Hightouch isn’t backing away from its proposal to acquire key pieces of LiveRamp.
Following Axios’ report that Hightouch offered Publicis between $800 million and $1.2 billion for LiveRamp’s identity and onboarding businesses, Hightouch co-CEO Tejas Manohar publicly confirmed the bid on LinkedIn and laid out the company’s reasoning.
(Also, see Manohar on the Signal & Noise podcast earlier today discussing this.)
Why This Matters:
Manohar says the proposal is driven by both product strategy and customer demand. He argues that Hightouch’s onboarding and measurement products are already better than LiveRamp’s and says brands and agencies have been approaching Hightouch for neutral alternatives since Publicis announced the acquisition.
The broader pitch is Hightouch could combine its newer stack with LiveRamp’s customer base, creating what Manohar describes as a “win-win-win” for everyone — Publicis, Hightouch, and customers.
The comments also show how competitors are positioning themselves as neutral players as more ad/data infrastructure becomes owned by large holding companies.
Experts React:
Here’s the full LinkedIn post from Hightouch co-CEO Tejas Manohar on the thinking:
Did Hightouch make an offer to buy a portion of LiveRamp? Yes, we did.
“Wait, why would you do that!?” — the internet
A few reasons:
- We already sell a competing data onboarding and measurement product, MatchBooster, and tend to win head-to-head against LiveRamp on performance, usability, speed, and security.
- Since the Publicis-LiveRamp news broke, brands and agencies have come to us interested in neutral alternatives. Fair or not, it’s real market sentiment.
- We’d love the opportunity to bring our more modern technology to the large customer base LiveRamp has built over 10+ years.
We believe this scenario would be a win-win-win: LiveRamp gets its Publicis acquisition, Publicis gets many of LiveRamp’s most valuable assets plus software DNA to drive transformation in the age of AI, and Hightouch accelerates its market share in adtech and data onboarding.
Most importantly, brands and agencies would get a modern, neutral solution — without a daunting technology replacement cycle.
And we don’t stop there. We’re the leading the way for the world’s largest brands to use data and AI across every part of the journey: performance creative, CRM, web/app.
I’ll be in Cannes next week. If you’re a brand or agency that wants to talk, just reach out:
Our Take:
This feels thirsty, no? This feels less like M&A and more like a Cannes PR campaign.
Hightouch is very publicly making its case: publishing open letters, leaking letters (come on now), promoting the proposal on LinkedIn, and even inviting conversations directly as the industry heads into Cannes (dropping an email address, no less!). It’s a smart way to generate attention around the company’s positioning, whether or not a deal was ever likely. The more the company talks about it, though, the more it feels like an adtech PR campaign in disguise.
