GroupM buys Keyade in France

FRANCE — WPP’s GroupM has acquired French digital performance specialist Keyade.

The company said that Keyade’s three founders Denis Vaillant, Julien Babin and Antoine Mermet, would remain in operational control. They set up the online performance marketing agency in 2006.

GroupM France’s CEO, Pierre Conte, will become Keyade’s chairman and serve on its board. Other board members will be Jean-François Busnel, CFO of GroupM France and the two co-executive directors of GroupM Interaction (GMI), Alexandra Chabanne and Olivier Mazeron.

Keyade will now operate autonomously within GroupM France, and act as a resource to GroupM agencies including KR Media, Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare.

Keyade’s proprietary attribution software for advertisers, Madmetrics, will be integrated within the data, tools, research and strategic planning offerings of GroupM France.

Antoine Mermet said that being a part of WPP will allow the business to accelerate its growth. While CEO of GroupM EMEA, Dominic Grainger, said: “The acquisition of Keyade in Paris is a part of GroupM’s global strategy to build new models for performance with advertisers.”