Agency M&A is now a data game: 64% of deals are Digital & Data, COMvergence finds

New Delhi: “Digital and data have become the strategic centre of marcom M&A, making up 64% of acquisitions over the past decade.”

“Revenue concentration is rising”: 2025 acquisitions total an estimated $13.1 billion in combined revenue, with $10.7 billion coming from Omnicom–IPG alone.

That is the core finding of COMvergence’s ten-year analysis of marcom agency acquisitions (2016–2025), which argues the global marketing services industry is now in a structural transition driven by data, cloud and AI infrastructure.

COMvergence said 55 marcom acquisitions were completed worldwide in 2025, a modest increase over 2024, but still well below the peak seen in 2016.

The report said 2025 stands out because of a “transformational event”, Omnicom’s acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG), which it describes as the largest transaction recorded in the study’s history.

COMvergence said the Omnicom–IPG deal adds 53,300 employees and $10.7 billion in revenue, reshaping competitive scale and “effectively ending” the long-standing “Big 6” holding company structure.

Beyond the mega-deal, the study describes a “dual-speed” M&A market. It said consolidation is playing out in two parallel tracks, mega-scale infrastructure moves focused on AI, cloud and data platforms, and targeted specialist buys meant to strengthen capabilities in digital, influencer, CRM, commerce and AI.

The small-buy trend remains dominant in volume terms. COMvergence said 67% of agencies and firms acquired in 2025 employed fewer than 100 people, reflecting a shift toward niche expertise rather than scale-led headcount expansion.

Across the full decade, COMvergence tracked 845 agency acquisitions. It said Digital and Data represented 64% of all acquisitions and accounted for 57% of total staff added over the period.

It added that data-led assets are growing in strategic importance, especially those anchored in AI, identity, cloud and infrastructure platforms. Creative and media acquisitions remain active, but are generally smaller in scale and headcount.

On AI-specific deals, COMvergence recorded 20 AI-focused acquisitions over the decade, with two-thirds completed since 2023. It said these investments are largely targeted and specialist, with global players embedding AI talent into broader data and cloud ecosystems rather than buying large standalone AI businesses.

The report also links the M&A shift to business models. It said infrastructure-led acquisitions show materially higher revenue-per-employee ratios than traditional creative and media businesses and that capital is increasingly moving toward scalable, recurring-revenue platforms.

Among holding groups, the study said Publicis Groupe and Havas led 2025 in deal volume, completing 11 acquisitions each. It added that Dentsu and WPP have significantly reduced acquisition activity compared to earlier peak years.

COMvergence also flagged that management consultancies are continuing to expand through cloud, AI, CRM and enterprise technology acquisitions, reinforcing operating-model ownership rather than agency roll-ups.

Overall, the study concludes that marcom M&A has moved from expansion-driven roll-ups to disciplined, infrastructure-led consolidation. It said the competitive landscape is evolving from fragmented agency networks to AI-enabled marketing platforms built on data, cloud and scalable technology ecosystems, with 2025 marking a structural inflection point.