AOL buys buy.at. Beefs up affiliate capabilities

As reported on the AOL corporate site today, "AOL acquires Buy.at Affiliate Network." Almost 13 months ago, AOL made a $900 million bid for another UK based performance-marketing firm TradeDoubler, but if memory serves correctly, the stockholders of the publicly traded TradeDoubler rejected the deal.

Says AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco. “It will position AOL's Advertising.com to serve merchant and retail advertisers with the industry's most comprehensive set of performance marketing offerings to drive sales and other transactions, leveraging Advertising.com's web advertising network and search engine marketing services and now buy.at's innovative affiliate network.  We look forward to accelerating the expansion of buy.at's affiliate network in the United States and worldwide.”

Summarized - the one piece of Advertising.com arsenal that the company lacks is a robust affiliate play. It's not feasible for them to build one from scratch, and the major US affiliate networks have all been acquired in the past, namely Commission Junction by ValueClick and LinkShare by Rakuten, although the latter was rumored last year to be considering divesting of the asset it paid $400+ million for. CJ has long been a strong performer for the ValuceClick family, so the move by AOL/Advertising.com to compete by focusing first overseas and then expanding to the US makes a lot of sense. And, it also explains why some Advertising.com members were visiting their London office more frequently than usual :) There is a lot of upside in European affiliate marketing and given the currency advantage Advertising.com could win over many US publishers by helping them crack that nut, relationships they can leverage later.

Link to Press Release for "AOL acquires Buy.at Affiliate Network"