Yahoo! to buy BlueLithium to boost online ad offerings

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 05 September 2007 07:51

Your IT - Home IT

Yahoo! is to acquire, for $US300m in cash, BlueLithium, one of the largest and fastest growing online global ad networks offering an array of direct response products and capabilities for advertisers and publishers.

"BlueLithium's products, technology and team will be an integral part of our drive to build the industry's leading advertising and publishing network," said Yahoo! CEO, Jerry Yang. "This acquisition will extend our ability to deliver powerful data analytics, advanced targeting and innovative media buying strategies to our customers, who are increasingly looking for these insights. By leveraging BlueLithium's complementary expertise and tools, we will be able to better address the needs of our performance-based display advertisers and enhance the value of our publishers' inventory."

BlueLithium's product capabilities include: audience targeting based on consumer interests; remarketing ads to consumers across the Web who have interacted with an ad or web page; custom segmentation; spot buying capabilities to extend reach and frequency against a marketer's target audience. According to comScore Media Metrix, BlueLithium is the fifth largest ad network in the US and second largest in the UK with 145 million unique visitors each month. BlueLithium was founded in 2004 and was named 2006 Innovator of the Year by AlwaysOn. It has been named one of the top 100 private companies in America for three consecutive years.

BlueLithium will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo!. CEO Gurbaksh Chahal will remain with BlueLithium for an interim period through the integration. The transaction ie expected be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007.