As of late, there’s been a tremendous amount of growth and M&A activity in our industry. Just a few weeks ago, Adobe acquired Efficient Frontier for $400 million. Personally, I feel like $400 million is a really solid, strong price for Efficient Frontier and sets the tone for more big liquidity events in the coming months/years. It’s really great news for our industry.
Way To Go, Acquisio and ClickEquations!
Today, I was absolutely floored when Acquisio announced their acquisition of ClickEquations. If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you probably know that I’m a huge fan of Acquisio, the leading performance marketing platform for agencies. I have covered some of their amazing whitepapers, interviewed their CMO Marc Poirier, and recently did a guest post on Acquisio’s awesome blog.
What you may not know is I’m also a huge fan of ClickEquations. As you can see in my SMX 2011 Recap, I had the great opportunity to connect with Craig Danuloff, CEO of ClickEquations. Craig literally wrote the book on quality score and is a true leader in our industry. The ClickEquations team is truly top-notch and they built an outstanding platform. Integrate ClickEquations into Acquisio’s platform and it’s going to be a true home run for the online marketing community.
Prediction: SEM Platform(s) Will Go Public In 2012-2013
So, what’s next after all of this recent M&A activity? First and foremost, it means better tools for end users like you and me! More M&A means more activity, growth, and competition. It’s a race at this point to build the biggest and best online marketing platforms around.
Second, I think the recent activity sets the stage for some even bigger deals in the future. Looking at companies like Acquisio, Kenshoo, and Marin Software, I would not be surprised if one or more of them went public in 2012-2013. One thing is for sure: If you manage large online advertising campaigns, I highly encourage you to audit the platforms out there, you will not be disappointed!
Image in this post © Acquisio
Thanks for the kind words, we’re very excited about this transaction and are looking forward to integrating the technology into our existing platform!
Marc,
Thanks so much for the comment! 🙂 You are quite welcome. Couldn’t be more excited about the deal, it’s going to be big for our entire industry.
All the best,
Ian
Congrats to the folks at ClickEquations and Acquisio.
“Second, I think the recent activity sets the stage for some even bigger deals in the future.”
I’m looking forward to seeing the changes that take place in 2012, from M&A, as well as organic growth inside some of the companies.
Thanks so much for the comment, ERP! I couldn’t agree with your points more.
All the best,
Ian