The Acxiom data dilemma behind Omnicom’s market-making IPG acquisition

“It [Acxiom] was always much stronger in the U.S. compared to Europe in terms of the IDs at its disposal, so there wasn’t really enough we could’ve done with them,” said Billy, who is one of IPG’s clients. “And even then, it was us pushing for it, not them [IPG].”

That unvarnished view cuts through the noise surrounding IPG’s data business since Omnicom announced plans to acquire it and the rest of the group. The chatter positions as a centerpiece of the so-called “holdco of the future.” But whether it lives up to the hype is a whole other story. 

Acxiom, as it turns out, is anything but simple. 

When IPG first announced its intention to purchase Acxiom Marketing Services in July 2018, it was a huge gamble, especially as the $2.3 billion price tag was more than a quarter of the company’s then-market capitalization ($7 to 8 billion).

Acxiom’s purchase was pitched as a strategic move to enhance IPG’s capabilities in data-driven marketing and personalized advertising, thus evangelized as a means of maintaining such practices, even as laws like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations came into force.

One year after its initial announcement, IPG’s executive team credited the acquisition with attracting new clients, including those from the automotive and financial tech sectors, to the holding company. Speaking at the time, Philippe Krakowsky — then CEO of IPG Mediabrands and proposed COO of a merged IPG and Omnicom — claimed it brought “expertise and credibility” amid heightened scrutiny over advertisers’ use of consumers’ data.

Investors’ concerns over Acxiom

However, the following year, after Google confirmed that it would join Apple in retiring the use of third-party cookies in its web browser, Chrome, Wall Street investors were still questioning the wisdom of such a purchase. 

For example, wouldn’t other holding companies want to abandon Acxiom now that it was under the stewardship of one of their fiercest rivals? This fate befell other ad tech scions after taking holding company investment. Advocates of the deal insisted not, additionally claiming they were “building ways to work around” browsers’ third-party cookie restrictions when speaking to investors.

However, this view was not universally held, with Digiday’s ad tech practitioners expressing concern about framing the company as a first-party data asset. Additionally, Adstra’s ongoing legal case against IPG duo Acxiom and Kinesso hints at shaky foundations for Acxiom’s claims to first-party data credentials.  

Isn’t it still just third-party data? 

Former IPG insiders told Digiday they were confused about why executives there advocated buying (what many deemed) a third-party data brokerage when laws such as GDPR were being implemented. 

“If you were looking for reasons why IPG have been forced into a sale as a distressed asset, it’s because they failed to invest in the right way in data,” noted Nick Manning, a former senior media executive (he was the founder of Manning Gottlieb OMD) who now helps marketers parse the complexity of media trading.

This sentiment was echoed repeatedly in conversations with Acxiom clients, IPG staff, and rivals. The consensus? There wasn’t enough emphasis on the quality or usability of the data these businesses were built on. Some opinions veered into cynicism, suggesting these ventures were little more than a play to stockpile data — quality be damned — and resell it to advertisers hungry to target audiences across the open web.

Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at CheckMyAds and former head of privacy at IPG’s UM, is dismayed at how Acxiom has been pitched as a foundational element of the proposed union of IPG and Omnicom, especially to Wall Street investors. “I do not understand how acquiring a third-party data broker makes one an owner of first-party data,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Rob Webster, formerly a senior executive within GroupM who now leads an AI consultancy called TAU Marketing Solutions, told Digiday that data classification can be (somewhat) subjective but noted that a cautionary approach is always needed. 

“A data broker can be considered first-party data if you squint,” he observed. “What you’re doing is collecting lots of data from advertisers and publishers, which is first-party data for them.” 

IPG maintained Acxiom’s status as “a leader in first-party data management,” adding that its data is “ethically sourced” when such views were put to a company spokesperson by Digiday in an email exchange.

The statement continued, “That combination of capabilities is exceptional and has not previously been in question, so recent speculation regarding the asset clearly reflects heightened concern on the part of our competitors.”

Elsewhere, Webster further noted the strategic importance of successfully integrating Acxiom into the proposed integration of IPG into Omnicom if they are to truly realize the $13 billion vision executives there pitched to Wall Street in early December. 

He observed that Publicis Groupe’s Epsilon is the pace-setter when it comes to Madison Avenue’s data-led advertising offerings. “It’s all about match rates [between advertisers’ desired audience and a media owners’ registered users]… how Epsilon gets those great match rates is still a mystery, but Acxiom is not as good as what Epsilon has become,” added Webster.  

Platitudinal statements to Wall Street investors aside, multiple sources consulted by Digiday in the weeks since the move was first proposed have not discussed much about how Omnicom will integrate Acxiom into its client offering. 

According to separate Digiday sources who recently spoke with team members at Omnicom/IPG, senior executives in key areas of influence on both sides of the proposed deal were not consulted before its announcement. 

The sources, who requested anonymity in return for candor, said many senior-level executives on either side of the exchange would likely be left wondering how to reverse-engineer a solution to a strategic vision formulated above their heads. 

Can Omnicom just sell it better? 

“If you speak to some ‘Omnicom-ers,’ I don’t think they really realize what they’re going to get with Acxiom,” added one source. “I think a lot of them think they’re getting some sort of nifty dataset that’s going to supercharge their ability to deliver… I don’t think they realize they are just buying a third-party data exchange, or that’s what they’ve got.” 

Separate sources consulted by Digiday observed how the integration of Acxiom into the Omnicom-fold is likely to focus on monetization — ”there was no real ‘seller-mentality’ there [IPG],” according to one source — with mid-to-senior executives remaining after the inevitable efficiency-drives likely tasked with addressing this from mid-to-late 2025. 

“Omnicom hasn’t done as good a job as Publicis [at selling Epsilon to clients], but they’ve still done a better job than IPG,” commented one former Omnicom source, who declined to be named, adding that the France-based holding company and their former employer are currently the top-two in the market.

“I’m sure there are a lot of different themes for this acquisition, but I’m sure one of them is, ‘We can take what they have [Acxiom] and sell it much better.’”