Agency holding company Stagwell is acquiring publisher monetization network Freestar, it announced Monday.
The deal is the latest sign that media buyers are moving closer to publishers to shorten supply chains and get the audience data they need to train AI agents.
The companies did not disclose the price, but the deal was completed. Needham & Company advised Freestar on the transaction.
Stagwell is acquiring Freestar’s product and service offerings, said Ben Berentson, CEO of Owned Media, the holding company’s division for its owned publishing and media properties.
Stagwell’s global media business can now draw directly on inventory and data from the Freestar network of more than 1,000 publishers, serving nearly a billion advertising requests per day. This is a valuable asset for training The Media Machine, Stagwell’s agent operating system.
Berentson told AdExchanger that Stagwell is not acquiring publishers in the Freestar network, only the technology they use to monetize and existing customer relationships. Stagwell will retain all Freestar employees and its management team.
Evolve to Compete
The Freestar acquisition is the latest in a series of moves by Stagwell, which began 11 years ago and has moved quickly because “this huge legacy doesn’t hold us back,” Berentson said.
This year again, Stagwell deployed its own curation platform, Stagwell Curate; reorganized and rebranded its global media business as Stagwell Media; and brought The Media Machine to market.
Berentson said the deal with Freestar continues Stagwell’s mission to serve advertisers while delivering more media spend to publishers.
Freestar’s partnerships with premium news publishers, including the Associated Press, Reuters, Fortune and The Boston Globe, should help Stagwell advance its Future of News initiative to allocate larger media budgets to news organizations, Berentson said. Stagwell launched the initiative in 2024 to persuade advertisers that the information is safe and effective for the brand.
But Stagwell also saw an opportunity to work with Freestar publishers that aren’t part of its broader news monetization efforts, he said.
As examples, he cited clients Freestar Sports Reference (which includes Baseball Reference and other sports statistics sites), Enthusiast Gaming (which runs online communities and wikis for video game IPs), and SignUpGenius (which handles web registrations, fundraising, and online ticket sales).
He added that Freestar’s service also helps mid- and long-tail publishers connect with advertisers.
With Freestar, Stagwell can curate more loyal audiences on these publisher properties than before, Berentson said. It can also use the Freestar network to expand its audience for broader media buying and to improve its own media buying strategy.
But, he stressed, it’s up to advertisers to decide whether or not to include Freestar inventory in a campaign.
A more agile era
Stagwell also sees the Freestar acquisition as a way to solidify its own managed services strategy.
Berentson said publishers need to prepare for an agentic era in which the agility and flexibility of data connections will be more important than owning sell-side ad technology.
Working with publishers including Condé Nast, Vogue and Glamour, he said he has seen firsthand how publishers can have mixed success with owned-and-operated technology. He expects more publishers to seek the type of managed monetization services that Freestar specializes in.
The acquisition won’t change much in Freestar’s day-to-day operations, Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell told AdExchanger.
But it brings more resources to Freestar to invest in its pubOS monetization platform and product roadmap, he said. “In addition, we will be able to provide new insights from Stagwell products such as Marketing Cloud,” he added. “This allows us to better understand what really drives results for both advertisers and publishers. »
And as publishers face pressure from AI search reducing their traffic and buyers consolidating their spend across fewer channels, Donnell said, the only answer is to help drive better performance on both sides.
But publishers shouldn’t see much change in the way they work with Freestar. They will still get the same service they always have, Donnell said.
“We’re keeping the same name, the same leadership, the same team and the same offerings,” he said. “Publishers will continue to work with the same account, produce and support the same people. »
While optimizing the supply journey is a priority for Stagwell, Berentson said, the holding company has no plans to micromanage Freestar’s partnerships with DSPs, SSPs or other ad tech providers.
Stagwell likes what Freestar already does, he said, and doesn’t want to touch what works for publishers.
“We see ourselves as an advocate for publishers,” Berentson said. “We are in an era of agility, and we believe Freestar can empower publishers with that agility. »
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