Marketing
Ad spend is heading toward $1.1 trillion globally, but this is a lower-multiple game than the tech services world
Global ad spend is projected to reach US$1.1 trillion in 2026, growing at a 12.1% global CAGR, with APAC ad spend climbing to US$351 billion on the back of accelerating growth in Southeast Asia. That's a genuinely large, growing market. But if you're coming to marketing services from the technology consulting world, the first thing worth knowing is that the multiples here play by different rules: this is a lower-margin, lower-multiple category than almost anything in IT services, and understanding why tells you exactly what a buyer is actually paying for.
A familiar split, applied to a different industry
The market structure will look familiar if you've read our other pieces this year. Large enterprise clients account for roughly 60% of the market and drive continued acquisitions by the major agency groups (Publicis, WPP, Omnicom and peers) looking to consolidate expertise in high-demand areas. SMEs hold the remaining 40% and are driving "roll-up" activity, where multiple focused providers get combined into comprehensive service offerings attractive to both ends of the market.
Not all marketing services are valued the same way
The market splits into six segments: media and performance, creative and branding, customer experience and CRM, creative social and influencer, communications and PR, and AdTech and platforms. They are not interchangeable in a buyer's eyes. The highest demand and richest valuations, in both public and private markets, currently sit with CRM integration, data and analytics, and social or influencer capabilities. Generic creative or media-buying work, without a data or technology layer attached, commands far less.
That pattern shows up clearly in how the two biggest holding companies are actually spending their money. Publicis, trading at 6.5x EV/EBITDA on roughly US$20.2 billion in revenue, has built its growth around tech and data acquisitions (Epsilon, Lotame) and is explicitly buying influencer, AI and data companies. Havas, smaller at US$3.3 billion in revenue and trading at 3.6x, takes a more targeted approach, acquiring in specific high-growth sectors and setting an explicit target of €40-50 million in annual net revenue from acquisitions. Different scale, same underlying logic: buy capability you can't build fast enough yourself.
What the multiples tell you
Recent private transactions in marketing services show an EV/Gross Revenue range of roughly 0.4x to 4.4x, averaging around 1.1x (or closer to 1.8x once earn-outs are included). That average is lower than every technology services category we track, including the Salesforce and Microsoft ecosystems, which sit around 1.2x to 1.5x. Marketing services businesses generally carry lower gross margins and less recurring revenue than software-adjacent consulting, and buyers price that difference in directly. The businesses pulling toward the top of that 4.4x ceiling are, unsurprisingly, the ones that look more like technology companies: proprietary data assets, measurable performance outcomes, and defensible IP around automation or targeting.
Recent deals worth watching
- Publicis Groupe acquired Atomic 212 (2025, Australia), the country's largest independent full-service media agency, to scale its media capabilities with a business built on marketing technology and data rather than traditional buying alone.
- Havas acquired Kaimera (2025, Australia), a 50-person independent media agency, specifically to accelerate the rollout of its AI-driven operating system across Australia and New Zealand.
- Publicis Groupe agreed to acquire HEPMIL Media Group (2025, Singapore), Southeast Asia's leading influencer and creator agency, to build the region's first end-to-end, data-driven influencer platform. TruWater's own Hattie Marsden was quoted in Marketing-Interactive on this one, noting that HEPMIL isn't really "an influencer agency" being bought so much as a creator-distribution network built to plug directly into a holding company's media systems, a good example of how buyers are reframing what they're actually acquiring.
- Klick Health acquired Ward6 Singapore (2025), Singapore's largest independent life sciences marketing agency, purely to deepen healthcare-specific expertise in APAC, a clean example of vertical specialisation driving a deal on its own.
Deal volume dipped in 2025, but 2026 has already turned
Marketing M&A activity in 2025 mirrored the broader mid-market pattern we've seen across IT services too: total deal volume contracted as investors prioritised capital discipline, down from a 2022 peak of 852 global deals to 622 in 2025. But 2026 has started with a real rebound, including Singapore independents like GOVT exiting to VCCP. As in the technology categories we cover, the majority of APAC deals in the past 12 months were done by newer corporate acquirers rather than the traditional Big 6, which is opening up genuine exit opportunities for smaller agencies that might assume they're too small to attract serious interest.
What this means if you're building a marketing services business
A data or technology layer is the clearest way to a higher multiple. Firms with proprietary data assets, measurable performance outcomes, or defensible automation IP are consistently valued closer to the top of the range than agencies selling creative or media buying alone.
Vertical specialisation works here just as it does in technology services. The Klick/Ward6 deal shows a buyer paying specifically for healthcare-sector depth, not scale. If you have genuine expertise in a regulated or complex vertical, that's worth foregrounding.
Don't assume you need to be a Big 6 target to get a serious offer. The most active recent buyers in APAC have been mid-size platforms and regional players making strategic bolt-ons, not just the largest holding companies. Approaching a broader set of potential acquirers matters as much here as anywhere else we've covered this year.
The market is turning back up, so now is a reasonable time to prepare. After a quieter 2025, deal activity is picking up again in 2026. If a sale is on your horizon in the next year or two, the READY work is worth starting now rather than waiting for the market to get louder.
If you want to talk through where your business sits in this landscape, or what a realistic valuation looks like given your mix of capabilities, we're happy to help. Our full breakdown of Marketing Services M&A in APAC, including the six-segment framework, deal multiples, and our READY framework for exit preparation, is available in the whitepaper below.
[Download the full whitepaper: Growth and Consolidation, A Deep Dive into Marketing Services M&A in APAC →]