Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
AOL is beefing up its ad tech capabilities further with the acquisition of video ad network and exchange operator Adap.tv. The move follows AOL’s recent attempts to reposition itself in the market at as a leading ad tech provider and a challenger to Google’s “stack” of ad buying and selling technologies.
According to the company’s earnings, which it also released today, third-party network revenue was one of the fastest growing areas of AOL’s business last year. Overall ad revenue rose 6.9 percent, but network revenue growth outpaced it at 8.9 percent. AOL hopes the addition of Adap.tv will add to that growth.
AOL has doubled down on ad tech in the past few months. It hired former Razorfish CEO Bob Lord to head up its Networks division, which houses its ad tech assets, in July.
CEO Tim Armstrong also told reporters a couple of weeks ago that the company has been investing heavily in its technology products, and that acquisitions were likely. He also said the company plans to start selling access to its programmatic buying tools in something akin to an TV upfront.
It remains to be seen if marketers will ever buy services from it in that manner, but it’s clear that AOL now wants to be seen as a major ad technology contender. It’s an area in which it’s historically failed to impress despite some high profile acquisitions.
More to follow.
More in Media
‘We’re not trying to be TwitchTok’: Twitch adds new short-form video feature
Twitch is swinging big with a new short-form content push that should help more creators get discovered on-platform.
Yahoo becomes first licensee of ‘Spotify-like’ collective AI content licensing model
Yahoo is the first licensee of the Internet Licensing Collective, offering publishers a new way to get paid for content used in AI search.
Media Briefing: The IAB finds AI measurement standards elusive for publishers amid platform data gaps
The IAB’s new AI attribution framework promises to standardize measurement, but a lack of platform data leaves much of AI’s impact invisible.