Dentsu Aegis Network acquires identity firm 4Cite

4Cite’s technology platform aggregates personally identifiable actions using analytics to help retail companies know when to send personalised marketing to consumers.

Following the acquisition, the company’s 50 employees, based in Albany, New York and Peterborough, New Hampshire, will join Merkle but it will continue to operate under the name 4Cite. Chief executive officer Bob Gaito will become chairman, reporting to Eugene Becker, chief data officer, Merkle.

The deal will boost Merkle’s identity technology offer and also allows Dentsu Aegis Network’s insights, planning and activation platform M1 to build an identity graph for deterministic matches and identity based on first-party cookies, which will offer Merkle’s clients addressable media campaigns outside of walled gardens.

Craig Dempster, president, Merkle Americas, said: “4Cite represents a unique opportunity for Merkle to obtain a growing, profitable business that will simultaneously create new identity resolution capabilities for Merkle’s marketing technology business. The 4Cite acquisition plays a critical role in the future-proofing of our platform in a world where the third-party cookie is crumbling.”

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.