Hundreds of exasperated and unexpected ad industry phone calls were made on Sunday, as agencies and ad tech vendors discussed the fallout of Publicis Groupe’s $2.2 billion acquisition of LiveRamp over the weekend.
Publicis has roughly doubled its market cap over the past four years, as other agency holdcos and ad tech businesses have struggled. Its acquisition spree of tech and data companies, including data collaboration and identity graph startup Lotame a year ago, is a main reason often given by investors for LiveRamp’s success.
And LiveRamp is a relative bargain. It comes at half the price of Publicis’ deal for Epsilon in 2019.
But the headline here isn’t the deal price. The fact that LiveRamp will no longer be independent has major consequences for other agencies and the ad tech ecosystem overall, where LiveRamp’s RampID is the most common shared currency.
LiveRamp doesn’t have a massive customer base. Just 846 direct customers – brands, retailers, media sellers and data owners – subscribe to LiveRamp’s software package, the company disclosed on Sunday when it released its full year 2026 earnings materials early alongside the acquisition news. That number is actually down from more than 900 customers as of late 2024.
