Home / News & Blogs

AOL buys ad firm Tacoda

Elinor Mills | July 24, 2007 11:27 PM PDT

Summary

Time Warner's Net unit adds a behavioral targeting firm to its advertising arsenal.

Topics

Elinor Mills, Web Technology
Time Warner's AOL Internet unit has agreed to acquire Tacoda, a company that offers behavioral targeted ads.

Behavioral ads, which are relevant based on a person's online behavior, are the next phase of online advertising. A few weeks ago Yahoo launched SmartAds, which combines behavioral information with demographic information in ad serving.

Behavioral targeted ad spending is projected to nearly double next year to $1 billion and then nearly triple to $3.8 billion by 2011, according to research firm eMarketer.

Consolidation is ripe in the market. Google wants to buy online ad company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion; Yahoo recently spent $680 million for 80 percent of Right Media it didn't own; Microsoft is offering $6 billion to buy Aquantive; and WPP Group is acquiring 24/7 for nearly $650 million.

This is the latest ad-related purchase for AOL. The company acquired mobile advertising company Third Screen Media and AdTech AG, a Germany-based online ad-serving company this year. AOL purchased video ad firm Lightningcast last year and Advertising.com, the largest third-party display ad network, three years ago.

Tacoda, based in New York, will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Talkback - Tell Us What You Think

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity