• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 8, 2024

Digital agency Agital announced Thursday the acquisition of Go Fish Digital. The full-service digital marketing agency specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) and became an early adopter of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) to support SEO.

Jeff Reynolds, CEO at Agital, thinks the best businesses are run by entrepreneurs willing to take advantage of emerging technology and are typically only around five years old.

“Many are small, but they have built more dynamic mousetraps,” he said. “We are able to take outside capital and, with our philosophy of buying, we can build something quickly that’s modern, data driven and performance ordinated to deliver measurable results.”

This year, Reynolds expects the company to generate between $80 million to $90 million in revenue with about 400 to 500 employees.

Go Fish is one in a string of acquisition that include Exclusive Concepts, Highnoon, EK Creative, REQ, and frontend Web Development Group (WDG). There are two more acquisition that Reynolds declined to talk about because the deals have not been completely closed.

“I always say I love all my children equally, but I’m particularly excited about this one because what they are doing in AI and LLMs,” he said. “They are making it real.”

Performance marketing is at the core of Agital’s future. Not the narrow definitions used to describe bottom of the funnel strategies. This definition focuses more on data, and how it ties into media.

Go Fish Digital's existing services include SEO, paid media advertising, digital PR, content marketing, and online reputation management, and its clients include Amazon, GEICO, and Marriott. The company’s executive leadership, management, and staff roles will remain, including RJ Wilson, president at Go Fish Digital. In fact, all three co-founders will join in a variety of capacity.

When asked if it takes an experienced team to combine a bunch of small companies and make it work as one successful business, Reynolds openly said “I’m not going to tell you that I perceive it to be difficult, but yes, it’s a complicated endeavor, and there are plenty of examples in the marketplace where people have struggled.”

Everyone on Agital’s executive team have experience with mergers and acquisition, and he said that rapid innovation cycle in marketing is prompting acquisitions and partnership.

"Digital marketing will never standstill and requires a bottom-up culture of innovation where all employees are empowered," he said. "Part of the way the business will be managed keeps the decision making close to clients."