Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM) owned LiveRamp announced that the company has inked a deal to acquire Arbor (a marketplace for people-based data) and Circulate (a platform that enables app developers to make money out of their first-party data while maintaining privacy) for approximately $140 million.
Both Arbor and Circulate will be integrated into IdentityLink, LiveRamp’s identity resolution tool for omnichannel marketing. The process is expected to be completed within the next five months.
Why this Move?
LiveRamp’s acquisition of the two online platforms will help the company to expand its omnichannel identity graph as well as widen its network. This will enable brands to look beyond Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) Custom Audiences and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) owned Google Customer Match for their marketing requirements.
With mobile and online channels increasingly gaining popularity, having a wide reach is of utmost importance. The acquisitions thus seem aptly timed to fulfill that goal. Moreover, the LiverRamp platform will be able to deliver more value to its partners and clients.
How Will These Deals Help LiveRamp & Acxiom?
With the acquisitions of Arbor and Circulate, LiveRamp will position itself better to lock horns with Facebook and Google in terms of people-based marketing. Additionally, an improvement of 20–30% is expected in mobile match rates and 10-20% in online match rates.
The Arbor and Circulate deals will not only help LiverRamp to further strengthen its leadership position in identity resolution but will also drive growth for the company and add value to Acxiom’s shareholders. By fiscal 2017, Arbor and Circulate are estimated to contribute revenues to the tune of $5 million.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
At present, Acxiom has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
A better-ranked stock in the broader technology space is Konami Holdings Corp. (OTC:KNMCY) , sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Notably, the consensus estimate for Konami Holdings’ current year improved to $1.59 from $1.39 over the last 30 days.
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