BarkleyOKRP acquires Adlucent to boost performance marketing capabilities

Dive Brief:

Independent agency BarkleyOKRP has acquired performance media and marketing technology company Adlucent from Advantage Solutions, according to a press release. Terms were not disclosed.
The deal, the first since since Barkley and OKRP merged in March, will provide the shop with deeper expertise in e-commerce, retail and lead generation across search, display, social and retail media.
Through the acquisition, BarkleyOKRP will employ more than 800 people and have offices in Kansas City, Chicago, Denver, New York City, Pittsburgh and Austin. Adlucent CEO Ashwani Dhar will become BarkleyOKRP’s chief performance officer, reporting to BarkleyOKRP CEO Jeff King.

Dive Insight:

Barkley and OKRP’s merger in March was all about scaling up to compete against the big holding companies and global networks that are becoming one-stop shops for their clients. The deal for Adlucent, which is Google’s largest shopping ads agency in the U.S., will help the newly merged agency deepen its know-how in the key performance marketing space and build on BarkleyOKRP’s positioning as “big indie” that can offer broad capabilities mixed with breakthrough strategy and creative.

“This acquisition of Adlucent supports our strategic vision to scale integrated media capabilities, expand our technology offering, and grow our media and data team to more than 250 experts, driving consumer engagement and ROI for our clients,” said Jeff King, CEO of BarkleyOKRP, in a release.

Adlucent’s client roster includes Zappos, The Vitamin Shoppe, 1-800-Contacts, Rawlings and Global Industrial. It is a certified Google Marketing Platform, Google Premier Partner, Google Cloud Partner, Microsoft Advertising Elite Partner and Meta Business Partner.

Across the marketing and advertising industries, performance marketing remains a key focus for marketers and media companies looking to drive results. NBCUniversal, for example, is focused on making TV advertising look more like digital in its capacity to optimized paid search, paid social and programmatic ads in real time.

At the same time, there is renewed energy around the importance of brand building, which can bolster brands and help them get through rough periods.

“BarkleyOKRP fills the gap between holding companies and boutique shops, providing the best of both — broad capabilities led by breakthrough strategy and creative,” King said in a statement.