AOL has bought UK affiliate marketing business buy.at for an undisclosed price to boost its online advertising business. This is the fifth acquisition for the Internet media giant in the past year; it had also made a failed attempt at acquiring TradeDoubler.
Even while there is talk of splitting up AOL into two, with much greater focus on the content/media/advertising side of the business, the company has beefed up its online advertising portfolio with contextual advertising, behavioral advertising and affiliate marketing. The latest acquisition provides considerable synergy to their business, especially with the rapid growth that buy.at has been experiencing in the past few years. The latter earns about GBP 25-30 million revenues annually and has been profitable for the last three years according to its CEO, Kevin Cornils.
buy.at had made its foray into the US towards the end of last year. Being part of such a large parent organization, it will have the opportunity to not only further its reach in the US market, but also jointly look at expanding its presence in the European market.
The news of this acquisition will undoubtedly be overshadowed by all the talk about the Yahoo-Microsoft merger and the impact on the online advertising business. While it is certainly not in the same league, the significance of this acquisition shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly when it is viewed in light of AOL’s other purchases during the past year.


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