AOL Springs for Behavioral Targeter Tacoda
AOL announced yesterday that it will purchase behavioral ad targeting company Tacoda Networks and run it as an independent subsidiary.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, although Reuters quoted “a source familiar with the deal” as saying that AOL would spend $275 million to buy the online ad platform.
Tacoda operates patented technology that lets advertisers serve up display ads based on users’ previous behavior on the Web. Where text-based sponsored links are triggered by keywords — either from users’ searches or from the content they are currently looking at — behavioral ads assume that readers who looked, for example, at a Web page about hybrid cars a week ago might be interested in seeing an ad for one today.
“The acquisition of Tacoda will build on our advertising momentum, letting us better serve advertisers by enhancing our ability to precisely target advertisements across an even broader network,” AOL president and COO Ron Grant said in a release.
AOL has said it will operate the Tacoda Audience Network separately from interactive marketing services provider Advertising.com, which the company also owns. Advertising.com also offers behavioral ad targeting.
