by

Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, (February 16, 2018)

LiveRamp, an Acxiom company, on Thursday announced the acquisition of Pacific Data Partners. The move supports the company’s acceleration into supporting businesses targeting professionals in people-based marketing.

Through the acquisition, LiveRamp will add a B2B division, said Jeff Smith, CMO and general manager at LiveRamp, which has been more focused on supporting companies targeting consumers through data.

Pieter De Temmerman and Grant Ries, co-founders of Pacific Data Partners and former Oracle and BlueKai veterans, will join LiveRamp. In their new roles, Temmerman and Ries will help spearhead efforts to extend LiveRamp’s people-based marketing efforts to B2B marketers.

In total, about five employees will going to LiveRamp. Smith said the company will likely hire an additional 20 to 30 people this year to build out its B2B business.

In addition to the talent, LiveRamp acquires Pacific Data Partners’ 50 billion B2B and B2C data records globally.

The two companies have worked together for some time, so little integration of the technology is required. One integration that may take some time is combining professional and personal data.

Eventually, Smith said, as the company builds out its graph, the data used to target consumers — such as “Jeff the dad and rock climber” — will combine with business professional data that tells the advertiser about “Jeff the CMO at LiveRamp” to connect the two personas.

“The ad the B2B marketer serves me could use an image of someone on the side of a mountain even if they’re trying to sell me a piece of tech,” he said.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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