Web content management and web commerce management were the hottest areas in marketing technology for acquisitions in the first half, investment banker Petsky/Prunier says in the Marketing Segment Deal Notes report this week. Investors acquired 109 web content management companies in the first half for a value of $75 million, up from two companies for $5 million in the first half of last year and seven companies for $72 million in all of last year. Investors bought five web commerce management companies for a total of $55 million in the first half, the same as last year.
The two largest deals in the marketing technology arena in the first half were Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition of Tellme Networks Inc., a teleservices company, for $800 million, and Experian Inc.’s acquisition of Hitwise Pty. Ltd. for $240 million.
Microsoft plans to integrate Tellme Networks’ speech recognition into its Windows Live Search. Experian expects Hitwise, which measures online consumer behavior, to complement its products that measure traditional marketing effectiveness.
The first half also saw Providence Equity Partners invest $830 million in comparison shopping site NexTag. The investment puts the value of NexTag at $1.2 billion, more than twice what eBay paid for Shopping.com in 2005 ($524 million) and E.W. Scripps paid for Shopzilla, also in 2005 ($560 million).
Marketing services companies were in great demand by investors in the first half of this year, Petsky/Prunier reports. Investors bought 145 such companies for $30.9 billion. The number of companies bought was 18.5% lower than the 178 that changed hands in the first half of last year, but the aggregate price was three times the size of last year’s $11.3 billion.
The deals included:
- Blackstone’s acquisition of Alliance Data for $7.9 billion
- Silver Lake and ValueAct Capital Partners’ acquisition of Acxiom for $2.8 billion
- Hellman & Friedman’s acquisition of Catalina Marketing for $1.7 billion
- Microsoft’s purchase of aQuantive for $5.7 billion
- Google’s purchase of DoubleClick from Hellman & Friedman for $3.1 billion
- Equifax’s purchase of TALX for $1.4 billion
- Informa’s acquisition of Datamonitor for $1 billion.
The high prices signify that investors are finally catching on that consumers’ media habits are moving to the web, Petsky/Prunier concludes. “Activity within the interactive segment reached a pinnacle, trimming the significant gap between interactive marketing spend and online media consumption,” its report says. “Currently, approximately 10% of total marketing spend is placed toward interactive channels, even though about one-third of total media consumption occurs online.”
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