Influencer marketing company later acquires Mavely for $250 million to help marketers track their sales

Private equity firm Later announced plans to acquire influencer marketing company Mavely in a cash and stock deal valued at $250 million.

Later manages social media and influence campaigns where creators receive commissions for posting sponsored content. Mavely runs a network of 120,000 creators who work with 1,400 brands and retailers like Nike and Macy’s. Mavely also has tools that brands use to track sales generated by influencer campaigns.

This sales tracking technology was the main driver of the acquisition, said Scott Sutton, CEO of Later.

Mavely’s technology can track sales of specific products from individual campaigns, he said.

“When we spoke with our marketers, one of the most important things they wanted to see was bottom-of-funnel results and the ROI generated by their campaigns and marketing efforts,” he said. Sutton told ADWEEK. “As the business grows and matures, marketers want to understand and drive performance with greater accountability and more data. This is what we are aiming for. »

Until now, Later has mainly focused on providing marketers with broader metrics such as brand awareness and consideration, but it lacked data to prove influencer marketing’s performance, a- he declared.

Private equity firm Summit Partners owns Later and financed the acquisition. Mavely was owned by beauty and wellness company Nu Skin Enterprises, which acquired it in 2021.

Influencer Marketing M&A Heats Up

The acquisition of Later is the latest in a series of recent mergers and acquisitions in the influencer marketing space.

Marketers are increasingly looking for influencer marketing companies to handle everything from sourcing talent, running campaigns, and measuring campaign performance.

In July, Publicis Groupe acquired Influential for a reported amount of $500 million. The same month, Stagwell announced its acquisition from influencer marketing company Leaders. And influencer marketing company Izéa acquired sports marketing company The Reiman Agency.

Brands are also becoming more sophisticated in their influencer campaigns, Sutton said. For example, brands are shifting their performance-based advertising budgets from programmatic campaigns to influencer campaigns, he said. Historically, that money came from social media budgets, he said.

Brands are also merging their influencer and commerce teams on campaigns using a mix of micro-influencers and A-list celebrities. While celebrities have a large audience that can attract the attention of brands, micro-influencers have an audience targeted to specific areas and interests, Sutton said. Later has run over three million influencer campaigns and uses proprietary AI to model the performance brands can expect when working with specific influencers.

“We’re looking to balance not only working with the smaller creators or the larger ones, but also a mix of all sizes,” Sutton said.