January 16, 2007

Overall, AOL hopes to increase its online advertising business in Europe with its planned acquisition of TradeDoubler, a Swedish provider of online marketing services, for $1.05 billion.

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TradeDoubler's online marketing services offering includes hosted analytic tools that help customers simplify the creation, management, analysis and optimization of online marketing and sales activities.

AOL's planned acquisition will complement its existing European online advertising effort, which is presently based on services from Advertising.com, a company AOL bought a little over two years ago.

Advertising.com operates a display advertising network in the U.S. and eight European countries. As a complement, it also offers search engine management and lead generation services.

Combining Advertising.com and TradeDoubler will offer search marketers and online advertisers a comprehensive range of marketing services and will offer Internet publishers new ways to increase revenue in both Europe and the US, America Online said.

As would presumably be expected, TradeDoubler's board recommends the offer but its shareholders must approve it first.

AOL's acquisition of TradeDoubler must also receive approval from competition authorities. The two companies expect the deal to close in February 2007.

AOL's proposed acquisition follows a turnaround in its strategy. The company recently divested itself of its ISP businesses in Europe, with a plan of offering its content services for free, supporting the business with advertising.

AOL is also offering to manage online advertising sales and supply editorial content for ISPs' portals.

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Source: IT World Canada