AOL enhances online ad arsenal

While all eyes were diverted by ‘Micro-hoo’ headlines, AOL has quietly been doing some major wheeling and dealing of its own.

by Helen Leggatt

Last year, AOL acquired four various online advertising-related businesses – Tacoda, Quigo, Third Screen Media and AdTech AG. This week, AOL announced they have made a fifth acquisition – buy.at.

buy%20at%20logo.jpg The addition of the burgeoning British affiliate marketing business will further enhance AOL’s growing arsenal of advertiser and publisher products.

The profitable buy.at enables advertisers to pay merchants based on specific consumer behaviors such as signing up for a newsletter, using a coupon or making a purchase.

Randy Falco, AOL’s Chairman and CEO, said in a recent statement that the acquisition “will position AOL's Advertising.com to serve merchant and retail advertisers with the industry's most comprehensive set of performance marketing offerings to drive sales and other transactions, leveraging Advertising.com's web advertising network and search engine marketing services and now buy.at's innovative affiliate network”.

Financial details have not officially been disclosed, but TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher posts “well-placed sources say the deal is worth in the region of £75 million ($150 million)”.