core online advertising technology and network, and to focus on LiveRamp, which the company forecasts will grow by 30 per cent, year-on-year, over the next few years.

Acxiom had opposed the GDPR when it was being thrashed out in Brussels and Strasbourg, warning that it risked undermining the EU's own internet industries and could discourage inward investment.

"When companies around the world consider setting up a new unit in digital or mobile, I don't think Europe is the preferred place to invest in," Acxiom European privacy officer Dr Sachiko Scheuing told Computing back in September 2015.