Ad industry dealmaking is heating up. M&A pros think these 9 companies could be the next big buyers.

It's buying period in the promotion industry, and I'm not fair talking concerning the holidays.

After a slightly sleepy period, the M&A market is stirring rear to life, alongside strategic buyers loading up their carts.

In the former brace of weeks alone, Publicis Groupe completed its $2.2 milliard acquisition of the data business LiveRamp; Salesforce announced a $5.7 milliard agreement for the customer-engagement phase Braze; India-based Affle stated it's purchasing chap adtech resolute Perion for $420 million; and advertising holding business Stagwell picked up Freestar, a phase that helps publishers market their ad space.

Jay MacDonald, CEO of the funding financial institution Digital Capital Advisors, has a uncomplicated regulation for predicting anywhere M&A could attack next: prosecute the ad dollars. He pointed to areas including influencer marketing, retailing media, and connected TV. He added that geography-focused acquisitions could assistance companies acquire a larger portion of wallet.

The AI boom is additionally causing strategic players to rethink ad businesses they may have formerly overlooked, stated Ana Milicevic, cofounder of Sparrow Advisers.

"Adtech has been innovating alongside real-time decisioning, identity, and all these component parts that in a much additional automated earth are extremely relevant," Milicevic said.

CMO Insider polled nine ad industry bankers, investors, executives, and consultants concerning which strategic buyers they idea could scatter out on additional acquisitions in the coming months. Their answers ranged from Accenture to Zeta. We've listed the highlights in alphabetical order.

Accenture

The consulting resolute stated final duration it plans to expend about $5 milliard on acquisitions in its 2027 financial year. Ad industry pros anticipate its extremely acquisitive promotion services division, Accenture Song, to remain an energetic buyer.

Karsten Weide, chief at W Media Research, stated Accenture's latest purchases of the creator and social agency Whalar and the data resolute Sagacity display its appetite for promotion technology, client intelligence, and imaginative capabilities.

"Additional acquisitions could assistance Accenture Song collect a additional unified promotion offering spanning data, AI, imaginative production, commerce, and run execution," Weide said.

Adobe

Fresh off its $1.9 milliard acquisition of the search motor optimization platform Semrush this year, Adobe, shortly to be helmed by new CEO Anil Chakravarthy, could be on the hunt for additional companies to assistance fortify its promotion and imaginative stack.

Sanja Partalo, broad partner of S4S Ventures, stated Adobe's rivalrous surroundings is getting additional challenging by the day, alongside imaginative AI companies akin Higgsfield, Runway, and Canva vying for its Creative Cloud customers. (Both Adobe and S4S invested in Runway's Series E circular this year.)

"As brands need to create additional satisfied for additional channels, I'd anticipate Adobe to keep looking for tools that nexus innovation to run implementation and measurement, as well," Partalo said. "I accept M&A is a tool they volition continue to deploy to fortify their offering."

Havas

Holding business Havas completed eight acquisitions in the archetypal nine months of 2026, and its CFO François Laroze stated final duration that additional deals could near before year-end or in first 2027.

"Publicis' acquisition of LiveRamp increases the incentive to fortify Havas' data, identity, retailing media, and AI capabilities, although its established scheme favors smaller, targeted acquisitions," W Media Research's Weide said.

Digital Capital Advisors' MacDonald stated Havas could prosecute targeted acquisitions in the $50 myriad to $200 myriad range, compared alongside Publicis' billion-dollar-plus deals.

Omnicom

On ad elephantine Omnicom's third-quarter earnings call final month, CFO Phil Angelastro stated the business is getting rear into acquisition mode, having completed its $9 milliard mega-merger alongside IPG and several disposals throughout its portfolio.

Industry insiders predicted retailing media acquisitions could be elevated on Omnicom's catalog of possible targets. That would bolster its Acxiom data and Flywheel commerce assets. Nick MacShane, elder managing director at the funding financial institution Progress Partners, described Omnicom as a business that needs "to answer another people's M&A," pointing to the Publicis-LiveRamp deal.

Omnicom "still lacks the commerce stack Publicis built alongside Epsilon, CitrusAd, and Profitero," stated Andreas Roell, CEO of the advisory resolute Evros Group.

OpenAI

OpenAI is scaling its ad endeavor at lightning speed. The business stated final duration that additional than 100,000 advertisers had run ChatGPT ad campaigns complete the eight months since its ad platform's debut.

It's additionally launched a slew of adtech integrations, including alongside Criteo, Kargo, Pacvue, and StackAdapt. Industry insiders stated partnerships can sometimes indication that buyers are road-testing a company's capabilities onward of a possible acquisition.

OpenAI could move to acquisition an ad-buying phase that has baked-in advertiser and agency relationships, Sparrow Advisers' Milicevic said.

"The biggest value is the promotion know-how," she said. "Hiring a larger squad that already functions fine alongside all another and knows how to conversation to buyers, and knows what transactions are valued, can really accelerate their go-to-market."

M&A volition mostly depend on what happens alongside OpenAI's forthcoming initial community offering, stated Joshua Wepman, a managing director inside Houlihan Lokey's innovation group.

"Anything they're operating on, they'll dilatory rotate it alongside the S-1 process," Wepman said.

Publicis

The extremely acquisitive French agency collection shows no signs of slowing downward following purchasing LiveRamp, and stated before this twelvemonth it expected to resume incremental bolt-on acquisitions formerly that agreement was completed.

Abeed Janmohamed, a partner at the advisory resolute Volando Partners, stated those could contain companies it can use to build additional data capabilities, specified as European resources that can complement Epsilon, its biggest acquisition to date at $4.4 billion.

Partalo of S4S Ventures anticipates Publicis could desire to create an "agentic orchestration" play. She describes agentic orchestration as using AI agents to nexus data and measure to decisions made throughout promotion campaigns, from preparedness and spectators choice through activation, optimization, and reporting.

"A capability akin that could assistance Publicis move from giving teams improved insights to assisting them act on those insights throughout campaigns," Partalo said.

Stagwell

Stagwell has made additional than 60 acquisitions since it was founded in 2015, and hot on the heels of its Freestar deal, it's motionless starving for more.

CEO Mark Penn told Adweek in a latest discussion that he's looking at acquisitions to assistance the business develop additional into Latin America and to "bolster our digital transformation companies and growth."

Consultancies and agencies are increasingly competing on specialized services as marketers change budgets from campaigns into data and AI, Evros Group's Roell said.

"I would anticipate midsize data engineering firms and AI implementation shops alongside genuine endeavor clients to see the most competition from buyers," Roell said.

The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk has lengthy been a large-M&A holdout, but as the adtech business faces a important income deceleration amid fierce competition from the likes of Amazon and Google, could that change?

Though The Trade Desk's portion cost has dropped dramatically since its peak, the business stated in September it had concerning $1.5 milliard in prosperity on its balance sheet.

Industry insiders stated the company, which operates a demand-side phase (DSP), could advantage from adding retailing media infrastructure, distinctive connected-TV inventory or monetization technology, or a resolution that gives it a leg up in the agentic media-buying space.

"Any of the businesses that are workflow-oriented are going to have to do item to develop their businesses in the agentic world," Wepman of Houlihan Lokey said.

Digital Capital Advisors' MacDonald stated that, stated The Trade Desk's long-standing civilization of "build it at home," he believes that if the business decides to go downward the M&A path, the acquisition volition be big, not a tuck-in.

Zeta Global

Zeta Global's portion cost has soared concerning 70% complete the former year, as its acquisition-heavy scheme to build an all-in-one promotion phase gains momentum.

Last November, it made its biggest-ever acquisition, acquiring martech business Marigold's endeavor application endeavor for up to $325 myriad to develop Zeta's client basis and assistance it border the loyalty market.

Janmohamed stated Zeta has a track document of making strategic acquisitions of companies anywhere others may not have seen value, afterward quickly distributing their capabilities throughout its client network through the Zeta Marketing Platform and its AI agent, Athena. He expects that run to continue.

"Zeta is one to watch," Janmohamed said.

Zeta CEO David Steinberg stated the business takes a disciplined method to acquisitions, and all chance must encounter five strategic pillars: "Be accretive from day one, create cross-selling opportunities, add differentiated innovation or data, merge into our phase inside 12 months, and bring endowment that strengthens our team."