UPDATE: May 22, 2025: The Captiv8 brand will remain following its integration with Influential, while the company’s global team is moving into Publicis. Captiv8 CEO Krishna Subramanian and Influential CEO Ryan Detert will retain their respective leadership roles.

Dive Brief:

• Publicis Groupe is acquiring the influencer marketing platform Captiv8, according to a press release. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. 
• Captiv8 wields a network of 15 million creators, representing about 95% of influencers with over 5,000 followers globally, as well as proprietary technology to help brands manage functions including social commerce, social listening and measurement.
• Publicis will wed Captiv8’s capabilities with those of Influential, which the agency acquired last year, enhancing both through its data-marketing arm Epsilon. The group’s moves to shore up influencer marketing know-how follow clients shifting more budgets to social media and the creator economy.  

Dive Insight:

Publicis strengthens its foothold in the key influencer marketing space with Captiv8, which specializes in talent management, measurement and social commerce, with the latter service area including branded storefronts and TikTok Shop partnerships. The acquisition complements one the ad-holding group made last year for Influential, a platform focused on client services, such as sourcing creators for brands via a marketplace and extending the reach and impact of social media campaigns. 

Influential at the time was the largest influencer marketing platform by revenue while Captiv8 was billed in this week’s announcement as the world’s “largest influencer technology marketing platform.” The Influential purchase was valued at around $500 million while Captiv8’s price tag is pegged at $150 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the deal terms. 

Captiv8 operates in 120 countries and processes over 2.5 billion social posts annually. Captiv8 will be located under the Publicis Connected Media unit and integrated into Influential. Both platforms boast know-how in artificial intelligence, a technology Publicis wants to further soup up through Epsilon’s identity graph.

Taken together, the two companies give Publicis the advantage of scale and end-to-end capabilities in a category where more brands are shifting their dollars amid a decline in traditional media. 

“This platform is a one-stop-shop for our clients’ influencer marketing initiatives,” said Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun in a statement. “With what is now the largest influencer community, underpinned by the most advanced tech platform, we can ignite earned-first programs on behalf of brands, to supercharge campaigns with authentic virality and connect directly to commerce.”

In an example of the momentum behind influencer marketing, Unilever recently stated it intends to allocate half of its marketing budget to social media, up from 30%, while increasing its work with creators 20-fold. Unilever has utilized Captiv8’s solutions, as have blue-chip marketers like Kraft Heinz, American Express and the NBA.   

Publicis earlier this year acquired identity solutions firm Lotame to expand Epsilon, bringing its reach to nearly 4 billion unique consumer profiles around the world, or about 91% of internet-connected adults. The firm remains on a dealmaking hot streak, making use of its war chest as it remains the top-performing ad-holding group in a largely beleaguered agency sector. The company saw organic revenue, an important measure of agency health, increase 4.9% year over year in Q1, though, like rivals, it has acknowledged that tariffs could dent client spending.