As part of its Q3 2021 earnings discussion, Dun & Bradstreet announced that it acquired two digital marketing companies: NetWise and Eyeota.  The acquisitions “extend the company’s position in the B2B online marketing value chain and will build upon its rapidly growing Audience Solutions business by adding global scale and the online data to power omnichannel marketing around the world.”

“Dun & Bradstreet’s acquisitions of Eyeota and NetWise will cap-off several years of investment in the Sales and Marketing space, including the acquisition of our Customer Data Platform, Lattice Engines, which is at the core of our D&B Rev.Up platform, and the acquisition of Orb Intelligence to link digital and physical businesses in our Data Cloud,” said CMO Stacy Greiner.  “We are executing on our vision to help revenue-generating teams get out of the business of wrangling data and technology and back to engaging with their customers and prospects to drive growth for their companies.”

Dun & Bradstreet noted that marketers have a broad set of digital channels but are unsure whether their advertising dollars reach their targeted audiences online across multiple digital touchpoints.  The three companies “will be able to provide data and technology that empowers businesses to confidently identify, reach, and engage high propensity B2B audiences for multichannel marketing campaigns.”

“Our online Audience Solutions business continues to see robust growth rates, and we see a significant untapped opportunity in the online business-to-business marketing landscape. This led us to strengthen our position through the signing of definitive agreements to acquire Eyeota and NetWise,” said Jabbour.  “These two complementary companies will extend our position further in the B2B online marketing value chain and build upon a business that has grown over 40% year to date.

The acquisitions extend Dun & Bradstreet audience channels from B2B to B2B2C, helping businesses target business decision-makers at home and improving match rates.  The deals also provide Dun & Bradstreet with an international ecosystem of digital activation platforms.  Other vendors with B2B2C datasets include AnalyticsIQ BusinessCore and Data Axle B2CLink (FKA Execureach).

“This will enable clients to build on the investments they have made into Data Management mastered on the D-U-N-S Number, and more readily activate that data in social, search and display advertising campaigns,” stated the firm.

“We are solving for the current audience shrinkage these marketers face today with the low match rates that plague this industry.  This will enable clients to build upon the investments they’ve made into data management mastered on the D-U-N-S Number and more readily activate that data in social, search and display advertising campaigns.  Said simply, Dun & Bradstreet has the offline B2B targeting data, NetWise enables marketers to translate that data into online audiences, and Eyeota syndicates it across the digital ecosystem.”

Dun & Bradstreet CEO Anthony Jabbour

As Work from Home and Work from Anywhere are likely to remain the dominant approaches to professional work in the coming years, marketers need to engage business professionals across multiple devices, channels, and locations with a consistent message.  The acquisitions assist with both multichannel audience targeting and activation, tying together offline and digital.

---

Continue to Part II, which discusses Netwise, or Part III which discusses Eyeota.