Advantage Solutions
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.
- Company typePublic
- Founded1987
- HeadquartersIrvine, United States
- Headcount5,001–10,000
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
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.
Advantage Solutions firmographics
Firmographics- 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
Advantage Solutions industry classification
Industry- 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
Where Advantage Solutions is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Irvine
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Advantage Solutions business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain
Revenue model
- 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).
- 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.
- Private Brand Solutions (Daymon): Revenue from private brand strategy, product development, sourcing, sales, and business management services for retailers. Powered by Daymon subsidiary.
- Insights & Sales Growth: Revenue from headquarter sales, category management, insights and analytics, emerging brand acceleration, and business optimization consulting services.
- Product, Aisle & Shelf Reinvention: Revenue from product innovation, retail space planning, and shelf optimization services.
- 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
Advantage Solutions product offering
Product offeringCore 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
Companies that use Advantage Solutions
Customer profileNamed customers19 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Advantage Solutions technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability4 records
Feature6 records
Advantage Solutions partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- InstacartcoreInstacart 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)coreAdvantage 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
Advantage Solutions competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad 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
Advantage Solutions social profiles
Digital presenceAdvantage Solutions financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Advantage Solutions leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles14 records
Advantage Solutions subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries4 records
Advantage Solutions funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors7 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Advantage Solutions M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A26 records
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Advantage Solutions
What does Advantage Solutions do?
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.
Is Advantage Solutions a public or private company?
Advantage Solutions is a public company. It is classified as public and is currently operating.
When was Advantage Solutions founded?
Advantage Solutions was founded in 1987. It employs 5,001 to 10,000 people.
Where is Advantage Solutions based?
Advantage Solutions is headquartered in Irvine, United States, in the North America region.
How does Advantage Solutions make money?
Six revenue lines are on record. Experiential Services are the primary driver. The others are branded Services / Retail Execution, private Brand Solutions (Daymon), insights & Sales Growth, product, Aisle & Shelf Reinvention and omnicommerce & Experiential Marketing.
Who are Advantage Solutions's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are WPP and Omnicom Group. Smollan is listed as a regional player. Direct peers are Crossmark, SPAR Group, News America Marketing, WIS International, The Integer Group and Acosta. Inmar is listed as an emerging player.
Does Advantage Solutions have an API?
No public API is recorded for Advantage Solutions.
What industry is Advantage Solutions in?
Advantage Solutions's product category is Retail Marketing and Sales Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAAAJAF, Merchandising Services (Field Merchandising, Audits, Compliance), with a secondary code of MPAAALAJ, Shopper & Retail Insights (In-Store/Path-to-Purchase, Category Insights). Its NAICS code is 5418.