Dotdigital Pays $35M for Social Snowball + Revenue and EBITDA Valuation Multiples

July 11, 2025 by Chris Erwin

RockWater Roundup

M&A analysis of the creator economy to make you a better operator and investor.

Today we discuss Dotdigital’s acquisition of Social Snowball, an influencer marketing and affiliate platform for e-commerce brands. We discuss deal details, strategic rationale, valuation, and new buyer types for influencer marketing companies.

Let’s break it down…

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–TARGET: Social Snowball–

Overview

Influencer, affiliate & referral marketing platform for e‑commerce brands across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube
Built to automate onboarding, tracking, and pay‑outs for brand advocates
Founded in 2020 by Noah Tucker
27+ associated members on LinkedIn
HQ’d in Miami, FL

Company Highlights

1,500+ Shopify subscription‑based brands (G Fuel, Brez, True Classic)
FY 2024 revenue: $3M+
YoY growth: 200%+
Run-rate revenue: $5M

Business Lines

SaaS Subscriptions: Monthly recurring revenue from brands paying for access to core influencer, affiliate, and referral marketing platform
Performance Fees: Commission-based model tied to sales or conversions from platform’s network
Snow Day: $199/month + 3% commission on affiliate revenue
Blizzard (Custom): Designed for mid-market and enterprise brands needing scale and customization
Managed Services: Optional full-service campaign execution for brands needing strategic support across creator sourcing, content coordination, and performance optimization

Capital Markets History

Jul ’25: acquired by Dotdigital for $35M (incl earnout)
Feb ’24: $430k seed round

–BUYER: Dotdigital–

Overview

UK-based SaaS company providing customer engagement and marketing automation tools
Originally focused on email marketing, now full CX marketing automation platform helping brands improve their marketing and engagement
Based in UK, w/ offices in London, Manchester, NY, LA, Melbourne, Sydney, and Cape Town
Publicly traded: LON: DOTD
Founded in 1999 by Tink Taylor and Simon Bird
450+ employees globally

Company Highlights

Serves 4,000+ brands globally, including British Airways, Puma, DHL, and Oliver Bonas
Engagement Cloud, their platform for cross-channel marketing automation, is used in 180+ countries
Built WinstonAI to help marketers automate workflows and customer journeys
Acquired Fresh Relevance (2023) to expand into personalized e‑commerce experiences

Stock Price

£74.20 as of 7.8.25
Down 8.9% MoM
Down 21.7% YoY

Financials:

(via public filings and stockanalysis.com)

Annual…
FY 2024 Revenue: £79M
FY 2024 EBITDA: £13.6M
Half yr…
H1 2025 Revenue: £42.4M
H1 2024 Revenue: £38.8M
Up 9.3% YoY
H1 2025 EBITDA: £13.8M
H1 2024 EBITDA: £12.4M
Up 11% YoY

Valuation

Mkt Cap: £228M
C&CE: £42.2M
Total Debt: £3.08M
Enterprise Value: £183.9M
2.3x 2024 Revenue
13.5x 2024 EBITDA

Business Lines

SaaS Subscription Licensing:
Recurring revenue from Engagement Cloud subscriptions. Price based on contact database size, message volume (email/SMS), and selected modules (e‑commerce personalization)
Customer Data Platform (CDP): AI-driven personalization including product recommendations and campaign optimization via WinstonAI (AI-powered marketing automation engine)
Professional & Managed Services:
Onboarding, implementation, integration, and campaign support to integrate the platform within clients’ tech stacks

Capital Markets History

Jul’25: Acquired Social Snowball for $35M (incl earnout)
Sep’23: Acquired Fresh Relevance
Nov’17: Dynmark International
Mar’11: Went public on LSE under ticker DOTD

–DEAL DETAILS–

Overview

Announced June 26, 2025
$20M cash upfront (57% of total)
$15M earnout (43% of total)
$35M potential total price
100% buyout

Deal Valuation

𝗡𝗼 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘁…
LTM revenue: 6.7x
Run-rate revenue: 4x
𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗹 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘁…
LTM revenue: 11.7x
Run-rate revenue: 7x

Post-Deal Operations

Noah Tucker to continue as Chief Influencer Officer
Snowball to operate as a distinct business unit within Dotdigital
Integrate Snowball campaign reporting and influencer audience data into Dotdigital’s Engagement Cloud
Dotdigital goal is full cross-channel services, letting marketers and brands blend email, SMS, and creator-driven campaigns

Strategic Rationale

Enhances Dotdigital’s capabilities in customer acquisition channels by providing affiliate and influencer-driven campaigns
Accelerates Dotdigital’s expansion into Shopify ecosystem and US market
Adds a scalable, first‑party data‑driven acquisition channel from Snowball Social platform to DotDigital’s WinstonAI
Tech and cultural fit: both product‑led, ROI‑driven, marketer‑centric
According to Dotdigital CEO Milan Patel:
“This acquisition allows us to meet brands at the beginning of the customer journey, activating awareness and engagement at scale through creators, then nurturing and converting those audiences within our platform.”

–WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING–

Benchmarking valuation multiples. I estimated revenue multiples of 3.3x for Publicis / Influential (including earnout) (our deal analysis), 2.9x for Whalar’s fundraise, and 4.7x for Later / Mavely (our deal analysis). The $20M cash portion of the Social Snowball deal implies a 6.7x revenue multiple – that’s notably high. The premium signals strong buyer confidence in the combined company’s growth potential and revenue synergies once SS’s capabilities are integrated into the DD platform, and that there’s a meaningful opportunity to cross sell products and services to their respective client rosters, and sign up new clients with the new full services suite.

Advantages from 1st party data. Unlike other digital agencies or service firms, Social Snowball operates a scalable, platform-led business model that also collects first-party data. These are valuable assets Dotdigital can integrate into its CX marketing automation stack, which enhances Dotdigital’s ability to deliver personalized customer experiences and deeper customer insights, and in turn improve customer ROI. This could help drive higher customer retention, in addition to the ability to upsell new marketing services. The end result is higher AOV, LTV, and lower customer churn, which would result in improved overall financial performance and combined company valuation.

POV on earnout structures. Social Snowball’s CEO will stay on post acquisition, with the incentive of a $15M earnout, which is 43% of total purchase price. We often see earnouts in recent high-growth digital agency and influencer / marketing tech M&A; the earnout amount typically ranges from 20-50% of total purchase price, and is contingent on a few factors relating to buyer and seller: financial scale of seller, business model of seller, buyer type, buyer’s deal financing, deal valuation premium, growth potential of seller and combined co incl timeline to achieve said growth, seller’s client and revenue concentrations, tech and ops integration risk, leadership and team churn risk, and post-close governance and financial autonomy.

The IM buyer category is expanding. The acquisition positions Dotdigital among a new category of buyers entering the creator economy – marketing automation and customer engagement platforms. This contrasts with previous influencer marketing M&A dominated by large advertising hold co’s (e.g. Publicis buying Influential, WPP buying Obviously) and influencer marketing specialists (Later’s acquisition of Mavely). The entry of marketing automation buyers signals influencer marketing’s evolution to an integrated facet of comprehensive customer engagement strategies, as brands seek marketer / agency partners who can deliver both new audience access, as well as engagement and sales performance.

Deeper integration into Shopify ecosystem with full customer funnel coverage. The acquisition gives Dotdigital deeper reach into Shopify’s ecosystem, which is used by over 2M merchants. As more marketers seek performance-driven marketing alternatives, Shopify has become a priority for marketing tech platforms looking to manage the entire customer journey, from awareness and intent to purchase and retention. Social Snowball’s native Shopify integration and strong traction in affiliate/referral marketing during the purchasing process complements Dotdigital’s existing customer experience tools that focus on earlier funnel stages including email marketing, SMS, and customer segmentation. This combination allows Dotdigital to offer a more complete solution within Shopify – engaging customers throughout their entire funnel from initial awareness to post-purchase and retention.

Growing transparency in creator economy valuations and financial performance. With the growth of creator economy dealmaking, and new buyers entering the mix (including those who are publicly listed), we’re beginning to see more transparency and disclosure in deal valuations and companies’ financial performance. This is valuable since most creator economy deals over the past decade have been between private companies, or were at a smaller scale and thus considered “immaterial”, meaning public disclosure wasn’t required. But now, public companies like Publicis / WPP / Dotdigital are collectively spending billions on creator economy acquisitions, and creating much-needed public comps which offer crucial deal data points. Further, the upcoming MrBeast IPO which have required public disclosures like its S-1 filing, will *hopefully* provide good insights into the making of a billion-dollar creator business. I expect to see details on MrBeast’s business model, financial performance, team composition, operating structure, growth opportunities, key risks, and more. Having more public data about our industry’s operators and dealmaking will help us all navigate the growing and evolving creator x media landscape, and in turn will enable smarter investing and better-informed dealmaking. That’s a great win for our industry.

This is the 2nd UK-to-US digital agency acquisition we’ve tracked in past 13 months. It follows Croud’s acquisition of US-based agency Vert (our deal analysis). I bet there are more. But overall, aligns with a trend we discussed in our 2024 agency M&A report…“We’re getting a lot more calls from agencies across the pond who want to make inroads with US brands and audiences. These agencies have had trouble building organically in the States, since hiring an exec team in a competitive high-growth market with a very different agency culture ecosystem is not an easy feat. So buying their way in is a growing mandate. I’ve gotten calls from Euro-based branded content studios to podcast agencies and larger holding companies who are making trips to the US for “agency roadshows” in 1H 2024, and who plan to transact by the second half of the year.”

I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and digital agencies. From buy / sell-side M&A and fundraising, to consumer research and go-to-market planning.

DM me on LinkedIn or email me chris@wearerockwater.com