• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, July 1, 2015

Mergers and acquisitions within digital media and technology continue to dominate the newswires. M&A activity in these sectors increased 24% in the first half of 2015 compared to the same time period in 2014.

The data comes from Coady Diemar Partners’ first-half 2015 M&A report.

There were 1,243 announced transactions during the first half of this year. The value of those deals was down 23% compared to the first half of 2014.

However, one key reason that the aggregate value of M&A activity decreased during the first half of this year compared to last could be that in February 2014, Facebook paid a whopping $19 billion for WhatsApp. The largest announced deal so far this year -- worth $5.3 billion, per Coady Diemar -- was only about a quarter the size of that Facebook-WhatsApp deal.

“So far this year deal activity has increased with fewer large deals,” stated Colin Knudsen, managing director of digital media and technology at Coady Diemar Partners. “This is a sign of health in digital M&A as both supply and demand have broadened.”

The report notes that the Agency & Marketing sector has been the most active so far this year, accounting for about 20% of total transactions. Dentsu, WPP and Publicis helped lead the charge, as did Google.

Ad tech M&A activity hasn’t died down either. The largest deal so far this year in that category was Verizon’s $4.3 purchase of AOL. That deal helped lead to a 74% increase in transaction value year-over-year for ad tech deals.

Other key ad tech deals included Nielsen’s acquisition of eXelate, AppNexus’ purchase of Yieldex and Vista Equity’s majority stake acquisition of Mediaocean.

There have been 99 total announced deals in the ad tech sector so far this year, worth about $6 billion. The total value of ad tech M&A deals last year was $8.2 billion.

The full report is expected to be released later this week.