America Online moved to prop up its web ad operation yesterday with the purchase of online affiliate marketing network Buy.at…
“Just when you thought it was all about a few big players, AOL pops up and spends money to expand its business…”
AOL LLC said Tuesday that it has purchased “Buy.at,” an online affiliate marketing network, as part of its strategy to boost its online advertising business.
“The purchase, the latest in a series of AOL acquisitions over the past year, came just 24 hours ahead of Time Warner’s fourth quarter results announcement expected later today.”
Newcastle-based Buy.at, which operates networks in the U.S. and the UK, is an affiliate marketing network in which advertisers only pay online publishers when a visitor to its site makes a purchase or signs up to a free trial, will become part of AOL’s New York-based Advertising.com and Platform A online marketing organizations.
“This 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,” said AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco in the statement.
The timing of AOL’s latest buy is interesting, given the turmoil caused by Microsoft’s move to purchase Yahoo, a deal that could leave AOL with fewer would-be buyers, said Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence. “AOL has been adding and building as if they plan to go it alone.”
“Buy.at and other affiliate networks use partners to drive traffic to one another’s sites.”
Some analysts see affiliate marketing programs as a wave of the future. For instance, a content publisher may include a link to a merchant’s site on one of their pages. Typically, however, instead of receiving a payment per click or based on how many times an ad is seen, advertisers pay only when a visitor to its site completes a purchase or takes similar action, such as submitting their e-mail address.
There are dozens of affiliate marketing programs that encourage large and small Web publishers alike to include merchant links on their sites. Competitors include Commission Junction, LinkShare and a host of other firms. In recent years, many affiliate marketers have moved to clean up their networks, working to ensure that their merchant ads do not appear on sites that also propagate spyware and adware.
Buy.at has been a leader in developing technology and forging key partnerships in the arena, AOL said. The firm recently launched a service called “ContentEngine,” which allows retailers to automatically customize their offers on affiliate Web sites. It also offers a solution aimed at leveraging social networking pages for affiliate partnerships.
“AOL, which slashed 2,000 jobs worldwide, or 20 per cent of its workforce in October last year, added that it hopes to rapidly expand Buy.at’s network in the UK, US and Europe.”
More than that, it signals that AOL is continuing to grow and remain a force, even if it can no longer compete on quite the same playing field as the big boys.
Buy.at is the fifth advertising acquisition AOL has made in the past 12 months, a sign of AOL’s intent to capitalize on the growing online ad market. Last year, AOL acquired Quigo, a contextual advertising firm; Tacoda, a company that specializes in delivering ads based on users’ online activities; Third Screen Media, a mobile advertising network and software provider; and AdTech AG, an international online ad-serving company.
Anyway, although AOL did brag about how huge ecommerce has become ($116B in 2007), terms of the deal remain undisclosed, and timelines also remain hazy.
“Yet with all the Google-DoubleClick and Microsoft-Yahoo stuff hanging in the air, we would imagine that it would be in AOL’s best interests to not dillydally.”