Advantage Solutions

What Advantage Solutions does

Advantage Solutions is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: ADV) outsourced sales and marketing services provider for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) and retail industries, founded in 1987 and headquartered in Clayton, Missouri. The company serves more than 4,000 CPG brands and major retailers including Walmart, Costco, PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble-adjacent accounts, operating across approximately 85,000 retail locations in the United States and Canada with 10,000+ employees. Its service portfolio is organized into five interconnected solution areas: Insights & Sales Growth, Product/Aisle & Shelf Reinvention, Private Brands (powered by the Daymon subsidiary), Omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing, and Brand & Retail Execution (powered by SAS). Revenue is generated through B2B professional services contracts — including in-store merchandising, product demonstrations, category management, private brand development, supply chain fulfillment, and integrated marketing — priced per scope of work and delivered via direct enterprise sales and field teams.

The company operates a proprietary technology platform that combines artificial intelligence, machine learning, intelligent video capture, image recognition, digital shelf analytics, and inventory optimization to deliver retail execution insights and consumer intelligence at scale. Its September 2025 partnership with Instacart extends this capability with computer vision and first-party shopper data from approximately 100,000 stores across 1,800+ banners, used to monitor shelf conditions and trigger corrective field actions. The AMP agency, formed by merging Advantage United Commerce with Amp Agency in October 2025, consolidates integrated marketing services (strategy, creative, retail media, digital, and ad activation) under one brand for clients including Starbucks, Ferrero, and Bayer.

The business model is professional services revenue across six streams, with FY 2025 revenue of approximately $3.54 billion. As of Q1 2026, the Experiential Services segment was a clear growth engine (22.4% revenue growth, 116% EBITDA growth), while the larger Branded Services segment contracted (12% revenue decline). The company is undergoing a significant financial restructuring: net losses widened to $227.7M in FY 2025; net leverage sits at 4.2x; S&P downgraded the credit rating; Nasdaq issued a minimum bid price non-compliance notice resolved via a 1-for-25 reverse stock split in March 2026; and management refinanced debt to 2030 while divesting non-core assets (Amp Product Experience Division to Verndale plus three other businesses for ~$55M). Major institutional investors CVC Capital Partners and Bain Capital retain board appointment rights.

Name

Advantage Solutions

Legal name

Advantage Solutions Inc.

Website

https://advantagesolutions.net

Company type

Public

Founded year

1987

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

5,001–10,000 employees

Short description

Advantage Solutions is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: ADV) outsourced sales and marketing services firm serving more than 4,000 consumer packaged goods brands and major retailers across approximately 85,000 U.S. and Canadian retail locations. It delivers in-store merchandising, product demonstrations, private brand development (Daymon), integrated marketing (AMP), and AI-enabled retail execution services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Retail Marketing and Sales Services

NAICS

Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services (5418)

akta.pro primary industry

Merchandising Services (Field Merchandising, Audits, Compliance) (MPAAAJAF)

akta.pro secondary industry

Shopper & Retail Insights (In-Store/Path-to-Purchase, Category Insights) (MPAAALAJ)

Keywords

• Retail marketing services
• Consumer packaged goods sales
• In-store merchandising
• Private brand development
• Retail execution solutions

Headquarters

HQ city

Irvine

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Experiential Services: Revenue from in-store product demonstrations, live events, road shows, conferences, branding, and shopper marketing services. Delivered through field teams deployed at retail locations. Strong growth segment with 22.4% revenue growth in Q1 2026 ($270M revenue).
2. Branded Services / Retail Execution: Revenue from in-store merchandising, supply chain fulfillment, logistics, retail media, and construction/assembly/installation services. Currently experiencing headwinds with 12% revenue decline in Q1 2026.
3. Private Brand Solutions (Daymon): Revenue from private brand strategy, product development, sourcing, sales, and business management services for retailers. Powered by Daymon subsidiary.
4. Insights & Sales Growth: Revenue from headquarter sales, category management, insights and analytics, emerging brand acceleration, and business optimization consulting services.
5. Product, Aisle & Shelf Reinvention: Revenue from product innovation, retail space planning, and shelf optimization services.
6. Omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing: Revenue from branding, shopper marketing, retail media, promotion, sampling, live events, and experiential marketing campaigns across physical and digital retail.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Advantage Solutions provides outsourced sales, marketing, merchandising, and retail execution services to consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers across grocery, mass, big box, drug, and convenience channels in the United States and Canada. Its service portfolio spans insights and analytics, category management, headquarter sales, private brand strategy and sourcing, product innovation, retail media, shopper marketing, sampling and demos, live events, supply chain fulfillment, logistics, and in-store merchandising deployed through field teams at approximately 85,000 retail locations.

Product overview

Advantage Solutions is a platform of interconnected business services for consumer goods brands and retailers, consisting of five core solution areas: Insights & Sales Growth, Product Aisle & Shelf Reinvention, Private Brands (powered by Daymon), Omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing, and Brand & Retail Execution (powered by SAS). The company leads with proprietary technology and AI to deliver services across the retail value chain—from product conception and manufacturing to logistics, merchandising, and marketing. The portfolio includes sub-brands Daymon (private brand strategy), SAS (retail execution), and Amp Agency (consolidated digital marketing agency formed in 2024), as well as acquired entities like Brandshare (2022). The company also offers an insights platform called Advantage 360.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Daymon: Private brand solutions including product development, sales, strategy, sourcing, and business management
• SAS
• AMP
• Advantage 360

Products and services

• Insights & Sales Growth Solutions A service suite for CPG brands and retailers covering headquarter sales, category management, insights and analytics, emerging brand acceleration, and business optimization using proprietary AI-driven data and analytics.
• Product, Aisle & Shelf Reinvention Solutions Services encompassing product innovation and retail space planning designed to transform how products are presented, positioned, and merchandised across retail aisles and shelves.
• Private Brand Solutions (Daymon) End-to-end private brand services for retailers including strategy, product development, sourcing, sales, and business management of retailer-owned store brands, delivered through the Daymon subsidiary.
• Omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing Solutions Integrated marketing services covering branding, shopper marketing, retail media, promotion, sampling, demos, and live events, road shows, and conferences across physical and digital retail channels.
• Brand & Retail Execution Solutions (SAS) Retail execution and merchandising services for CPG brands covering retail media, supply chain fulfillment, logistics, in-store merchandising and management, and construction, assembly, and installation.
• Amp Agency A unified marketing agency offering integrated services across strategy, creative, retail media, digital, and ad activation for enterprise clients including BF Goodrich, Ferrero, Bayer, Starbucks, and Southwest Airlines.
• Advantage 360 An insights and analytics platform that provides consumer and retail data dashboards, supporting the company's insights and category management offerings.

Quantifiable outcome

• 71% of consumers choose their preferred retailer based on its private brand program
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers19 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• InstacartcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 29 September 2025Instacart and Advantage Solutions formed a strategic partnership combining Instacart's in-store audit technology and 600,000-shopper community with Advantage's retail execution services. The partnership, which completed a successful pilot, enables real-time visibility into product availability, pricing, and display compliance for CPG companies, with corrective action triggered through Advantage field teams. Expansion planned for 2026.
• Instacart (Consumer Insights Portal)coreTechnology or Integration · 23 September 2025Advantage Solutions is an early partner in Instacart's Consumer Insights Portal, a self-serve software platform providing brands with real-time first-party grocery shopping data from nearly 100,000 stores across 1,800+ retail banners. The portal offers SKU-level performance metrics, search behavior, substitution patterns, and promotion impact analytics, which Advantage uses to inform promotional strategy, retail planning, and campaign management for its CPG clients.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• WPP: WPP is a global advertising and communications holding company with significant retail/shopper marketing capabilities (e.g., GroupM, VMLY&R), competing for CPG marketing budgets as a broad incumbent versus Advantage's specialized retail marketing offerings.
• Omnicom Group: Omnicom Group owns major advertising, retail shopper marketing (The Integer Group), and PR agencies that compete with Advantage Solutions' AMP agency, Omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing, and category management services at the holding-company level.

Regional players

• Smollan: Smollan is a South Africa-based global field marketing and retail execution firm with significant North American presence, offering directly comparable in-store merchandising, sales, and brand activation services to CPG manufacturers.

Direct peers

• Crossmark: Crossmark provides retail merchandising, in-store demonstrations, and integrated marketing services to consumer brands and retailers across North America, with a directly overlapping service portfolio and customer base.
• SPAR Group: SPAR Group provides merchandising, brand representation, and retail execution services globally, directly competing with Advantage Solutions' SAS retail execution and field merchandising operations.
• News America Marketing: News America Marketing (a News Corp subsidiary) provides in-store advertising, retail media, and shopper marketing solutions, overlapping directly with Advantage's retail media and in-store promotional offerings to CPG brands and retailers.
• WIS International: WIS International offers retail merchandising, inventory, and pricing services to retailers and manufacturers, providing directly comparable in-store execution and category management capabilities to Advantage Solutions' SAS business.
• The Integer Group: The Integer Group is a shopper and retail marketing agency owned by Omnicom Group, directly comparable to Advantage's Omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing and Daymon-style shopper engagement capabilities for CPG clients.
• Acosta: Acosta is one of the largest U.S. sales and marketing agencies serving CPG brands and retailers with in-store merchandising, retail execution, and shopper marketing services, making it the closest direct competitor to Advantage Solutions across both brands and retailers.

Emerging players

• Inmar: Inmar provides supply chain, reverse logistics, retail media, and analytics services to retailers and brands, partially overlapping with Advantage's supply chain fulfillment, retail media, and analytics offerings as an emerging full-stack competitor.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/AdvtgeSolutions
• Facebookfacebook.com/TheAdvantageSolutions
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/advantage-solutions-sales-marketing-technology

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Subsidiaries4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors7 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A26 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Advantage Solutions