# DWA

> DWA was a San Francisco-based global media and marketing agency specializing in technology companies, with services spanning media planning and buying, programmatic advertising, search, social, account-based marketing and analytics. Founded by David Wood in 1996, it was acquired by dentsu in 2017 and integrated into Merkle B2B in January 2022, when the DWA brand was retired. Its capabilities form part of the lineage of today's dentsu B2B offering.

- **Founded:** 1996
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, United States
- **Founders:** David Wood (Founder; became chairman in 2016)
- **Products:** Media planning and buying, Account-based marketing, Demand generation and marketing automation, Content marketing consulting, Adaptive Marketing Platform (AMP)
- **Notable:** Ranked fourth among US B2B marcomms agencies in B2B Marketing’s 2020 report., Ranked first in the report’s fastest-growing US B2B marcomms table, with reported gross-income growth of 27.52%., DWA’s 2014 announcement reported 25+ new client accounts and nearly doubled year-over-year North American net revenue.

## Products & services

- **Media planning and buying** — Planning and execution across programmatic, search, social and other media for technology and B2B clients. Historical DWA capability.
- **Account-based marketing** — Audience and account targeting intended to engage the people involved in enterprise purchases. Historical DWA capability.
- **Demand generation and marketing automation** — Lead-generation programs, marketing automation and measurement for technology marketers. Historical DWA capability.
- **Content marketing consulting** — Consulting on content and its role in engaging technology buyers. Historical DWA capability.
- **Adaptive Marketing Platform (AMP)** — DWA’s in-house integration of multiple data sources, personalized paid and owned media experiences, testing and lead management; DataXu became its global programmatic engine in 2015.

## Achievements

- Ranked fourth among US B2B marcomms agencies in B2B Marketing’s 2020 report.
- Ranked first in the report’s fastest-growing US B2B marcomms table, with reported gross-income growth of 27.52%.
- DWA’s 2014 announcement reported 25+ new client accounts and nearly doubled year-over-year North American net revenue.
- Listed with Turn’s corporate marketing team in the 2016 Internet Advertising Competition winning entry for Best B2B Integrated Ad Campaign; April Six is credited as the creative agency.

## Latest updates

- **2022-01** — Merkle formally integrated gyro and Merkle | DWA under Merkle B2B and retired both agency brand names.
- **2024-08** — Dentsu described its global B2B practice as an evolution of Merkle B2B, with around 1,000 consultants; this is successor-practice context, not DWA headcount.
- **2026-10** — At research time, dentsu’s current B2B page presents its fifth Superpowers Index edition and a combined insight, creative, CXM and media offering. This date records verification, not the report’s publication month.

## Links

- Website: http://www.dwamedia.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dwa
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dwaTechMedia
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/DWATechMedia

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/dwa
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-21