ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space.

Publicis-Omnicom calamity raises more questions than answers
The big news in the advertising world this week has been the collapse of the proposed $35bn merger between Publicis and Omnicom, with both companies citing “no one factor” as to the reason for the breakdown.

Popular opinion has it that the “merger of equals” (which was initially proposed in July last year), has already racked up $50m in cost, and although both companies cited issues such as differing tax structures, and diverging cultures, as to reasons for the split, there are almost certainly more reasons at play here.

Undoubtedly both client relationships and margins have been hit hard, with ExchangeWire sources claiming that a number of Publicis’ client relationships were aversely affected by the proposed deal.

Also, financial analysts are tipping Publicis as a potential buyer of agency group IPG.  Analyst house PVTL claims IPG will be an is an obvious target for Publicis, given the France-based outfit’s designs towards gaining scale.

AOL falls victim to Alibaba’s S-1 filing?
Two events this week have raised questions as to investors’ appetite for ad tech stock, with Alibaba’s S-1 filling reckoned to have (temporarily at least) dampened Wall Street’s enthusiasm for other companies in the sector, with AOL proving the first high-profile casualty.

The Chinese internet giant Alibaba this week filed documents for a public share sale in the US, which is widely expected to be one of the biggest in history with analysts expecting it to raise more than $15bn, topping Facebook’s share sale.

Big news indeed, but ExchangeWire sources claim one of the adverse affects of this is that Alibaba’s imminent IPO means the rest of the ad tech is waning in terms of interest from investors. Hence AOL’s share price dropped by as much as 24% this week despite reporting Q1 earnings this week that actually beat earlier analyst expectations.

AOL, a company that is widely regarded as going through a renaissance period at present, this week reported Q1 earnings of $583.1m, an 8% year-on-year growth in revenue, and the fifth consecutive period of growth. An upswing in revenues that it attributes to its focus on offering an increased array of ad tech services to media buyers.

Criteo earnings further herald the rise of the data driven bidder
France-based Criteo this week announced its second quarterly earnings since floating with revenues of €152.5m for the first quarter of 2014 – representing a 68.4% annual growth – based on boosted customer numbers (up 46% year-on-year), as well as existing clients spending more with the company generating the growth.

But more interestingly, the company also used the announcement to declare its intention to increase investment in its its bidding technology as it aims to reduce its reliance on display advertising, as well as improving its cross-platform ad serving portfolio.

The previous six months were marked by a number of acquisitions from Criteo, with the company’s purchases (which include bidding technology firm AdQuantic, and email marketing firm Tedemis) aiming to help it expand its portfolio of services, namely with the improvement of its bidding technology, as well as moving into email.

Criteo CEO Jean Baptiste Rudelle hailed the results as a “record quarter”, adding that clients have been pushing us to move across to other channels.

This publication believes that Criteo’s aim to boost its bidding technologies reflects the need for ad tech companies to pivot their offering in the much anticipated budget-squeeze at agency trading desk level, what will be key to the success of Criteo’s strategy is its ability to pack its bidder full of proprietary data segments.

Sociomantic prepares for further European growth
Sociomantic this week announced it has made several appointments in Europe to further bolster its growth in the region, its first significant announcement since it was purchased by Tesco-owned Dunhumby for a reputed $200m.

The company announced that Robert Bosch, who joined Sociomantic as chief sales officer for EMEA in August of 2013, has been now been handed a global brief to spearhead its worldwide push, while Gavin Wilson, previously Sociomantic’s MD for the UK, has now been promoted to MD for Northern and Southern Europe.

The newest addition to Sociomantic’s management team will be Karsten Müller, currently deputy COO at Axel Springer Media Impact in Germany, who will serve as Sociomantic’s MD for the DACH region (Germany, Switzerland and Austria).

Dunhumby’s purchase of Sociomantic was one of the biggest ad tech M&A deals in Europe’s history, and is likely to spark a huge series of acquisitions as first party data players look to move into the programmatic media space.

Sociomantic, one of the leading independent players in the retargeting market, has built its own bidder technology and is integrated with most supply sources globally. The company has offices in 14 markets and was rumoured to have a run rate of $100 million.