CMGI Inc’s majority-owned subsidiary Engage Technologies Inc is to acquire Palo Alto, California-based AdKnowledge Inc in an all-stock transaction worth around $193m, it was announced yesterday, the latest move in a series of industry consolidations. AdKnowledge is web-traffic measurement firm that monitors the effectiveness of online advertizing through its Smart Banner, Campaign Manager and Reporter tools. Engage provides profiling technology and consumer interest data for web sites.
The announcement comes two days after CMGI agreed to pay $550m for online advertising services firm AdForce Inc, whose ad management system was already being integrated with Engage’s profiling technology before the merger was announced. CMGI also acquired web traffic management company Internet Profiles Corp in March and has a financial stake in online advertising network Adsmart Inc.
The move also spells further trouble for DoubleClick Inc, which announced its own $530m merger with NetGravity Inc back in July. AdKnowledge and AdForce were both DoubleClick competitors, and DoubleClick currently derives some 40% of its revenue from Alta Vista Inc, now majority-owned by CMGI. It would be an obvious move for CMGI to replace that business with alternative technology from its own stable.
AdKnowledge has relationships with online marketers such as SportsLine, eBay and eToys, and their agencies, such as Organic and i-Traffic. Engage hopes to interest those firms in its profile-based targeting technology as an alternative to content- based targeting. Using Engage, Adknowledge customers could target and analyze campaigns based on the profiles of their target audience. The addition of I/PRO technology from Internet Profiles will extend that into data analysis and data mining. á
