Infillion announced on September 18, 2026 that it will acquire Foursquare, the location intelligence platform, adding more than 100 million points of interest across 200 countries, 16 billion human-verified check-ins, and aggregated coverage of 250 million United States devices to Infillion’s advertising platform alongside Catalina purchase data. Three other marketing technology releases carried September 18, 2026 datelines. Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA) announced an offer to acquire Dianomi, the London finance advertising network. Fingerprint, the device intelligence company, launched a public Bot Directory of AI tools, bots, and crawlers. Handvantage, a consultancy for AI security and AI governance, published a free 43-page agentic AI procurement handbook.
Each of the four releases addresses an input behind a marketing number. Infillion buys the visit and purchase data used to test whether advertising moved a person into a store. Taboola buys direct relationships with finance publishers and the advertisers who pay to reach their readers. Fingerprint publishes a reference for deciding whether a session came from a person or from an automated system. Handvantage publishes the questions a buyer asks before granting an AI vendor access to company data. A Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) who reads all four gets one agenda item: how much of your reporting rests on data you can describe.
Infillion stated on September 18, 2026 that combining Foursquare visitation data with Catalina purchase intelligence gives advertisers a privacy-safe way to measure whether advertising drove store visits and real-world purchases. Rob Emrich, founder and executive chairman of Infillion, told Axios on September 18, 2026 that the acquisition raises Infillion’s revenue and headcount by roughly 20% to 25%, and that most of Foursquare’s approximately 150 employees join Infillion’s 650 full-time staff. Foursquare keeps operating as an independent brand inside Infillion and keeps selling data to customers who buy media on competing platforms, according to that interview. Gary Little, chief executive of Foursquare, framed the deal around adding real-world outcome data to a platform that already serves customers at scale.
Store-visit measurement counts device presence near a location after an ad exposure, which establishes a correlation between two logs. Incrementality asks whether that visit would have happened with no advertising at all, and answering it takes a holdout group that sees nothing. Infillion’s September 18, 2026 release describes coverage and connection. It publishes no lift figure, no holdout design, and no price. A buyer evaluating the combined dataset at renewal should ask for the test design, the size of the control group, and the confidence interval before treating a visit report as proof that the media caused the visit.
Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA) announced its offer for Dianomi on September 18, 2026 under Rule 2.7 of the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, with completion expected before the end of 2026 subject to regulatory conditions and Dianomi shareholder approval. Dianomi works with more than 600 advertisers, including Charles Schwab, Invesco, and Bank of America, and places their advertising with publishers including Reuters, CNN Business, The Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Taboola stated that the Dianomi network will run through Realize, its performance advertising platform, which Taboola reports reaching more than 600 million daily active users. BusinessCloud reported on September 18, 2026 that the deal is worth up to 27 million pounds and that Dianomi posted first-half 2026 revenue of 13.4 million pounds, a 2% year-over-year increase. Taboola’s own release carries no price.
Fingerprint launched Bot Directory on September 18, 2026 as a continuously updated, searchable public repository of AI tools, bots, and crawlers, listing each entry by identity, provider, and purpose. Operators can test their own agents for Web Bot Auth compliance and submit them for inclusion. Valentin Vasilyev, co-founder and chief technology officer of Fingerprint, framed the launch around telling helpful automation apart from malicious activity as agents act on behalf of people. Fingerprint reports identifying more than 1 billion unique devices a month across more than 6,000 customers, including Plaid, Booking.com, Dropbox, Trustpilot, and Checkout.com. The release states that bots account for the majority of web traffic and that nearly half of technology leaders face AI-driven fraud attacks, and it cites no source for either figure.
Bot classification decides two marketing outcomes at once. A crawler your team blocks never reads the product page you optimized for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and an automated session your analytics counts inflates the denominator under every conversion rate you report. One allow-and-deny list governs both. In most companies the security team owns that list and the marketing team owns the number it distorts. Agentic Commerce Protocols raise the cost of that split, because a buying agent arriving at checkout on a shopper’s behalf looks like automation to a fraud rule written three years ago.
Handvantage published the Agentic AI Procurement Handbook on September 18, 2026, a 43-page vendor-neutral guide available with no email form. The handbook organizes the questions procurement teams inherit from security architects: where company data goes, who approves what an AI agent does, and what record exists after the agent acts. Marketing signs more AI software contracts than most functions, so those three questions belong in the marketing contract review before they reach an AI Governance Board (AIGB).
Work an example. A retailer runs 2 million sessions a month and reports a 2.4% conversion rate to its board. If 30% of those sessions come from automated traffic sitting in the denominator, the human conversion rate is closer to 3.4%, and a year of A/B tests that moved the reported rate by 0.1 points measured a mixed population. Correcting the denominator costs a bot-classification field in the analytics warehouse and one engineering sprint. Those figures are illustrative, and none of the September 18, 2026 releases published them.
None of the four releases published a customer outcome. Infillion and Taboola both announced transactions that have not closed, so neither the combined dataset nor the combined network is available to a buyer today. Fingerprint’s traffic claims carry no citation. Handvantage sells advisory services in the category its handbook covers, which makes the handbook marketing material with useful questions inside it. Wire volume in marketing technology ran light on Friday, September 18, 2026, and Business Wire’s website was under scheduled maintenance for part of the sweep, which limited index verification on that wire.
Strategic priorities for marketing leaders
- Name the owner of your bot allow-and-deny list this week. Fingerprint’s September 18, 2026 Bot Directory launch gives one public reference for AI crawlers and agents by provider and purpose. One list decides which AI systems read your product pages and which sessions land in your conversion denominator, so one person should sign off on it across marketing and security.
- Audit the denominator before the next board deck. Pull the share of sessions your analytics tags as automated, then recompute the conversion rates you have been reporting. A rate built on a mixed population makes small test wins unreadable.
- Ask acquirers for the test design, not the coverage number. Infillion published 16 billion check-ins and 250 million device coverage on September 18, 2026 and published no lift figure. Coverage describes the panel. A holdout describes the causation you are paying for.
- Put the three agent questions in your contract template. Where data goes, who approves an agent action, and what record survives it. Handvantage’s September 18, 2026 handbook lists them free of charge, and the answers belong in the master services agreement.
- Reprice your finance-vertical media plan after the Taboola and Dianomi deal closes. Taboola expects completion before the end of 2026. Advertisers running through Dianomi should confirm publisher lists, rate cards, and reporting continuity during the transition.
Here’s the News for September 18, 2026:
Infillion to acquire Foursquare, closing the loop between advertising and real-world results. Infillion, the New York advertising technology company that owns Catalina’s purchase intelligence, announced an agreement to acquire Foursquare, the location intelligence platform. The deal brings Foursquare’s visitation data into the Infillion platform alongside Catalina purchase data, which Infillion describes as a privacy-safe way for advertisers to measure whether advertising drove store visits and real-world purchases. Foursquare’s footprint covers more than 100 million points of interest across 200 countries, 16 billion human-verified check-ins, and aggregated coverage of 250 million United States devices, and Foursquare holds membership in the Network Advertising Initiative and follows Digital Advertising Alliance self-regulatory principles. Several Foursquare leaders join Infillion’s Data Business Unit at close, and Infillion will evaluate the future of the Swarm and Superlocal consumer applications, including open-source models and partnerships. Infillion founder and executive chairman Rob Emrich told Axios the same day that the transaction lifts Infillion revenue and headcount by roughly 20% to 25%, that most of Foursquare’s approximately 150 employees join Infillion’s 650 staff, and that Foursquare continues selling data to customers of competing platforms. Read the full press release (Published: September 18, 2026 | Source: ACCESS Newswire)
Taboola to acquire Dianomi, adding a finance-focused premium ad network to Realize. Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA) announced an offer to acquire Dianomi, a London-listed provider of digital advertising services to business, finance, and lifestyle clients. Dianomi works with more than 600 advertisers, including Charles Schwab, Invesco, and Bank of America, and connects them to audiences through partnerships with publishers including Reuters, CNN Business, The Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Taboola stated that the combination gives performance advertisers a larger curated publisher network through Realize, its performance advertising platform, and that its technology serves publishers including NBC News and Yahoo and original equipment manufacturers including Samsung and Xiaomi. Adam Singolda, chief executive of Taboola, framed the deal around connecting large financial brands with their target audiences. The offer was made under Rule 2.7 of the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, and completion is expected before the end of 2026 subject to customary regulatory conditions and approval by Dianomi shareholders. Taboola’s release discloses no financial terms; BusinessCloud reported the same day that the deal is worth up to 27 million pounds. Read the full press release (Published: September 18, 2026 | Source: GlobeNewswire)
Fingerprint launches Bot Directory built for the AI era. Fingerprint, the Chicago device intelligence company, launched Bot Directory, a continuously updated and searchable public repository of AI tools, bots, and crawlers that identifies each entry by identity, provider, and purpose. The directory runs on Fingerprint’s Bot Detection Smart Signal and lets operators test their own AI agents for Web Bot Auth compliance and submit them for inclusion. Fingerprint positions the resource against legacy bot directories built before generative AI, which the company says make verified AI agents hard to separate from malicious browser automation. Valentin Vasilyev, co-founder and chief technology officer of Fingerprint, framed the launch around businesses needing to distinguish helpful automation from malicious activity as AI agents act on people’s behalf. Fingerprint reports identifying more than 1 billion unique devices a month and more than 6,000 customers, including Plaid, Booking.com, Dropbox, Trustpilot, and Checkout.com. The release states that bots account for the majority of web traffic and that nearly half of technology leaders face AI-driven fraud attacks, without citing a source for either claim. Read the full press release (Published: September 18, 2026 | Source: Business Wire, via FinancialContent syndication)
Handvantage releases a vendor-neutral agentic AI procurement handbook, free and ungated. Handvantage, a boutique consultancy for AI security and AI governance based in Surrey, British Columbia, published the Agentic AI Procurement Handbook, a 43-page vendor-neutral guide to evaluating AI platforms and agent governance before signing a contract. The handbook is available with no email form. Handvantage frames the guide around a shift in who answers technical questions during a purchase: procurement teams now field questions that used to belong to security architects, including where company data goes, who approves what an AI agent does, and what record exists after an agent acts. The release reports no customer count, pricing, or adoption figure. Read the full press release (Published: September 18, 2026 | Source: GlobeNewswire)
Frequently asked questions
What marketing technology news was announced on September 18, 2026?
Four marketing technology and advertising releases carried September 18, 2026 datelines. Infillion announced an agreement to acquire Foursquare, the location intelligence platform, Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA) announced an offer to acquire the London finance advertising network Dianomi, Fingerprint launched Bot Directory as a public repository of AI tools, bots, and crawlers, and Handvantage published a free 43-page Agentic AI Procurement Handbook. Two of the four are acquisitions that have not yet closed.
Why is Infillion acquiring Foursquare?
Infillion stated on September 18, 2026 that adding Foursquare visitation data to Catalina purchase data gives advertisers a privacy-safe way to measure whether advertising drove store visits and real-world purchases. Foursquare’s footprint covers more than 100 million points of interest across 200 countries, 16 billion human-verified check-ins, and aggregated coverage of 250 million United States devices. Rob Emrich, founder and executive chairman of Infillion, told Axios on September 18, 2026 that the deal raises Infillion’s revenue and headcount by roughly 20% to 25%, and that most of Foursquare’s approximately 150 employees join Infillion’s 650 full-time staff.
What is Taboola acquiring with Dianomi?
Taboola (Nasdaq: TBLA) announced on September 18, 2026 an offer to acquire Dianomi, which works with more than 600 advertisers including Charles Schwab, Invesco, and Bank of America, and places their advertising with publishers including Reuters, CNN Business, The Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Taboola said the network will run through Realize, its performance advertising platform. The offer falls under Rule 2.7 of the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, with completion expected before the end of 2026 subject to regulatory conditions and Dianomi shareholder approval.
What does Fingerprint’s Bot Directory do?
Fingerprint launched Bot Directory on September 18, 2026 as a continuously updated, searchable public repository of AI tools, bots, and crawlers, listing each entry by identity, provider, and purpose. Operators can test their own agents for Web Bot Auth compliance and submit them for inclusion. Fingerprint reports identifying more than 1 billion unique devices a month across more than 6,000 customers, including Plaid, Booking.com, Dropbox, Trustpilot, and Checkout.com.
Did any September 18, 2026 martech release publish a customer performance figure?
No. The four releases carrying September 18, 2026 datelines published deal scope, data coverage, and company scale. Infillion published Foursquare’s 16 billion check-ins and 250 million device coverage, Taboola published Dianomi’s 600-plus advertiser count, Fingerprint published its 1 billion monthly device identifications, and Handvantage published a page count. None of the four reported hours saved, cost reduced, or revenue moved for a named customer.
What should marketing leaders do about automated traffic in their analytics?
Pull the share of sessions your analytics classifies as automated and check whether that share sits inside the denominator of the conversion rates you report to finance. Fingerprint’s September 18, 2026 Bot Directory launch gives one reference for identifying AI crawlers and agents by provider and purpose, and the same allow-and-deny list decides which AI systems can read your product pages. Assign one owner for that list across marketing and security, because blocking a crawler removes a discovery channel and counting a bot distorts a reported rate.
