Infillion acquires Catalina's deterministic purchase intelligence network, giving the composable ad platform exclusive access to 130 million U.S. households and $600 billion in annual consumer spending data.
Infillion today announced the acquisition of Catalina, the company that pioneered purchase-driven marketing in 1983 and built what the press release describes as the only deterministic purchase intelligence network of its kind. The deal, disclosed on February 23, 2026, hands Infillion exclusive control over a data asset covering 130 million U.S. households, seventy major retail banners, and $600 billion in annual consumer spending. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The announcement marks a significant consolidation in the advertising technology landscape. Catalina's data had not been commercially available to the broader market for several years, according to the press release. Infillion is repositioning that asset - exclusively through its own platform.
Founded in 1983, Catalina invented the checkout coupon and built the infrastructure for purchase-driven measurement that brands and retailers have used for four decades. The company processes 11 billion annual shopping trips across seventy major retail banners. Its database contains more than 400 million shopper IDs generated through loyalty program participation across those retail partners.
The scale of that identity graph is what makes this acquisition notable. Deterministic data - where an identity is verified rather than modeled or inferred - is substantially harder to replicate than probabilistic alternatives built from device graphs or behavioral signals. Catalina's purchase-based identities are anchored in actual transaction records linked to loyalty accounts. That distinction has grown more commercially important as privacy regulations tighten access to third-party tracking signals across the industry.
According to Rob Emrich, Executive Chair of Infillion: "When you connect purchase truth directly into a composable media platform, brands can finally optimize every dollar against verified sales in real time."
Emrich also pointed to broader market trajectories to contextualize the deal. He cited eMarketer projections suggesting global digital advertising will reach $1.3 trillion by 2030, and a separate estimate that retail media network infrastructure is expected to grow to more than $200 billion. Those figures shaped the strategic rationale Infillion presented publicly, though independent verification of those projections was not provided in the announcement.
Infillion describes itself as the first fully composable advertising platform, assembled from $750 million in technology investment and the unification of four previously independent ad tech companies: MediaMath, TrueX, Gimbal, and Drawbridge. The company relaunched its positioning in January 2026 as an agent-native media execution platform - a third option positioned between proprietary walled gardens and fragmented multi-vendor stacks.
MediaMath, once a Gartner-recognized leader among demand-side platforms, was among the core assets assembled into the Infillion architecture. The composable model Infillion describes means its technology components are designed to operate independently or together, exposable via API and intended to interoperate with external systems rather than requiring exclusive integration. Infillion offers 192-plus interoperable components through this architecture.
Just over five weeks before this acquisition, Infillion announced a strategic partnership with behavioral AI company Yobi, positioning the collaboration as an open-web equivalent to Google's Performance Max campaign automation. That partnership established Yobi as Infillion's primary audience and modeling partner across both managed service and self-service campaign products. The Catalina acquisition now adds a proprietary first-party data layer to that automated optimization infrastructure.
Integrating Catalina's purchase data into Infillion's platform unlocks several technical capabilities that the announcement specifically highlights.
First, Catalina's deterministic shopper IDs can power custom bidding algorithms within Infillion's platform. Rather than relying on modeled intent signals or contextual proxies, those algorithms can optimize media buying directly against verified sales outcomes for specific retailers. The press release describes this as enabling optimization at the SKU level - individual product categories - rather than campaign-level aggregates.
Second, the combined system enables measurement across what the announcement calls all channels: walled gardens, programmatic environments, retail media networks, connected television, linear TV, online video, mobile, desktop, audio, and digital out-of-home. Achieving unified attribution across those environments has been a persistent challenge in advertising measurement. LiveRamp's integration with Meta for retail media measurement illustrates how the industry has struggled to connect off-site advertising exposure with in-store purchase outcomes without compromising individual-level data.
Third, Catalina's identity data can be enriched with location intelligence, survey-based intent signals, and cross-device matching to construct what Infillion describes as richer consumer profiles. That enrichment capability extends across CTV, online video, mobile, desktop, audio, and digital out-of-home formats.
Fourth, the acquisition positions Infillion to build or operate full retail media network infrastructure for retailers. The press release states brands and retailers can now access turnkey infrastructure to launch or scale both retail media networks and commerce media networks, with closed-loop measurement across every channel. This is not a marginal claim - building a functioning retail media network requires identity resolution, closed-loop attribution, demand-side access, and measurement infrastructure simultaneously. The Catalina acquisition assembles the data layer that most mid-market retailers lack.
The press release is explicit on a point that warrants attention: Catalina's U.S. deterministic data will be leveraged exclusively through Infillion's platform. That exclusivity is the central commercial proposition of the acquisition and distinguishes this deal from data partnership agreements that leave data accessible across multiple platforms.
For brands spending through Infillion, the arrangement provides access to a measurement foundation unavailable through competing demand-side platforms. For competing platforms, it removes Catalina's shopper intelligence from the addressable data market.
Circana, which acquired NCSolutions - a joint venture that itself had combined Nielsen and Catalina capabilities - in 2024, had previously attempted to consolidate purchase intelligence capabilities under one measurement provider. That acquisition addressed different use cases, oriented around media mix modeling and sales lift measurement. The Infillion-Catalina combination is explicitly oriented around real-time media execution, not just post-campaign measurement.
The distinction matters for CPG marketers. Real-time campaign optimization against verified purchase signals is a meaningfully different capability than retrospective measurement of whether a campaign lifted sales. The former directly affects how budgets are allocated mid-flight; the latter informs future planning cycles.
The acquisition arrives during a period of rapid expansion in retail media network development. Retailers of all sizes - from large grocery chains to beauty retailers and device manufacturers - have been building advertising businesses on top of their customer data. The technical challenge has been that most retailers lack the advertising infrastructure needed to operate competitive media networks independently.
Criteo's designation as Google's first onsite retail media partner in September 2025 illustrated how technology providers have been positioning to service retailer demand for that infrastructure. Infillion's acquisition of Catalina positions it as a comparable infrastructure provider, with the additional advantage of Catalina's four decades of retailer relationships and loyalty program integrations already in place.
Retail media networks have reached a point where over 90% of advertisers partner with retailers for first-party data access, and brands working with four to six retail media networks simultaneously doubled in 2025. That fragmentation creates measurement and operational complexity that Infillion's unified platform approach directly addresses.
The programmatic adoption of retail media inventory has been accelerating, with real-time bidding technology being applied to sponsored products in ways previously unavailable due to the technical requirements of dynamic product catalog integration. Infillion's composable architecture is designed to accommodate that kind of integration at scale.
The announcement also highlights two specific vertical applications. For CPG brands, the platform enables closed-loop measurement tied directly to omnichannel sales - connecting a digital impression to a physical grocery purchase without relying on retailer-reported metrics or panel-based estimates.
For healthcare marketers, the combination is described as supporting privacy-first targeting with compliance-ready analytics. That framing acknowledges the regulatory environment around health data, where HIPAA compliance and state-level privacy laws impose constraints on audience construction and data sharing. How Infillion operationalizes compliant healthcare targeting using Catalina's retail transaction data is a technical question the announcement does not fully address.
Catalina's executive leadership team will join Infillion following the acquisition. Kevin Hunter, CEO of Catalina, will bring domain expertise in purchase intelligence, retailer partnership management, and closed-loop measurement into Infillion's operating structure. According to Hunter: "By joining Infillion, we can bring the most sophisticated digital media orchestration to our clients, deliver faster insights to brands, and provide retailers entering the media space with the infrastructure they need to compete effectively while maintaining control of their first-party data."
Hunter's statement references retailer control of first-party data as a design principle - an important reassurance given that Catalina's retailer partners built their loyalty programs independently and have their own commercial interests in how transaction data is used.
Who: Infillion, a New York-headquartered composable advertising platform assembled from MediaMath, TrueX, Gimbal, and Drawbridge, acquired Catalina, a St. Petersburg, Florida-based company founded in 1983 that pioneered purchase-driven marketing. Rob Emrich serves as Executive Chair of Infillion; Kevin Hunter is CEO of Catalina.
What: Infillion acquired Catalina's deterministic purchase intelligence network, gaining exclusive access to a database covering 130 million U.S. households, more than 400 million shopper IDs, data from 70 major retail banners, 11 billion annual shopping trips, and $600 billion in annual consumer spending. Catalina's full leadership team joins Infillion. Financial terms were not disclosed.
When: The acquisition was announced on February 23, 2026. Catalina was founded in 1983. Infillion relaunched as an agent-native composable platform in January 2026.
Where: The deal involves companies headquartered in New York City (Infillion) and St. Petersburg, Florida (Catalina). The data assets are U.S.-based, covering domestic retail loyalty and purchase transaction records.
Why: Infillion acquired Catalina to integrate deterministic, verified purchase data directly into its media execution platform, enabling real-time campaign optimization against actual sales outcomes at SKU level - a capability it positions as unavailable through walled garden competitors. The acquisition also provides infrastructure for retailers seeking to launch or scale retail media networks, combining Catalina's four decades of retailer relationships with Infillion's composable advertising technology.
