A dental chair can be empty for a reason that has nothing to do with patients. Someone has to staff it. After the pandemic, Heartland Dental faced a shortage of dental professionals while supported offices were preparing to open. Recruiting had become a constraint on growth. More advertising was an obvious response. Fusion92 began with a less glamorous question: who, exactly, should see it?
- Fusion92 connects audience data, creative, media and digital experiences.
- Its sweet spot is complex brands operating across many locations.
- The Heartland lesson: reconcile the audience before increasing the spend.
First, fix the list.
Heartland had been using incomplete, fragmented recruiting lists. Fusion92 collected and analyzed contact information from more than 50 sources, assembled one targeting list, and examined historical search behavior. It monitored demand weekly and timed activity around hiring seasons, using search, social, email and recruiter support.
Fusion92 reports reaching 124% of the hygienist applicant goal. Read that carefully: applicant-goal attainment, rather than a 124% increase or a count of people hired. The distinction matters. The useful discovery was that a staffing campaign could improve when audience preparation and spending decisions answered to the same evidence.
of the hygienist applicant goal achieved
The business between the handoffs.
This is a good way into Fusion92, because “marketing transformation partner,” its chosen description, can conceal more than it explains. In practice, the Chicago company helps organizations identify audiences, develop messages, run campaigns, build digital experiences and measure outcomes. Consulting and data science sit alongside the familiar agency work of creative production and media buying.
Its current emphasis is regulated, multi-location organizations: healthcare providers, financial-services businesses, insurers and similarly complicated brands. A national campaign has to make sense at the local level. An attractive idea still needs approval. A website visit must eventually connect to an outcome the business values.
Public work includes Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Karmanos Cancer Institute, H&R Block and Mercedes-Benz. These assignments need different kinds of expertise. For the Michigan insurer, Fusion92 developed social and digital content for younger adults; the company reports improved brand favorability. Creative judgment still has a job here.
The expensive question is what gets lost between choosing an audience and measuring what happened.
Fusion92 competes for the work that might otherwise go to a holding-company agency, an independent agency or several specialist suppliers. Its argument is about coordination: keep identity, activation and experience connected. That is a positioning claim with a practical buyer benefit, provided the integration actually reduces the client’s work.
Buying the missing pieces.
Matthew Murphy founded Fusion92 in 1999. Its name refers to combining disciplines, with 92 borrowed from the naturally occurring elements. The chemistry metaphor has survived a quarter-century of changes in advertising. Today the company reports more than 270 team members, with hubs beyond Chicago in Detroit, Austin and Denver.
In April 2021, Fusion92 announced investment from Serata Capital Partners and Landon Capital Partners, with Wintrust as lending partner. That backing supported a strategy of expanding capabilities through acquisitions. Its independence therefore means operating outside an agency holding company; private equity is part of the ownership story.
The purchases show the strategy more clearly than any slogan. DP+ added agency capabilities in 2022. Conversion Fanatics brought conversion optimization that September. A Big Footprint deal completed in December, announced the following January, strengthened search. In November 2023, TRAK Data added automated predictive audience modeling.
TRAK also supplied a useful description of the commercial offer: software with a service. Clients could use technology and also obtain human help applying it. Fusion92’s business combines consulting, marketing execution and proprietary products. The buying decision is consequently about the scope of responsibility a client wants one partner to take.
One audience, several jobs.
The current product portfolio gives those responsibilities names. NoMi connects customer identifiers and develops audiences. DAX coordinates activation and campaign reporting. CORE supports governed websites and retail promotional content. Nucleus adds AI tools, including brand-visibility measurement in AI assistants and creative production configured around a client’s brand.
Experian supplies an important part of the data foundation. The collaboration, announced in June 2024, connected its marketing data and identity capabilities with Fusion92’s tools. In a subsequent partner account, a regional amusement park combined its buyer file with consumer data and geographic boundaries to target membership renewals.
Fusion92 modeled the audience, used channel preferences to shape media choices and activated through DAX. Experian reports conversions exceeding the park’s stretch goal by 70%. That is a partner-reported result. Its explanatory value lies in the sequence: start with actual buyers, account for travel geography, then coordinate the channels.
The Viant offering also makes the market position more interesting. A media buyer can access Fusion92-curated segments inside another company’s platform. The audience work can therefore travel beyond a full agency assignment. For a prospective client, that creates a useful question about scope: is the immediate need a better audience, campaign management, or a broader redesign of how the work connects? Each is a different purchasing decision. The sensible brief names the bottleneck first, then asks which combination of people and products is needed to remove it.
The useful part to steal.
A marketer can copy that sequence without buying every product. Choose an outcome before a channel. Reconcile conflicting audience files. Check when demand appears. Decide how results will change spending. The Heartland case makes those steps concrete enough to discuss at a Monday meeting.
There is an organizational lesson here, too. Fusion92’s careers materials emphasize curiosity, fearlessness, teamwork and leadership. Those values fit the work being sold: specialists must share information rather than protect their own corner of a campaign. The company lists workplace recognition from Built In, Purpose Jobs and Best and Brightest. Awards do not prove that every handoff works, but the emphasis on collaboration is consistent with the operating model.
The approach also has conditions. As a practical inference, coordinating systems helps only when the organization has usable, permissioned data and a meaningful way to measure outcomes. A simple business may gain little from enterprise orchestration. Better targeting cannot fix an offer people do not want, or create professionals where the labor market has none.
Fusion92 is extending the model. In March 2026 it promoted Jacob Beckley to chief innovation officer. In May it launched curated audiences within Viant, giving media buyers another route to its data. The central bet remains refreshingly specific: make the connections hold, and give the next campaign something better to learn from.