Deals & Moves

Cable distributor acquires major media company — created the vertical integration that made Comcast a top-tier media + advertising power.

Holdco arms race for ad-tech: WPP picked up 24/7 Real Media's ad-serving + search marketing stack as Google was buying DoubleClick.

Yield management for publishers: AdMeld helped publishers manage multiple ad networks and exchanges. Folded into DoubleClick for Publishers.

Oracle's parallel push into social marketing technology. Combined with later BlueKai + Eloqua deals to form the Oracle Marketing Cloud.

Twitter's entry into mobile programmatic — MoPub's mobile SSP became Twitter's ad-tech backbone. Sold to AppLovin in 2021.

Yahoo's second video-programmatic bet. BrightRoll became Yahoo's programmatic video DSP. Eventually folded into 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.