By Suzanne Vranica and Alexandra Bruell 

Advertising giants Interpublic Group of Cos. and Dentsu Corp. are expected to submit offers to acquire most of data broker Acxiom Corp. ahead of a Thursday deadline for bids, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Acxiom, which has a market capitalization of $2.3 billion, is selling its data-marketing division of the company. The unit represents about three-quarters of Acxiom's total revenue in fiscal 2018 and specializes in housing and managing reams of customer data from clients such as retailers and financial-services firms.

Acxiom announced a "strategic review" of that marketing services business in February. The division, which generated $697 million in revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, could fetch between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion, according to some of the people familiar with the matter.

Possible acquirers submitted expressions of interest in April. Final bids for the Acxiom unit are expected Thursday. IPG and Dentsu are expected to make bids, according to some of the people.

Ad companies have long used their size and purchasing power to negotiate the best prices for their clients. But the rise of digital marketing has upended the business and made consumer data a critical ingredient in the ad-buying process.

As a result, ad firms have been under pressure to beef up in that area. In 2016, for example, Dentsu bought data-marketing firm Merkle.

Dentsu and IPG are among the world's largest ad holding companies. Dentsu, headquartered in Japan, owns media agency Carat, as well as agencies like 360i, iProspect and McGarryBowen. U.S.-based IPG houses agency networks like McCann Worldgroup and Mediabrands.

Customer data helps marketers and agencies craft relevant ads for consumers, target those messages at the right people and measure their effectiveness. Without access to large amounts of data, agencies and marketers have to rely more heavily on Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which tend not to share much consumer data with advertisers.

Doubling down on data comes with risks at a time when companies that traffic in consumer information are under increased scrutiny, especially after revelations earlier this year that data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed and retained Facebook user data obtained from a professor.

The uproar over that incident fueled calls for data-privacy legislation in the U.S. Meanwhile, Europe recently began enforcing General Data Protection Regulation, a sweeping new privacy law that often requires companies to get users' consent to gather personal information and requires companies to be more transparent about the information they collect and how it is used.

Acxiom's business has been affected by the issues. In March, Facebook, in an attempt to shore up its data-privacy practices, said it would discontinue Partner Categories, an ad-targeting option that allowed advertisers to use data from data-brokers such as Acxiom to target specific audiences on the social media service.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 28, 2018 12:16 ET (16:16 GMT)