It’s fall, and M&A is in the air. Two acquisitions happened this week: Stagwell bought Freestar, and DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart.
Here at AdExchanger, we’re always intrigued by the rationale for acquisitions – from the ones that feel like yin meeting yang to the ones that feel more like stitching together a Frankenstack. (Had to get a spooky reference in!)
In the first half of the podcast, we discuss Stagwell buying Freestar. Why would an indie agency want to build a company that helps open web publishers better set up their ad stacks? Our managing editor, Anthony Vargas, who covered the acquisition, talks about the hints the companies dropped, including how Freestar’s 1,000 publisher site connections could support Stagwell’s principal media business. Are we seeing a rehash of GroupM buying ad network 24/7 Real Media – 19 years later?
Then, when retailers merge, could the extremely fragmented retail media space defragment just a bit? At the time of the recording, DoorDash was in advanced talks to buy Instacart – and on Thursday, news dropped that the acquisition was official.
Pending approval, DoorDash Ads and Instacart’s Carrot Ads will likely come together. Carrot Ads also offers a white-labeled retail media business, which recently added Gopuff as a customer. So imagine Russian nesting dolls, or that image of a whale eating a shark eating a fish – because this type of M&A is going to change how marketers work with retail media companies, which our senior editor, James Hercher, discusses to close out this week.
