Acadia Acquires Amazon and Instacart Pioneer Bobsled Marketing

Acadia, which gives middle-market businesses the digital acumen once reserved for the world’s biggest brands, has acquired Bobsled Marketing, a forerunner in Amazon, Instacart, Walmart and Target marketing whose combined focus on operations and media has vaulted such companies as Tribal, Philips, REN skincare and VOSS. Bobsled is a partner in the coveted Amazon Central Sellers program and was recently named one of only 10 named providers in Walmart’s new Agency Partner Eco-Sytem. The fifth acquisition in Acadia’s expansion plan, Bobsled allows the growth agency to bring clients an increasingly important yet rare combination of Amazon services from digital advertising delivery (pay-per-click and DSP management) to storefront set-up, SEO, product content, inventory management, and overall business consulting for retail marketplaces.  

“We’re building the ideal customer engine for modern growth marketers. Increasingly the battlefield for customers is the digital point of sale, so clients are investing heavier with retail partners like Walmart.com, Amazon, Target, and Instacart,” said Jared Belsky, co-founder and CEO of Acadia. “Bobsled takes us a giant step forward. We can now complete the transaction cycle media is meant to feed. Because we unify world-class specialists, we bring a level of expertise that’s unmatched for the middle market.”

Bobsled’s holistic approach to Amazon sets it apart in the ecommerce space. The agency builds successful programs by taking clients’ entire retail systems into account, including supply chain, operations, reviews, product content, storefront set-up, PPC advertising, and display advertising needs. Bobsled is a completely distributed company with specialists around the world from the US to Serbia who converge to create 24/7 coverage for clients’ ecommerce programs. Founder and CEO Kiri Masters, a pioneer in the space, is the author of two best-sellers – Amazon for CMOs and Instacart for CMOs – and a longstanding retail column in Forbes.  

“Marketers will increasingly fail if they approach ecommerce as simply a data and media challenge,” said Kiri. “Brands need to be fluent in all the languages of retail, from supply chain and inventory to product display and customer engagement. And they need to understand the nuances of all the emerging marketplaces and retail media networks beyond Amazon, which will continue to get more complex.” 

Masters chose Acadia to become part of a team with complementary specialists as exemplary as Bobsled. She consulted R&D Venture Partners as financial advisor on the transaction. And she will personally relocate to Atlanta, where she will be a critical member of the Acadia leadership team reporting to Jared, the CEO.

“More clients will need and want a one-stop shop for digital marketing, and we’re already seeing this in our business,” said Kiri. “The real upside opportunity for brands is to combine digital, social, website development, and SEO with retail to grow tightly defined customer audiences. You need a fully interconnected agency of elite practitioners to do that.”