Merkle (www.merkle.com), a leading technology-enabled, data-driven performance marketing agency and the nation’s largest privately-held agency, announced its acquisition of Pointmarc (www.pointmarc.com), a leading digital analytics consultancy with world-class site analytics and optimization capabilities, headquartered in Seattle, WA.

Merkle’s growth strategy is rooted in the enhancement and scaling of its digital capabilities across data, analytics, technology, and experience design and creation. Pointmarc’s business model fits into that plan by providing actionable analytics and technology instrumentation services for world-class brands across a number of key industries. Merkle’s interest in acquiring Pointmarc was based on its expertise in highly specialized, sophisticated data architecture and engineering, as well as the immediate scale that it will bring to the agency’s existing site analytics and channel optimization capabilities. In addition, Pointmarc’s deeply ingrained relationships with key technology partners – most notably Adobe – will strengthen Merkle’s existing partnership.

“As a longstanding Adobe premier partner, Pointmarc has a proven track record of providing transformative analytics services to Fortune 500 companies via Adobe Marketing Cloud,” said Tony Sanders, senior director SI and ISV Partner Sales, Adobe. “We expect this new strategic partnership between Merkle and Pointmarc to greatly benefit our shared global clients.”

Founded in 2006, Pointmarc has achieved double-digit percentage growth every year since its inception. The company boasts relationships with such Fortune 500 market leaders as Microsoft, Williams-Sonoma, and T-Mobile. In 2014, Pointmarc was named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies and Seattle Business Magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For.” The Pointmarc team of more than 100 digital analytics professionals will all join Merkle, growing the agency’s combined Quantitative Marketing Group to a robust 450 experts in data and analytics.

“We are proud to welcome the Pointmarc team into the Merkle family,” said Zhengda “Z” Shen, Merkle’s executive vice president, quantitative marketing group. “The acquisition of Pointmarc will immediately scale our site analytics and channel optimization offerings. We are excited about Pointmarc’s expertise in connecting data into and across the marketing cloud, deep testing and analysis experience to drive incremental site performance, and its trusted reputation in selecting, implementing and configuring site technology.”

“From a cultural perspective, Pointmarc’s leadership and management philosophy are very similar to Merkle’s own. We were immediately attracted to their high-growth, entrepreneurial spirit and their focus on building long-standing client relationships with top-tier brands,” said David Williams, Merkle chairman and CEO.  “With Merkle’s focus on performance marketing and the expanding mid-funnel, Pointmarc’s capabilities in digital data architecture, marketing platform implementation, and site optimization across key industries will perfectly complement the value we bring to our clients’ channel marketing efforts.”

Pointmarc president, Kevin Woo, commented, “We are absolutely excited about joining the Merkle team. We share a passion for being ‘data first’ in the way we build our services and in the value we bring to clients. This union is very strategic, it meets strong demand in the marketplace, and we can’t wait to collectively grow our leadership position in marketing analytics.” Arsenio Valdez, Pointmarc CEO, added, “The cultural fit between Pointmarc and Merkle is what drove us to make this decision. It’s our strong belief that together, as part of the Merkle family, Pointmarc’s vision and mission of ‘transforming the way companies operate by unlocking the power of digital analytics’ will continue to flourish.”