Taboola is expanding its empire.
The adtech company exclusively told CMO Insider it has made an offer to acquire Dianomi, a fellow adtech firm specializing in the finance space.
Similar to Taboola, Dianomi offers an ad network that places sponsored-content widgets across publisher websites.
The acquisition, announced Friday, would help Taboola gain relationships with major publishers such as CNN Business, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters — partners it doesn’t currently work with. Advertisers that work with Dianomi include big names like Bank of America, Charles Schwab, and Invesco.
Taboola has agreed to acquire Dianomi for £19 million, or approximately $25.4 million, in cash, according to a financial filing. The deal is potentially worth up to £27 million, or $36.1 million, if certain performance conditions are met. The upfront acquisition valuation represents about a 68% premium to Dianomi’s share price at the close of trading on Thursday.
The timing of the acquisition appears shrewd on Taboola’s part.
Last year was challenging for Dianomi. The UK-based company’s revenue fell 2% year-over-year to £27.4 million, about $36.6 million, predominantly reflecting lower publisher traffic volumes, while currency movements also weighed on its reported results. Dianomi has said publishers are facing traffic pressure as audiences increasingly consume content through AI-generated summaries and “zero-click” search results rather than visiting websites. Things picked up this year as Dianomi expanded its partnerships with CNN News and the Associated Press and introduced a new interactive ad format designed to boost engagement and click-through rates.
Taboola CEO Adam Singolda told CMO Insider that while publishers are challenged by AI-related traffic declines, the technology is also opening new advertising opportunities, such as conversational ad units on publisher websites that function like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Conversational widgets can keep people on pages longer, asking detailed questions, potentially making those users “five times” more valuable than traditional web visitors, Singolda said.
Taboola has been investing in AI-powered adtech, including its Realize ad platform and other publisher tools, as it evolves its business beyond its traditional “You may like” ad placements, sometimes referred to as “chum boxes.” It’s scored some major partnerships, such as a recent deal with NBC News to power all of its programmatic display ad sales. Taboola has also expanded beyond websites, including with deals to sell ads on the Apple News, Apple Stocks, and Samsung News apps.
“The key is to try to monetize everything,” outside of closed platforms like Google and Meta, Singolda said. “Our identity has changed from how I started to what we are now.”
Taboola said the deal, which is subject to approval by regulators and Dianomi shareholders, is expected to be completed before the end of 2026.
