M&A deal volume across ad tech and marketing rose 13% in 2025, reaching 469 transactions, according to a report by LUMA Partners.
The increase reflects a market where strategic buyers are looking to acquire technology, specialized capabilities, and established businesses rather than build new capabilities themselves.
For agencies, that can mean new capital, new technology, and access to a larger pool of resources. But for clients, it could mean an entirely new team managing the account.
This can be particularly impactful for Amazon sellers who work with an external Amazon agency.
After all, their chosen agency may hold years of knowledge about a client's catalog, advertising history, seasonal patterns, winning products, failed tests, and growth strategy.
Much of that knowledge is built through daily account management and can be difficult to transfer when teams change.
Alex Stoykov, Founder and CEO of Olifant Digital, works with brands on Amazon growth and has seen how much account performance can depend on the people managing the work.
“An acquisition shouldn't be judged by the name of the company that buys the agency. The real question is what changes for the client,” Stoykov says.
“Who is managing the account now? Who is making strategic decisions? Does the team still understand the business and have the same level of accountability?”
“Those day-to-day details will tell a seller much more about the impact of an acquisition than the size or reputation of the new owner.”
What Changes When an Agency Changes Ownership
An acquisition can change the structure behind an Amazon account even when the client-facing relationship initially looks the same.
Buyers have plenty of reasons to pursue specialized marketing agencies. They can acquire established client relationships, recurring revenue, specialized expertise, and capabilities that would take years to build internally.
Amazon agencies can fit that profile particularly well because marketplace expertise is specialized.
An agency that already knows how to manage Amazon PPC, catalog strategy, and listing optimization gives an acquirer an operating capability it cannot simply create.
However, clients experience the acquisition through the changes that follow, such as:
- Account-team restructuring that moves the account to a different group
- New reporting lines that change who has authority over strategy
- Less senior involvement if founders or experienced executives step away
- New reporting systems that alter how performance is measured
- Different strategic priorities as the new owner introduces its own approach
But it’s important to note that these changes don’t automatically make an agency worse.
A larger owner might give an Amazon client access to better technology, additional specialists, stronger creative resources, or more sophisticated reporting.
The problem only really begins if the changes weaken the account's understanding of the client's business.
How to Assess a Recently Acquired Agency
Amazon sellers can reduce the disruption from an acquisition by paying attention to the account itself rather than assuming continuity will take care of itself.
According to Stoykov, brands that work with a recently acquired agency should evaluate their situation by doing the following:
1. Watch who actually manages the account
If the strategist, account manager, or senior executive responsible for the account changes, the seller should understand why and what the transition looks like.
Start by asking some important questions:
- Who is responsible for day-to-day account management?
- Who makes strategic decisions?
- Has senior-level oversight changed?
- Will the account be moved to a different team?
- What experience does the new team have with Amazon?
- How will the agency transfer the account's historical knowledge?
Changes in communication can also provide an early signal.
A sudden drop in responsiveness, less detailed reporting, or recommendations that become more generic may indicate that the account is receiving less strategic attention.
“The people managing an Amazon account can be just as important as the agency's brand,” Stoykov says.
“If the team changes, the agency needs to show that the knowledge built over time is being carried forward rather than starting from scratch.”
2. Protect the knowledge behind the account
Sellers should also make sure important account knowledge is properly turned over to the new team. This includes:
- Historical performance data
- Campaign structures
- Testing results
- Strategic decisions and their rationale
- Reporting
- Creative assets
- Product and catalog information
- Key performance benchmarks
This becomes particularly important during an acquisition because information can become fragmented when teams, platforms, and responsibilities change.
A seller should be able to understand why an account is structured the way it is without having to reconstruct years of decisions from scratch.
That also gives the client a clearer way to evaluate future recommendations.
If a new team proposes changing a campaign structure, for example, historical documentation can show whether that approach has already been tested and what happened.
3. Measure current and past results
The most useful evaluation is often a simple before-and-after comparison. After all, taking monthly reports at face value and without context is simply bad business.
In particular, brands should closely monitor the following:
- ROAS and TACoS to see whether advertising efficiency has changed
- Ad spend as a percentage of revenue to identify changes in advertising costs
- Conversion rate to see whether traffic is still turning into customers at the same rate
- Impressions, clicks, and click-through rate to identify changes in visibility and traffic quality
- Number and pace of tests to see whether the agency is continuing to actively optimize the account
- Response times and meeting frequency to measure whether the level of account support has changed
Keep The Client Relationship Bigger Than The Ownership Change
Consolidation can benefit Amazon sellers when new ownership brings stronger technology, deeper talent, or resources that an independent agency could not provide on its own.
But those advantages only matter when they reach the account.
As marketing M&A continues to accelerate, Amazon sellers may need to evaluate agencies less by the logo on the contract and more by the people, processes, and accountability behind the account.
