Adobe Systems Inc. has agreed to acquire digital marketing firm Efficient Frontier, the company said on Nov. 30. The acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of Adobe’s 2012 fiscal year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Our goal here is to create the industry’s first digital marketing and ad buying platform,” said Aseem Chandra, VP of marketing at Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business. Chandra said the capabilities coming together between the Digital Marketing Suite from Adobe and the ad buying and optimization capabilities from Efficient Frontier form a powerful combination.
David Karnstedt, president and CEO of Efficient Frontier, said the company agreed to the acquisition because it shared Adobe’s vision of becoming the digital marketing platform of the future and saw that the companies could “move faster and more swiftly” toward that goal by combining resources.
Efficient Frontier buys and optimizes media across search, auction-based display and social through various proprietary algorithms. Efficient Frontier will become part of Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business, but the companies are still sorting out integration plans, said Chandra. He said that he could not “answer specifically” whether all Efficient Frontier employees will be retained. Karnstedt will remain with the company through the acquisition’s close. The acquisition introduces no client conflicts.
Adobe said in November that it had acquired video ad management firm Auditude. Asked if Adobe has any more acquisition plans over the next 12 months, Chandra said that the company will continue to expand its product footprint through both organic development and acquisition. He said there’s “a ton of opportunity” around media monetization, personalization and multichannel campaign execution.
