iCrossing

iCrossing is a digital marketing agency owned by Hearst Corporation. The agency has 900 employees across 17 offices worldwide, with U.S. offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Scottsdale, Dallas and Reston.^[1] iCrossing provides a variety of digital marketing services including strategy, research and analytics as well as web design and development, social media, search engine marketing, and media planning and buying.^[2]

History

Founded in 1998 iCrossing began as a search engine marketing company based out of Scottsdale, Arizona.^[3] Founder Jeffrey Herzog believed that “search will change the advertising landscape.” His goal was to connect consumers with brands and quantify the results. iCrossing grew to 60 employees by 2001, and launched its first proprietary analytics tool, Interest2Action. In 2004, additional offices were established in New York City and San Francisco, which brought the company to over 100 employees.

By 2006, iCrossing entered into the mobile search field and acquired NewGate Internet. Three new offices were opened in Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas and Don Scales joined as COO and was promoted to President.

Between 2007 and 2008, iCrossing expanded its offering and geographic reach through a number of acquisitions, including: U.K. search marketing firm Spannerworks, web development company Proxicom, German Interactive marketing agency 3GNet, and Salt Lake City-based Sharp Analytics. In 2008, iCrossing founder and CEO Jeffrey Herzog took a board position and Don Scales took the role of CEO. By this time, the company had grown to over 550 employees with more than 40 Fortune 500 clients. In 2010, iCrossing was acquired by Hearst Corporation. After the acquisition, iCrossing launched Live Media Studio, a unit dedicated to creating and distributing social content in real-time. Shortly after, Patrick Stern was named Chief Creative Officer of iCrossing.

The next two years brought about two major acquisitions for iCrossing: Wallaby Group and Red Aril. With the acquisition of Wallaby Group, iCrossing opened new offices in Argentina, Chili, Peru, Mexico and Spain. The acquisition of Red Aril provided iCrossing with a data management platform (DMP) as well as a trading desk (DSP).

In 2013, Don Scales left iCrossing and Brian Powley transitioned from President, North America to his new role as Global President.

2015 brought many changes to iCrossing with Nick Brien announced as CEO, and Mark Iremonger announced as CEO in the UK. A new management team was hired that summer and Mike Parker became the President of the West Region^[4] while Mark Mulhern became President of the East.^[5] After the hiring of former startup investor Ben Kosinski,^[6] iCrossing was awarded with Elite Agency Status in the Drum’s 2015 Digital Census.

In 2016, iCrossing integrated its search marketing, social media marketing and performance media marketing services to fall under a new “Media Services” department which would be run by Mike Racic. 2016 also provided iCrossing with accolades from both Gartner Magic Quadrant, where iCrossing was named a leader, and Forrester’s 2016 Search Marketing Agency wave in which iCrossing was named a strong performer

References