Infillion Acquires Catalina to Unlock Deterministic Purchase Data at Global Scale

Infillion, the first composable advertising platform engineered for agentic media execution, has declared that it has acquired Catalina, a company which has been a leader in deterministic purchase intelligence for a long time.

The acquisition marks opening a new chapter in the way brands, retailers, and media networks utilize verified purchase data to generate measurable advertising performance.

Catalina represents one of the most extensive sources of deterministic purchase data globally-built across four decades, spanning seventy retail banners, 130 million households, and $600 billion in annual consumer spending. With this acquisition, Infillion secures exclusive access to a dataset that has been largely unavailable to the broader advertising ecosystem in recent years.

Founded in 1983, Catalina pioneered purchase-driven measurement and developed what has become the largest purchase-based intelligence network in the industry. The platform processes 11 billion annual shopping trips across seventy major retail banners, forming a closed-loop measurement foundation across both retail and digital media channels. By integrating this data directly into its composable platform, Infillion is reintroducing this purchase intelligence exclusively through its own infrastructure.

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Rob Emrich, Executive Chair of Infillion, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome the Catalina team to Infillion. The business they’ve built over four decades, combined with our composable platform makes this more than an acquisition. When you connect purchase truth directly into a composable media platform, brands can finally optimize every dollar against verified sales in real time. This extraordinary capability positions Infillion to lead as digital advertising scales to $1.3 trillion globally by 2030-driven by two converging forces: brands’ shift toward performance marketing tied to verified purchase outcomes, and retailers’ imperative to monetize commerce data through media networks that require enterprise-grade infrastructure expected to grow to more than $200B1,”

Bringing Deterministic Data Back to Market

As part of the integration, Infillion will embed Catalina’s U.S. deterministic purchase data into its advertising and media orchestration platform. This move introduces two differentiated value streams that traditional walled gardens cannot replicate:

Exclusive access to one of the largest deterministic datasets, including over 400 million shopper IDs

Retail infrastructure for the activation of retail media networks and digital commerce solutions based on purchase-verified measurement and demand

Through the alignment of exposure data directly with verified transactions in one platform, Infillion allows brands to move from intent-based targeting to purchase-based precision. Rather than being based on modeled or retailer-reported metrics, marketers can measure incremental impact down to the SKU level and optimize in near real-time against sales outcomes.

A Fundamental Shift in Media Accountability

The integration introduces a new paradigm for campaign execution. Catalina’s purchase intelligence will inform custom bidding algorithms that autonomously optimize media investments to drive retailer-specific sales performance. This creates a feedback loop between advertising exposure and verified conversion data-streamlining both accountability and efficiency.

Through this combined platform, brands and retailers will gain access to:

• Vertical-specific solutions: Advanced closed-loop measurement for CPG brands across omnichannel sales environments and privacy-first, compliance-ready analytics tailored for healthcare marketers
• Unified cross-channel measurement: Visibility across walled gardens, programmatic platforms, retail media networks, and major CTV and linear TV environments
• Precision audience activation: Targeting based on verified purchase behavior rather than probabilistic intent signals
• Autonomous optimization: Intelligent systems that continuously refine bidding and budget allocation based on real-world sales performance
• Enhanced identity frameworks: The ability to enrich consumer profiles by combining purchase data with location intelligence, survey-driven insights, and cross-device signals across CTV, mobile, desktop, audio, online video, and digital out-of-home
• Retail media network (RMN) enablement: Enterprise-grade infrastructure to build, launch, or scale RMNs and commerce media networks (CMNs), complete with closed-loop measurement, loyalty-based audience creation, and sales-verified bidding strategies

Strengthening Retail Media and Commerce Infrastructure

As retail media continues to reshape the digital advertising landscape, enterprise-grade data infrastructure is becoming mission critical. By integrating Catalina’s deterministic purchase intelligence, Infillion positions itself as both a media execution engine and a retail media backbone—supporting retailers seeking to monetize first-party commerce data without sacrificing control or compliance.

Catalina’s executive leadership team will join Infillion as part of the transition, bringing decades of expertise in retail partnerships, purchase intelligence, and closed-loop attribution into Infillion’s operating structure.

Kevin Hunter, CEO of Catalina, said: “This acquisition accelerates Catalina’s vision to modernize our capabilities and deliver on the promise of deterministic, purchase-based marketing at digital speed,” said Kevin Hunter, CEO of Catalina. “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. Catalina couldn’t do this alone. Infillion couldn’t do this without Catalina. Together, we believe, we’ve built something the industry has never seen.”

Redefining Performance Marketing at Scale

This purchase is just one example of the larger shift that is taking place in the industry as a whole towards a performance marketing model that is verified, where ad dollars are optimized not for impressions or clicks, but for their actual sales impact. By combining deterministic purchase data with composable, agentic media execution, Infillion and Catalina are clearly trying to create a more accountable and measurable advertising ecosystem.

For brands operating in today’s complex retail and media environment, this combination provides what many brands have been looking for in a media and advertising partner.