14 DAY TRIAL // Google has confirmed its intentions of buying Admeld, an online advertising startup. While it hasn't provided a price, Google has explained where Admeld fits into the online ad landscape. What's more, in its own blog post, Admeld said that the two companies will remain independent while regulators work out the details and decide whether to approve the deal.
"We often hear from major website publishers that ad management today is still mind-numbingly complicated and inefficient. We’ve been investing in our publisher tools to try and improve this landscape and have made great progress, but we think we can do even better," Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising at Google, wrote.
"To help major publishers get the most out of the rapidly changing and growing display ad landscape, we’ve signed an agreement to acquire Admeld, a New York-based yield optimization firm," he announced.
Admeld is one of the newest breeds of ad companies. It works more closely with publishers rather than advertisers to maximize their revenue and get them the most valuable but also the most fitting ads.
Admeld works somewhat similar to an ad exchange, but is more customer-focused and it picks from the myriad of options, direct sales, ad networks, exchanges and so on, to find the best one for the publishers, mostly large websites.
It's an area that Google didn't cover directly, it owns the largest ad network out there and its ad exchange is growing fast under the DoubleClick banner, but Admeld fills in a gap in Google's ad business.
The company is said to be willing to pay in the range of $400 million for Admeld, though the figure hasn't been confirmed. Such a large transaction will get the attention of regulators and it may be a few months or more until it is approved, assuming that there are no objections.
"Lastly, while the transaction undergoes regulatory review, our two companies will remain independent in the marketplace. We will keep you posted as the process moves forward," Admeld CEO Michael Barrett wrote.