Publicis Groupe to Acquire CitrusAd to Lead the New Generation of Identity-Led Retail Media

CitrusAd is a SaaS platform that optimizes the marketing performance of brands directly one-commerce sites

By combining CitrusAd with Epsilon's CORE ID, Publicis Groupe will create the first retail media offer based on identity

Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40] today announces the acquisition of CitrusAd, a technological platform (SaaS) that optimizes the marketing performance of brands directly on e-commerce sites. With more than 50% of its activities in the United States, CitrusAd is present in 22 countries and 6 business sectors.

CitrusAd brings its cutting edge technology to more than 70 of the world's leading distributors and more than 4,000 brands that use the self-service platform.

In 2023, online sales of consumer goods will have doubled compared to 2019. In this context, retail media will experience exponential growth. Estimated today at $ 30 billion per year, advertising investments in this sector are expected to double over the next five years. The media retail will become one of the main channels of the media spending of consumer brands in the coming years.

Our ambition is to combine CitrusAd's expertise on e-commerce sites with Epsilon's retail media offer on publishers' sites, and to feed them both through CORE ID. This offer will be unique in the industry and will allow Publicis Groupe to take the leadership of the new generation of identity-based retail media , with fully transparent performance measurement, validated directly by transactions.

This acquisition will bring three decisive competitive advantages to Publicis Groupe customers for their e-commerce activity:

• Growth: Customers will be able to accelerate their growth in this very dynamic industry, increasing the conversion rate and maximizing the return on their advertising spend. CitrusAd's conversion rate is among the highest in the media industry with over 60% after a click.
• Knowledge of consumers : brands will gain access to a better knowledge of their customers, based on first-party data from e-commerce sites, allowing them to prepare for a world without cookies. By associating Epsilon's expertise with CitrusAd, Publicis Groupe will unify consumer profiles, not dependent on third-party cookies, to increase the performance of media activation. All of these operations are based on the consent of consumers, in full compliance with respect for their privacy.
• Total transparency of performance: brands will be able to target their consumers both onsite (in the merchant ecosystem) and offsite (in the publisher ecosystem), and to measure the performance of their media investments in real time. , regardless of the conversion channel (in-store or online), with precision at the product level (SKU: stock management unit) and validated by the transaction.

CitrusAd is an Australia-based company founded in 2017 by Brad Moran and Nick Paech. It brings together 130 engineers and retail media experts around the world. CitrusAd will remain independent within Epsilon, while being tightly integrated with their technology to generate synergies. This transaction remains subject to the usual regulatory approvals and should be concluded in the coming weeks.

Brad Moran, co-founder and CEO of CitrusAd says: “It's not every day that you meet a partner the size of Publicis Groupe who not only shares CitrusAd's entrepreneurial vision but who can also connect their incredible advertising power to a technology company like ours. E-commerce sites and brands are entering a territory that is still largely unexplored, while retail media is booming. Thanks to the combination of CitrusAd and Publicis , clients will benefit from long-standing media expertise, coupled with cutting-edge technology and a team of retail media experts. "

Arthur Sadoun, Chairman of the Management Board of Publicis Groupe, said: “We are very happy to welcome Brad, Nick and the entire CitrusAd team to Publicis. The technology they have developed, coupled with Epsilon's CORE ID, will allow major brands to accelerate their growth and e-commerce sites to generate new sources of revenue to earn in a world dominated by platforms. This acquisition will also give Publicis a decisive competitive advantage, in a sector which, by 2025, is expected to exceed media investments in traditional television. "

About Publicis Groupe - The Power of One

Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40] is a global leader in communication. The Groupe is positioned at every step of the value chain, from consulting to execution, combining marketing transformation and digital business transformation. Publicis Groupe is a privileged partner in its clients’ transformation to enhance personalization at scale. The Groupe relies on ten expertise concentrated within four main activities: Communication, Media, Data and Technology. Through a unified and fluid organization, its clients have a facilitated access to all its expertise in every market. Present in over 100 countries, Publicis Groupe employs around 80,000 professionals.

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About CitrusAd

CitrusAd is the world-leading, white-label, self-serve, ecommerce ad-serving platform that enables retailers to monetize their digital shelf-space while enabling brands to increase sales by launching targeted and cost-effective digital campaigns into retailer websites. Since it was launched in 2017, CitrusAd powers the fastest growing ecommerce ad network in the USA and has become the global, retail industry’s preferred ad-serving platform, service and retail media sales organization. Successful retailers, in all verticals across 25 countries are leveraging the CitrusAd platform and real-time relevancy engine to create a more personalized shopping experience and deliver greater ROI for suppliers. For more information, visit https://www.citrusad.com