Publicis Groupe Acquires Mars United Commerce, Zones in on Full-Funnel Marketing

This move, alongside the recent acquisition of Influential and messaging from CJU24, suggests Publicis has firmly set its sights on full-funnel marketing solutions.

Publicis Groupe has announced the acquisition of Mars United Commerce, the world’s largest independent commerce marketing company. Founded 50 years ago, Mars United employs over 1,000 staff across 14 global hubs, providing proprietary commerce insights and extensive retailer relationships. The acquisition is set to enhance Publicis’ existing capabilities in shopper behaviour and data-driven marketing.

The integration of Mars’ expertise is expected to complement Publicis’ current assets, such as Epsilon’s first-person identity data and Profitero’s e-commerce insights, creating a comprehensive solution for clients seeking to navigate the complexities of modern marketing.

The acquisition appears to be part of Publicis’ focus on full-funnel marketing solutions; a goal that was emphasised at the recent CJU24 event in Santa Barbara.

Santi Pierini, CEO of CJ (a Publicis-owned affiliate network), said that this was one of CJ’s priorities for the year ahead in an exclusive interview with Hello Partner.

“When I joined, I saw the opportunity to come in with a very ‘full-funnel customer journey’ message to the marketplace, because we had all the capabilities, but we weren't talking about it enough,” he said. “The top priority was to create that full-funnel message to understand how we could amplify all of the channels within an organisation's marketing structure. That was job one.”

Publicis’ recent acquisition of Influential also appears to relate to this mission. In our interview, Pierini highlighted the potential of bringing affiliate and influencer marketing together.

“I've been on the board of Influential for the past seven years, and believe so much that the convergence of what we do in the affiliate world, the partner marketing world, and the creator-generated-content and influencer worlds are going to come together,” he remarked.

“If you think about the strengths of influencer: big, wide neck; a lot of people that are micro-impressive on their travel, fashion, or beauty knowledge. But how do you convert that consistently? Well, affiliate marketing is a pretty nice engine to sit underneath influencer marketing to drive those conversions.”

The integration of Mars United is said to provide clients with enhanced insights into consumer behaviour, enabling them to optimise their marketing strategies across both online and offline channels. Publicis aims to leverage this acquisition to create a connected commerce solution that optimises every stage of the marketing process.

With this acquisition, it seems that Publicis is serious about a full-funnel future.