M&A trends in performance marketing

The “social performance” approach: inside the ManyMinds Group acquisition and the consolidation wave in performance marketing

Part I: Executive summary

This report examines the ManyMinds Group’s purchase of the agency brands HAPPYGANG and GIPFELXBERG, and places the deal against the wider M&A patterns reshaping digital marketing. The acquisition is the industry’s consolidation in miniature, and it shows how sharply the market has turned toward integrated, data-led marketing.

The central finding is that ManyMinds did not buy two independent agencies. It bought the deliberately restructured, complementary performance-marketing assets of cormes GmbH. That distinction is the whole story: it let ManyMinds acquire a finished “social performance” ecosystem, pairing creative content production (HAPPYGANG) with data-driven, conversion-focused delivery (GIPFELXBERG). The approach cuts post-merger integration risk sharply and brings a coherent service offering to market far faster.

Across more than ten comparable transactions, the same strategy recurs. Three forces drive it:

Expect M&A to stay busy, above all in e-commerce, data analytics, retail media and AI-assisted marketing. Valuations for specialized, high-quality agencies will hold up. For independents, the strategic choice is hardening: specialize deeply enough to become an attractive target, or take on investment and scale into a platform. What follows sets out these dynamics in detail and offers an outlook for investors, agency leaders and marketing decision-makers.

• Demand for integrated, end-to-end solutions: clients increasingly want full-funnel partners who cover the entire customer journey, from awareness through to conversion.
• The strategic value of data and AI: agencies with a demonstrable record in data analytics, first-party data strategy and AI-assisted optimization command a clear valuation premium when they are acquired.
• The rise of buy-and-build platforms: private equity investors and new holding companies such as ManyMinds are assembling specialist agency groups to compete as nimble alternatives to the established global networks.

Part II: Anatomy of the deal — ManyMinds Group acquires performance assets

The purchase of HAPPYGANG and GIPFELXBERG is no routine acquisition. It is a precise, thesis-led piece of M&A, built for maximum synergy and minimum integration friction. Understanding why it matters means looking closely at who was involved and what each side was after.

The buyer: the ManyMinds Group “agency accelerator” model

ManyMinds Group GmbH, based in Hamburg, was founded as a holding company with a clear and current ambition: to build a leading “social performance group.” Its brief goes beyond passive investment. It presents itself as an agency accelerator, joining the creative craft of social media agencies to the data expertise of performance and programmatic specialists. The stated aim is to give agencies a platform on which to stay relevant in a fast-moving field, take less risk and grow steadily under a proper structure.

The founding team — industry veterans Michael Schierhold (CEO) and Michael Rokoss (CFO), alongside the well-known investor Andreas Jacobs — signals how large the ambition is. Their vision is a network in which every agency keeps its own culture and identity while drawing on the group’s combined strength. It is pitched as an alternative for agency founders who do not want to sell outright to a large network and watch their brand fade into it.

The group’s method was already visible in its first deal: the acquisition of M2L Agency in Munich. M2L is a classic performance shop, specializing in search advertising (SEA), social advertising (SMA) and affiliate marketing.4 What M2L reported afterward bears out the ManyMinds model: broader resources, access to new technology and specialists, and the ability to deliver joined-up work across every digital channel. The part singled out was the link between social media for reach and engagement and performance marketing for measurable conversion — precisely the “social performance” synergy ManyMinds is chasing.

The targets: HAPPYGANG and GIPFELXBERG, a deliberate restructuring of cormes GmbH

One point is essential to understanding this transaction: ManyMinds did not acquire two unrelated companies. It acquired two highly specialized brands that emerged from a deliberate reorganization of the Berlin marketing and media network cormes GmbH.5 Cormes split its in-house capabilities into two clearly drawn units, sharpening the strengths of each and positioning both as focused — and therefore more attractive — acquisition targets.

HAPPYGANG was positioned as the specialist for organic social content. It works as a full-service digital agency with a heavy emphasis on content marketing, social media management, video production and community building. Its DNA is that of a publisher, a point underlined by the success of its own brand “WISSTIHRNOCH?”, which reaches an audience in the millions. Its services run the whole chain, from strategy through SEO and web design to e-commerce, always against measurable targets.6 It offers paid media such as SEA and SMA as well, but its center of gravity is creative, content-led, socially rooted communication.

GIPFELXBERG was created for the opposite purpose: to concentrate the deep performance-marketing expertise inside cormes. Led by the former heads of the cormes performance marketing unit, Florian Kiel and Robert Franzke, it is a pure performance agency. Its focus is search advertising, social advertising, analytics and tracking, and a deliberate build-out of programmatic.10 What sets it apart is the weight it puts on algorithms, artificial intelligence and “deep data” to make advertising more efficient and better targeted. The team is made up of proven performance specialists.11

Both brands sit under cormes GmbH 10 and share a common staffing history, which points to a deeply integrated operating base underneath the two distinct brand positions.

Deal rationale and where the value comes from

At first glance ManyMinds bought two agencies with complementary skills in social and performance. Look closer and a far more considered logic appears.

The acquisition fits the stated “social performance” thesis exactly. The group did not buy two separate agencies; it bought a ready-made, complementary system that forms a working social performance engine on day one. HAPPYGANG supplies the social half — creative, content, organic reach, community. GIPFELXBERG supplies the performance half — paid media, analytics, conversion optimization, a clear line to ROI. Together they deliver on the ManyMinds promise: content meets channels, emotion meets sales, brand meets data.

The real accomplishment, though, is efficiency. By buying assets cormes had already restructured and specialized, ManyMinds sidestepped the considerable complexity and risk of acquiring two culturally and operationally separate agencies and then merging them. It bought a system whose social and performance halves had grown out of the same company culture and were designed to work together. That accelerates the agency accelerator considerably. Instead of spending months or years welding two acquisitions into one coherent unit, ManyMinds could plug in a finished solution. The seller’s foresight in specializing created a perfect target for a buyer with a clear, focused strategy. So this deal is not merely about buying capability. It is about buying a pre-integrated solution that cuts risk sharply and shortens the road to a unified social performance offering — a notably sophisticated piece of M&A for a young holding company.

Part III: The consolidation landscape — comparable transactions

The ManyMinds deal is not an isolated event. It is representative of how busy M&A has become across digital marketing, and it only reads properly against comparable deals. The analysis below covers more than ten transactions, grouped by the type of buyer, and brings out the strategies and the forces behind them.

Table 1: Comparable M&A transactions in digital marketing

The table below gives a structured view of the landscape and allows a direct comparison. It brings out how differently established holding companies, private equity investors and newer disruptors think, and it makes the pattern behind the consolidation wave easier to see.

Reading the deals by buyer type

The activity falls into three dominant approaches, each pursued by a different kind of buyer.

What the holding companies are doing (Havas, Omnicom, IPG, Serviceplan)

The established global networks and the large independents — Havas, Omnicom, Serviceplan Group — buy primarily to close capability gaps and to offer clients integrated, end-to-end work.29 In a market where clients want one partner for the whole job, these groups have little choice but to add specialists in the fast-growing areas: performance marketing, e-commerce, data and AI.

Havas buying EPROFESSIONAL, a Hamburg agency strong in SEO/SEA and social, is a clear case of acquiring specific, in-demand skills to strengthen a local position. Its purchase of the Spanish agency Tidart aimed at global e-commerce and performance capability. Omnicom buying Jump 450 Media served the same end: folding in a pure performance agency to get better at measurable customer acquisition. The proposed Omnicom–IPG merger, at more than $13 billion, is that logic at its limit — a defensive move for sheer scale and a fully integrated portfolio able to compete with the technology giants and the large consultancies.

The private equity play (Findos, Equistone, Carlyle/Dept)

Private equity works differently. Rather than folding acquisitions into an existing, sprawling network, PE firms buy and build: they assemble new, highly specialized, fast-growing platforms.

Equistone forming the Performance Interactive Alliance (PIA) in 2014 is the prototype. Four complementary German specialists in performance media, web analytics, SEO/SEA and social were brought together under a new holding company to create a market leader. The Munich firm Findos is repeating the pattern: after acquiring the Danish digital consultancy Obsidian Digital it has added the Berlin agency Joli Berlin, building toward a full-service digital marketing group. Carlyle’s investment in Dept follows the same logic — M&A as the instrument for scaling a digital-native agency group quickly and taking it international, as the purchase of the US agency 3Q Digital shows.

The disruptor model (S4 Capital)

A third route is Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital, built to be a new-era marketing services organization from the ground up, purely digital.32 Its acquisitions — which it deliberately calls mergers, to signal partnership rather than absorption — serve three pillars: content, data and digital media, and technology services.

Buying 4 Mile Analytics in January 2022 is characteristic.27 S4 Capital did not add another agency; it added deep technical expertise in data analytics and cloud platforms such as Google Cloud and Looker. The conviction behind it is that technical and analytical capability is the foundation of modern marketing rather than an add-on, and that focus on core engineering skill is what separates S4 from the more traditional holding companies.

Part IV: The macro trends driving performance marketing M&A

The patterns visible deal by deal come out of deeper shifts across digital marketing. Several macro trends are pushing consolidation forward and redefining what makes an agency valuable.

The unstoppable move to integrated, end-to-end work

The days when clients would coordinate a dozen specialist agencies across creative, media, PR, performance and technology are ending. The market is moving decisively toward comprehensive, full-funnel work from a single strategic partner.29 This is the primary force behind consolidation. Advertisers want efficiency, coherence and one counterpart who understands and can orchestrate the entire customer journey — from first awareness through creative and social, to conversion through performance and e-commerce, to retention through CRM and analytics.

Buyers of every kind are responding by acquiring what completes their portfolio. Accenture Song buying Unlimited, a specialist in CRM and customer engagement, shows consultancies extending into marketing. IPG buying the e-commerce intelligence platform Intelligence Node shows the same instinct for pulling data-led commerce expertise directly into the offering, so clients can be helped to optimize how they sell online.

Data, analytics and AI as the new currency of agency value

An agency is no longer valued on creative reputation or media buying power alone. The premium today attaches to data and technology capability.29 Expertise in first-party data strategy and activation, AI-driven campaign optimization, advanced analytics modeling and proprietary martech or adtech platforms is what makes an agency an attractive target.

The end of the third-party cookie is accelerating this hard. As S4 Capital has noted, privacy changes at Apple (IDFA) and Google are forcing advertisers to work seriously with their own first-party data.27 Agencies that can help clients collect, analyze and activate that data for personalized communication — 4 Mile Analytics among them — become mission-critical partners. The ability to market effectively in a privacy-first world is a core skill the large networks and investors urgently need, and they are willing to pay for it.

Performance marketing and e-commerce as the engine of growth and accountability

In an uncertain economy with pressure on costs, clients want marketing tied directly to measurable business outcomes: leads, sales, a positive return on investment.36 Performance and e-commerce agencies sit at the center of that shift. They speak the CFO’s language as well as the CMO’s, and they deliver the accountability boardrooms now ask for.

That focus on measurable outcomes makes them the most sought-after targets in the market. Havas buying Tidart was explicitly about e-commerce capability,15 and Omnicom buying Jump 450 went straight at expertise in customer acquisition at scale. These agencies are their clients’ growth engines, which makes them the most valuable building blocks for buyers looking to secure their own growth through acquisition.

DACH as the central battleground

The ManyMinds deal did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in a hard-fought M&A market across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. International strategic buyers are present — Havas took Hamburg’s EPROFESSIONAL — and so is private equity: Findos investing in Berlin’s Joli Berlin, Equistone forming the Hamburg-based PIA Group. The region is a strategic focus for consolidation, and the market is competitive for buyers and sellers alike.

The activity is splitting the market in two. On one side, specialists are absorbed into the global structures of the large holding companies (EPROFESSIONAL at Havas). The purpose there is to close a specific capability gap inside a vast existing network and to open cross-selling. On the other, specialists are assembled by PE investors into new, focused platforms (Joli Berlin within the Findos platform). The purpose there is an agile, fast-growing unit that competes in its own right and is positioned for a future exit, whether a sale or a listing. Those two end states are fundamentally different, and they point to a two-track future for consolidation. Independent agencies face a choice between the two roads, while clients can increasingly choose between the integrated one-stop shops of the big networks and the agile, best-of-breed platforms of the new generation. ManyMinds is attempting a hybrid: the autonomy of specialists with the synergies of a group.

Part V: Outlook and recommendations

Reading the ManyMinds deal against the wider landscape supports a reasonably firm view of where performance marketing goes next. The trends identified carry consequences for everyone in the market.

What the next 18 to 24 months look like

Valuations. Agencies with strong, defensible specialization in fast-growing areas will keep their valuations. Expertise in e-commerce, data science, AI-assisted performance marketing and first-party data strategy will continue to earn premium multiples.29 Generalist digital agencies without one outstanding capability will struggle to attract either strategic buyers or financial investors, and will struggle to justify a high price.

Deal flow. Activity recovered in 2024 after a slower 2023 and looks set to stay high.34 The drivers are the need for inorganic growth while organic growth is slow,34 and continuing pressure for digital transformation across every industry. Private equity is expected to become more active again as the cost of capital falls, which will sharpen competition for good targets.38

Hot segments. The most sought-after targets will be in adtech, martech, data analytics, AI-assisted content automation, retail media and influencer marketing. These are the areas that decide the future of digital marketing, because they answer the demands clients now make around personalization, measurability and efficiency.

What this means for each side of the market

For independent agencies, the imperative is to specialize or to scale. Either develop first-rate expertise in a niche that is hard to copy and that larger players need to complete their portfolio, or seek investment and become a platform yourself. Standing still is not an option in this market. The cormes restructuring into HAPPYGANG and GIPFELXBERG is a masterclass in positioning for a successful exit: two clear propositions a buyer can understand at a glance.

For investors, whether financial or strategic, the flight to quality matters more than anything. Good companies with strong management, a demonstrable record and a clear growth plan will keep drawing competitive auctions and high prices. Thematic investing built on long-term structural shifts — AI disruption, the move to e-commerce, the weight of first-party data — will be the most successful approach.36 The ManyMinds model, a clear thesis-led acquisition strategy aimed at building one specific kind of agency group, is a promising one to watch.

For clients, the changing landscape calls for a more considered approach to procurement. The choice is no longer between agency brands but between fundamentally different agency models:

Clients need to weigh which of these fits their own needs for scale, speed, innovation and integration. Choosing an agency partner increasingly means choosing an operating and strategic ecosystem.

• The integrated global network: scale, global reach and a broad range of services from one source (Omnicom, Havas).
• The agile, PE-backed specialist platform: deep expertise, high agility and a digital-native culture (Dept, PIA Group).
• The digital disruptor: a radical focus on technology, data and new ways of working (S4 Capital).

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