This week’s episode of The Big Story is brought to you by the letters M and A.
Because if you haven’t heard, Magnite bought SpotX for $1.17 billion, and then District M and Sharethrough merged to form a giant exchange. So what’s going on?
The team takes a look at both acquisitions, and digs into the general frenzy of consolidation and investment happening in ad tech land.
Both the District M/Sharethrough merger and the Magnite/SpotX acquisition were partially triggered by the growing practice of supply path optimization, the net result of which is that buy siders are cutting out exchanges. Scale is therefore increasingly important.
And for Magnite, one of the big reasons behind its purchase of SpotX is to increase its foothold in the world of video and CTV. As Magnite CEO Michael Barrett told AdExchanger Senior Editor Sarah Sluis, 67% of its revenue comes from video, and about 40% of that is from CTV.
Listen in to learn about the strategies and rationale behind these deals.
Also, what role did the recent public market craze for ad tech have on these companies? Magnite’s soaring stock, for example, is what made its purchase of SpotX possible. And could a Sharethrough/District M IPO be on the horizon? The Magic 8 Ball, which is totally not definitive so don’t hold us to it, says, Yeah, probably?
But wherever there’s froth, there’s the question: are we in a bubble? (But then again, aren’t we always?)
Regardless, ad tech companies like Viant and Criteo are for now sitting pretty, and Wall Street seems to have forgotten the Rocket Fuel debacle. Who knows, maybe they all have moats to protect them when the wholesale transformation of online identity finally hits.
