Tesco Purchases Sociomatic Labs

Tesco, the world’s second-largest retailer after Walmart, has jumped into the ad tech game with the purchase of Sociomantic Labs, an ad tech firm that specializes in programatic and retargeting advertising. Though the company specializes in e-commerce solutions, it does provide some real-time, in-store marketing analytics as well. Tesco has made big-data pushes in the past, and this one signals the intent to target customers even more heavily through things like loyalty cards, retargeting from brick and mortar into the digital space, and other moves as well. Sociomatic specializes in this type of retargeting, so the move makes sense. The move is rumored to be worth upwards of $200 million. It’s a big move by a big company that is looking for new ways to integrate deeply with its customers.