International media firm Aegis Group buys iProspect for $50 million
London-based Aegis Group plc has acquired search marketing firm iProspect.com Inc. for $50 million in a deal that includes an initial $32 million in cash and deferred performance-based payments worth $18 million over the next two years.
The acquisition complements Aegis’ existing lines of media services, which include media planning and buying, interactive media, sports and outdoor marketing, sponsorships, and search marketing.
Boston-based interactive agency Carat, already a part of Aegis, has a search marketing practice, but client overlap is minimal, according to iProspect CEO Frederick Marckini. Both iProspect and Carat will continue to operate independently under Aegis, according to Marckini.
However, they will also pursue synergies. The Boston firm has been outsourcing paid search management technology and using a reseller for paid inclusion, for example, but those capacities exist in-house at iProspect in the form of proprietary technology and direct relationships with search engines such as Yahoo’s Overture.
For its part, becoming part of the Aegis network gains iProspect access to its people, customers and other resources. Marckini notes, for example, that Aegis intends to invest to develop iProspect’s proprietary keyword bidding technology for international markets.
Marckini, a founder of iProspect in 1996, says the acquisition demonstrates recognition within the advertising industry that search is a part of the whole marketing mix and “not just a bolt-on. Search is intertwined with all marketing, not just online marketing, because all marketing activity drives search behavior,” he says. “We know through our clients that are major brands that when they run TV campaigns we see spikes in queries on branded keywords that were in the ads, and we see the same effect in e-mail and direct mail campaigns. There is a relationship.”
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