The recent acquisitions by major ad agencies signify a strategic shift toward data ownership. WPP's purchase of InfoSum and Publicis's acquisition of Lotame reflect a growing ambition to centralize first-party data access. Agencies are evolving from merely facilitating data to actively owning and managing it, using advanced technologies and AI to derive insights and value. Rather than just optimizing campaigns with client data, these organizations are now building proprietary tools and systems for comprehensive data integration and monetization, highlighting first-party data's increasing importance as a critical asset in the advertising ecosystem.
Today, data isn't just an input, it's the engine. And agencies aren't just accessing it, they're building proprietary tools, training models, and monetising the outputs.
Historically, agencies accessed client data for one purpose: campaign optimisation... But that's changed: AI needs training data, identity graphs need onboarding data and retail media demands transaction-level granularity.
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