WPP Acquires InfoSum: A Strategic Move into the Future of Data Collaboration and Privacy-First Marketing

In a move that signals the rapidly evolving landscape of data-driven marketing, WPP has acquired InfoSum, a pioneer in data clean room technology. At first glance, this may seem like a traditional SaaS acquisition, but dig deeper, and it reveals WPP’s forward-looking strategy to redefine how marketing is done in a post-cookie, privacy-regulated world.

Why InfoSum?

InfoSum’s platform allows brands, media owners, and data providers to match customer datasets without ever moving or exposing the underlying data. This “non-movement of data” model solves one of the most pressing challenges in modern marketing: how to collaborate on consumer insights without breaching privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

For WPP, whose business revolves around creating data-led, personalized experiences for global brands, this is not a peripheral tool, it’s central infrastructure.

The Context: Third-Party Cookies Are Crumbling

With Google phasing out third-party cookies and Apple tightening data collection norms, marketers are in a bind. First-party data has become gold, and the ability to activate it securely and collaboratively is critical.

InfoSum’s clean room technology lets WPP’s agencies bring together disparate datasets, from clients, publishers, platforms without breaching compliance protocols. It’s privacy by design, at scale.

Strategic Implications for WPP

This move positions WPP:

• As a leader in privacy-first advertising,
• With a proprietary, scalable clean room stack that rivals third-party solutions,
• And a way to future-proof its client offerings in a cookieless world.

Furthermore, owning a platform like InfoSum could reduce WPP’s reliance on external data clean rooms provided by competitors such as Google’s Ads Data Hub or Amazon Marketing Cloud.

What It Signals for the Broader Market?

For the M&A community, this acquisition is a cue that:

• Clean rooms are no longer a “nice-to-have,” they are becoming a core part of the MarTech stack.
• Ad holding companies are not just service providers anymore, they are building (or buying) foundational technology.
• Strategic acquisitions will focus less on scale and more on data sovereignty, interoperability, and compliance.

The Bigger Picture

At Sett & Lucas, we see this deal as a watershed moment. It marks the transition from performance marketing to privacy-respecting precision marketing. It’s the kind of strategic alignment between compliance, consumer trust, and commerce that will define the next decade of digital advertising.