This story was originally published in Campaign.
Omnicom Media Group (OMG) is rolling out its Google marketing consultancy to nine new markets — with further expansion planned later in the year — to meet brands’ growing dependence on Google products.
Ahead of the expansion, the company has been rebranded from Trakken to TRKKN.
The news comes two months after the founders of the business left to “start a new chapter.”
TRKKN was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2008 by former Google employees Lennart Paulsen and Timo Aden. It was acquired by OMG for an undisclosed sum in 2015.
Since then, the Google reseller has expanded its suite of services to help advertisers manage their Google marketing and cloud stack, including offering web analytics and conversion optimization services. TRKKN is the second-largest Google Marketing Platform sales partner in Europe.
Now the business, which currently has operations across five countries in Europe, is set for a big geographic push.
OMG plans to launch TRKKN in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Turkey, U.K., UAE and the U.S. over the next eight weeks.
A second wave of expansion is planned for the close of the year and is expected to include additional markets in Asia, EMEA and LATAM.
But the founders are not coming along for the ride. Both Paulsen and Aden left the company at the end of April, according to a post on LinkedIn, in which Aden said: “After many great and successful years, we decided to close this chapter, handed over the business to the new management.”
TRKKN is now led by Max Deitmer and Peter Kuhlmann, who joined as managing directors at the end of 2021, according to the company’s new website.
Deitmer will oversee the EMEA region, while regional leaders for APAC and the Middle East are expected to be named in Q3.
Former Jellyfish programmatic leader Mario Schiappacasse has been tapped to lead the firm in North America.
OMG Germany CEO Paul Remitz is overseeing the global roll out.
Florian Adamski, the CEO of Omnicom Media Group, said the expansion of TRKKN reflects “the expanding scope and scale of brands’ relationship with Google, and the changing shape of agency/client engagement.”
“At a time when clients need more help than ever in managing their Google marketing stacks, more clients are in-housing or adopting hybrid media solutions for greater independence. Our challenge is to solve for both realities, and that means assuring global best practices that enable GMP & GCP efficiency and effectiveness, as well as making these solutions accessible in the context of today’s more fluid agency/client relationship,” he said.
Adamski oversaw the acquisition of what was then Trakken during his tenure as CEO of OMG Germany.
