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  • March 2020
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Sizmek Chapter 11: Surviving Walled Gardens in Their Ad Tech Empire

By: Ayelet Israeli, Danilo Tauro and Sarah Gulick
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:19
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Abstract

This case provides a post-mortem of the advertising technology (adtech) company Sizmek. Sizmek grew via multiple acquisitions, with the vision of becoming an integrated adtech company that could leverage AI to buy digital media, while creating and serving display and video content. At its peak, one of its acquisitions had an IPO valuation of almost 1 billion dollars. However, Sizmek struggled with an integration that was taking longer than expected, but also with misalignment of agency incentives, stricter data privacy regulations, and the rise of the walled gardens – Google, Facebook, and Amazon – that made the adtech ecosystem very competitive, with dynamics of winners-take-all markets. By 2019 Sizmek had to file Chapter 11, and was sold in pieces. Is there anything Sizmek could have done differently in their go-to-market strategy, product road-map, or overall partnerships to avoid such rapid collapse?

Keywords

Digital Marketing; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Competition; Marketing; Advertising Industry; Web Services Industry; United States; Europe

Citation

Israeli, Ayelet, Danilo Tauro, and Sarah Gulick. "Sizmek Chapter 11: Surviving Walled Gardens in Their Ad Tech Empire." Harvard Business School Case 520-087, March 2020.
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About The Author

Ayelet Israeli

Marketing
→More Publications

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  • Cann: High Hopes for Cannabis Infused Beverages By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne V. Wilson
  • The Future of E-Commerce: Lessons from the Livestream Wars in China By: Ayelet Israeli, Jeremy Yang and Billy Chan
  • Hugging Face: Serving AI on a Platform By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Kerry Herman and Sarah Gulick
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