Everyone and their mother is becoming an advertising company.
And that trend took another step forward on Thursday with the news that Verisk, a consumer data provider for insurance, lenders and financial services, acquired the identity resolution company Infutor.
Verisk dropped $225 million on Infutor, with another $25 million based on revenue growth goals.
Verisk’s foray into the CMO org began with the company’s acquisition of Jornaya, a consumer journey tracking and lead generation startup, for $125 million in December 2020. The Verisk Marketing Solutions group, as the unit is called, will count about 200 employees, around 150 of whom are joining with Infutor.
Jornaya and Infutor worked together on marketing partnerships for years before either company was acquired, said Eli Schwarz, chief strategy officer of the Verisk Marketing Solutions business.
Infutor’s data onboarding was a go-to when Jornaya needed to augment its lead-gen service, he said. Potential customers Jornaya was tracking online for insurance or financial services could be augmented using Infutor. Together, the companies can create profiles or attach those users to a known household.
“We hadn’t rounded out that capability to add attributes of the household or other characteristics that could be useful in figuring out what the right message is to put in front of that consumer,” Schwarz said.
The Infutor acquisition also gives Verisk a foothold outside financial services and insurance companies.
The deal makes sense, according to Infutor CMO Zora Senat, because Infutor connects to tech and digital media companies where Verisk historically hasn’t had any presence. As an insurance or lending ratings services, why would it need to? While being under the Verisk umbrella gives Infutor a chance to get in front of CMOs – it’s historically integrated with publishers, platforms and tech companies, but lately in the past year has tried to become a service used directly by marketers.
Verisk isn’t done buying and building its way into the world of online marketing.
“We’re continuing to look at other companies and inorganic paths to expand the solution set or the business,” Schwarz said.
Last week, Verisk sold its financial services business, a consultancy and analytics group that works with finance companies on fraud and bankruptcy cases, to TransUnion for $515 million. TransUnion is also a consumer data and ratings service that has launched a marketing solutions group in recent years.
But with that cool half-billion dollars, Verisk has the fuel to journey further into CMO-world, even with about half of those funds immediately turned around on the Infutor deal.
