Interpublic Group has acquired Salesforce solutions architect RafterOne as part of CEO Philippe Krakowsky’s strategy to grow the agency network’s data business and integrated commerce offering.
The terms of the contract are not disclosed.
RafterOne helps brands implement Salesforce solutions for B2B and B2C commerce. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based company is a Salesforce Summit Partner, which is the highest level awarded to Salesforce implementation partners.
RafterOne was formed just four months ago resulting from the merger of three companies: Docmation, GearsCRM and PixelMedia. Each offered different specialties within the different Salesforce clouds.
PixelMedia, a Salesforce-focused B2C commerce agency, sought to expand its capabilities after raising private equity funding from BV Investment Partners in January 2021. It partnered with Docmation in April 2021 to add B2B capabilities to his offer. Salesforce injected an undisclosed sum into the combined company in June 2021 through its investment vehicle Salesforce Ventures. The final piece of the puzzle, GearsCRM, joined the firm in November 2021 to provide expertise in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and MuleSoft integration software.
The new company was relaunched as RafterOne in June this year.
All founders remain with the company. PixelMedia co-founder and CEO Erik Dodier leads RafterOne as CEO, while fellow co-founder Thomas Obrey leads B2C. GearsCRM founder Harry Radenberg leads Sales and Service Cloud; Docmation founders Jay Sappidi leads B2B, Vikram Datla is CTO and Prasad Pamidi is COO. They will continue to hold these positions after the acquisition by IPG.
RafterOne has 500 employees in five offices in the United States, Canada and India.
RafterOne will operate as a standalone entity under IPG. Co-founder Dodier told Campaign US it wouldn’t make sense to merge RafterOne with another IPG agency because of its specialization. “If we can stay in our lane and focus on Salesforce, there’s a lot of room for growth,” he said.
“At this point, there is no timeline on RafterOne’s demise, if ever,” Dodier added. He plans to eventually integrate certain back-office functions into IPG.
The company will partner closely with IPG’s digital marketing agency, MRM, with which it already shares an undisclosed client. MRM will provide RafterOne with access to new customers in verticals such as automotive and life sciences, as well as access to a wide range of capabilities in data, marketing, branding and optimization, Dodier said. RafterOne’s biggest customers are in retail, manufacturing and high tech.
For IPG, RafterOne is a strategic bet for several reasons. The company will enhance IPG’s integrated commerce offering, expand its martech capabilities, and provide another avenue to monetize Acxiom’s data business.
“During our earnings calls, we’re often asked about the big picture and broader approach to M&A and we’ve been pretty consistent that commerce is an area we’re interested in,” the CEO said. ‘IPG, Philippe Krakowsky, at Campaign US in an interview.
“We see few customer engagements where e-commerce isn’t part of the brief, so clearly we need to make sure we have the wherewithal to integrate it into our overall offering and solve it, because it’s an area where customers are highly concentrated.
IPG is less of an acquirer than some of its agency network peers, preferring to grow organically. When assessing build, partner or acquire capabilities, Krakowsky said he wonders if anything is “core and central” to marketers’ digital transformation plans.
He thinks Salesforce is central enough to warrant an investment. Its tools form the backbone of many brands’ business operations, enabling them to manage everything from online sales to customer service and marketing. Meanwhile, e-commerce has exploded since the COVID pandemic, rising from 15% of global retail sales in 2019 to 22% this year, according to Morgan Stanley. It is expected to grow from a $3.3 trillion industry to a $5.4 trillion industry by 2026.
“You need to have broad expertise across so many technologies and platforms, but among the major ones you want to make sure you have the absolute best capabilities,” he said. “We are constantly reassessing whether something becomes strategic and essential enough that we feel it should be part of the offering, or whether it is something we will continue to be comfortable and successful with. simply to find partners.”
Kate MacNevin, President and CEO of MRM, said, “We’ve seen a huge increase in market demand around platforms like Salesforce because they bring the entire customer journey together on one platform.”
“Deep commerce capabilities and platform expertise have become essential in how we build and engage audiences for our clients,” she added.
Krakowsky and Dodier see an opportunity to use Acxiom’s data to power RafterOne’s solutions. Acxiom, which IPG acquired for $2.3 billion in 2018, was the holding company’s most expensive bet, and it continues to seek ways to integrate the data layer into its solutions.
This story first appearance on campaignlive.com.
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