2024’s Biggest Adtech Deals Show the Industry’s Shift to Strategic M&A

This article was originally published on December 10

Adtech M&A has started to pick up pace in recent weeks.

Third quarter business volume grew 118% year over year and 26% quarter over quarter, according to data from Luma Partners, Axios reports. It is the highest rate since the first half of 2022.

Driving the deal’s growth is an increase in digital ad spending — recent gains from some public adtech companies like The Trade Desk and the tech giants like Google have been strong, plus a sense of “cautious optimism” going into 2024 after a couple of tough years, said Bill Wise, CEO of Mediaocean.

Of course, there were many deals in 2024, but most of these were rational transactions, consolidations characterized as opportunistic deals at reasonable or low valuations.

But what has picked up pace lately is the number of more strategic deals. These deals focus on where the future of digital advertising is headed and can lead to stronger valuation multiples, said Conor McKenna, partner at investment firm Luma. In other words, strategic business means a healthy market.

McKenna expects there is more of this to come in 2025.” These will focus around key themes such as CTV and commerce media, and critical capabilities related to performance optimization, addressability, creativity and measurement,” said McKenna.

Another force uniting these offerings is the push for scale, more robust omnichannel capabilities — especially in video — and a trend toward optimizing bottom-funnel conversions that deliver more accurate ad spend ROI, said Mark Wright, head of M&A consulting practice at Prohaska Consulting. .

“As this acceleration happens, the industry could well see a frantic game of musical chairs as more and more players enter the M&A game, fearing they will be left alone when the music stops,” Wright said. “Our industry is growing.”

ADWEEK has compiled a list of significant M&A deals this year and what they tell us about the state of the industry.

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