2014 has proven a bumper year for advertising technology firm mergers and acquisitions, with over 50 per cent more significant ad tech acquisitions this year compared to 2013.

In total, there were 82 major acquisitions in the industry during 2014. Some of the most notable deals include Facebooks $400m (£254m) purchase of video firm LiveRail, Yahoos acquisition of Flurry and BrightRoll, and Spider.io and Adometry being snapped up by Google.

Deal value also went up considerably, with $3.8bn spent between January and October, rising from $2.3bn across all of 2013, according to figures from investment band Coady Diemar Partners.

Consolidation in the ad tech industry has long been predicted, with industry experts saying it was only a matter of time before a “shakeout” of this nature occurred. With so many small companies competing for a portion of marketers budgets and attention, the market has to mature, which leads to a rise in mergers and acquisitions.

The M&A activity has not been limited to the ad tech sector either; the mobile industry in general has seen a record amount of money spent in mergers and acquisitions this year, with $47bn spent between August 2013 and 2014.