Alliance Data to Buy Conversant for $2.3 billion

Consumer behavior specialist Alliance Data is to buy personalized digital marketing specialist Conversant (formerly known as ValueClick) in a cash and stock deal worth up to $2.3 billion.

Westlake Village, CA-based Conversant offers a fully integrated personalization platform, promising users help in delivering the most appropriate messages to consumers at the most appropriate time and on the right device.

In a statement, Alliance Data said the acquisition establishes it as a 'unique end-to-end' marketing services company, with an offering that taps into first-party and third-party, online and off-line, unstructured and structured data from transactional to demographic / psychographic. The resulting analytics offer clients insights about their customers; personalized targeting methodologies; and ROI measurement.

John Giuliani (pictured), Conversant CEO, comments: 'Through the use of first-party transactional data, and the ability to use the insights gleaned to personalize campaigns, our model becomes more similar to Alliance Data's own successful model. Gaining access to the huge data-driven platforms at Alliance Data will allow the combined entity to offer clients an end-to-end solution across all channels.'

Web sites: www.alliancedata.com and www.conversantmedia.com .