Dive Brief:

• Publicis Groupe has acquired identity solutions firm Lotame, according to a press release. Financial terms of the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, were not disclosed.
• Lotame will be aligned within Publicis’ data-driven marketing offering Epsilon and continue to be led by Founder and CEO Andy Monfried. Lotame wields “one of the largest end-to-end data marketplaces” in the world, spanning 109 countries.
• That level of coverage combined with Publicis’ existing assets is expected to enable the ad-holding group to reach nearly 4 billion unique profiles globally, or about 91% of internet-connected consumers. Lotame will also support Epsilon’s expansion into markets such as Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.  

Dive Insight:

Acquiring Lotame significantly enhances the scale of data Publicis has to offer clients that are angling for greater precision and personalization in their marketing. While plans to formally deprecate third-party cookies have been scuttled, marketers are still putting a premium on first-party data solutions that can provide a clearer view into the habits of their target consumers. Lotame enables marketers to leverage their own first-party data and further unlock its potential through collaborating with other data sources on the platform. 

The deal, which is expected to close in Q2, also recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI) software — still the top tech of the moment — is only as effective as the quality of information it’s fed. In a presentation sharing an update on the ad-holding group’s CoreAI strategy, Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun acknowledged that there’s been a degree of B.S. in the AI advertising conversation to date and said that the modern marketing mantra should no longer be “innovate or die” but “connect or die.” 

“AI is nothing without the data,” Sadoun said in a prerecorded video. 

Epsilon already boasted the industry’s largest identity graph, with a view into about 2.3 billion people worldwide. Lotame, which wields nearly two decades of experience in the data-management space, brings over an additional 1.6 billion IDs, along with relationships with over 4,000 brands and publishers. In a press statement around the announcement, Lotame’s Monfried said the two companies have a shared “commitment to industry interoperability, connectivity, and privacy.” 

Publicis introduced its CoreAI concept last year, pledging to invest 300 million euros over three years to keep pace with the fast rise of generative AI technology. The Lotame purchase adds to a dealmaking hot streak that’s included acquisitions for influencer marketing platform Influential, commerce marketing firm Mars United Commerce and performance agency Dysrupt. 

Publicis’ pricey bets on data and AI initially faced some skepticism but have paid off in the long run, as the network has consistently outperformed its peers in recent years. The company saw organic revenue, a key measure of agency health, rise 6.3% year over year in Q4 2024 and 5.8% across the full year. 

Those results led Sadoun to dub the group “the largest advertising company in the world,” though that status could soon change. Rival Omnicom is in the midst of acquiring Interpublic Group in a blockbuster $13 billion deal set to reshape the agency landscape. Agencies are also contending with increased macroeconomic volatility amid President Donald Trump’s mounting trade war and more cautious consumer spending.