Acerno acquisition aids Akamai's ad targeting aims

Content delivery provider Akamai is delving into advertising with the acquisition of targeted advertising firm acerno and the introduction of a new advertising solutions platform.

by Helen Leggatt

Akamai's new suite of Advertising Decision Solutions is designed to "to help buyers and sellers of online advertising create attractive audience segments with the necessary scale to achieve better results from campaigns and investments."

Aided by acerno's consumer tracking and behaviour analysis capabilities, Akamai's new technology will predict what consumers will look to buy next and serves up relevant ads.

The ad targeting offering also has the ability to recognize when an Internet user has placed an item in a shopping cart and then abandoned it. This allows marketers to approach that consumer with promotions or discounts to encourage them to review the purchase.

"We have the ability to work with some largest advertisers and networks and publishers today to do much larger and more flexible re-marketing buys," said Mike Afergan, chief technology officer-senior VP, Akamai's Advertising Decision Solutions.