ADTECH, part of AOL's online advertising business, has just attracted a top-notch partner. Gannett, an international company that operates 23 TV stations and publishes USA Today, along with other 84 newspapers, has chosen AOL's services to display ads on online properties. So far, the two partners have replaced all the online properties of the media giant from its server and moved them to ADTECH's Helios IQ ad serving solution.

"This agreement is a significant milestone for ADTECH in terms of establishing our technology in the United States. [...] We've been working extremely hard over the past year to solidify our infrastructure in order to fully support U.S. customers. The opportunity to showcase our capabilities with a top media company like Gannett makes all that work worthwhile," said Dirk Freytag, CEO of ADTECH, underscoring the fact that the European market has already been conquered.

Gannett's representatives are equally happy with the new agreement. "With the ADTECH platform, advertisers of all sizes will be able to easily reach our affluent, active online audience, whether it's through broad national campaigns, audience segmentation, or locally targeted campaigns. Gannett can now enable national and local advertisers to engage with any audience segment they could ever hope to reach," Chris Saridakis, Gannett Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, revealed.

The online advertising business is in continuous expansion. Companies, no matter how important they are, sometimes have to commit to mergers or partnerships that were hard to fathom a while ago. The Yahoo!-Google agreement could be one example of a pact with the devil. When the result of such a partnership is an increased amount of money and reputation for both parties, the compromise seems worth having been made. Still, AOL has decided to stand on its own two feet and conquer the market in a gradual manner.