By Alexandra Bruell

Tinuiti Inc. is acquiring a business that specializes in sales on Amazon and adding new board members -- one of them Kevin Mayer, briefly chief executive of TikTok -- as the digital marketing agency makes a push for growth under its new majority owner New Mountain Capital.

Tinuiti has agreed to buy the Ortega Group LLC, a company that helps businesses sell their products on Amazon. Ortega is expected to generate $10 million in revenue this year, bringing Tinuiti to about $200 million in revenue, it said. Neither company would disclose the terms of the deal.

The purchase comes as brands increasingly invest in e-commerce and turn to Amazon.com Inc. not only to sell, but also to market their products and store their data.

Ad agencies too have been building their marketing expertise on Amazon and buying other agencies that specialize in it. WPP PLC, for instance, acquired Marketplace Ignition in 2017 and has since created a central group it calls the Amazon Center of Excellence, or ACE. Dentsu in 2019 consolidated its Amazon services under a group called Sellwin Consulting. And S4 Capital last year announced a deal with Orca Pacific.

Ortega -- which employs a number of former Amazon staffers -- helps brands manage their operations and presence on the mammoth platform, including the negotiating of terms and helping with content, analytics and supply chain, among other services. Ortega operates largely on a revenue-share model, taking a cut of the sales their clients generate on Amazon, based on individual terms, said Craig Atkinson, chief client officer at Tinuiti.

"We see an explosive interest across e-commerce, full stop, but there's no question that Amazon has the largest scale right now," he said. "This acquisition really amplifies our ability to use the other Amazon tools."

Ortega will likely be the first in a string of purchases by Tinuiti, which in December became part of private-equity giant New Mountain Capital and is hungry to broaden its capabilities. Tinuiti is in talks to acquire two other companies, said Zach Morrison, its chief executive.

"We set out at the end of last year to find a partner that could take this from a hundred-and-some-million-dollar company to a billion-dollar company," he said.

Future deals will focus on resources related to working with the "triopoly," he said, referring to Google, Facebook and Amazon, as well as marketing services around video, digital advertising and first-party data, he said. New board members, like Mr. Mayer, will also bring expertise in those areas, Mr. Morrison said.

Mr. Mayer recently joined sports-streaming company DAZN Group as chairman. He served briefly as chief executive of TikTok and in senior roles at Walt Disney Co. Tinuiti also added Anneka Gupta, president and head of products and platforms at data company LiveRamp, to its board.

Tinuiti, with about 750 staffers, had its strongest growth last year, as businesses sped up their investments in e-commerce and digital marketing to reach consumers in the Covid-19 pandemic, said Mr. Atkinson.

Ortega has about 30 employees. No layoffs are planned, he said.

Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-17-21 1214ET