AOL takes over buy.at in multi-million deal
Feb 7 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal
ONLINE sales perfor- mance company buy.at has been bought in a multi-million pound deal by US industry giant AOL and is now set for expansion into Europe.
The acquisition comes just six years after buy.at was formed under the banner of Newcastle company Perfiliate Technologies.
The £13m turnover company has expanded rapidly and today employs 70 staff with offices in London and New York, besides its Newcastle headquarters in Cathedral Square, near St Nicholas’ Cathedral.
It has built up its business by providing connections between retailers and service providers, or merchants as they are known online, and websites which help to drive customers towards those merchants.
So when someone surfing the web for a particular product clicks on a price comparison site, and is directed to the website of a retailer such as John Lewis or Marks & Spencer, it is buy.at which is behind that connection and so earns a small commission.
The UK’s affiliate marketing sector grew by an estimated 45% in 2007 from £2.16bn to around £3bn.
Now buy.at – named as the UK’s ninth fastest growing private technology company in the Sunday Times Tech Track – is becoming part of AOL’s Advertising.com business, its horizons will open up to take in the same range of territories where its parent operates – and that will mean moves into continental Europe.
Kevin Cornils, chief executive of buy.at, said: “This should mean great things for our clients, our partners and certainly for our staff.
“The rationale from AOL’s perspective is that they already had their AOL portal, Advertising.com (an online display advertising business) and search engine marketing, but they did not have affiliate marketing – so we complement them very well.
“Newcastle will be supporting affiliate marketing both in the US and in Europe. We have around 45 staff here now, and that will definitely be growing up to 50 at least. The deal with AOL means accelerated expansion for us.”
Brendan Condon, managing director of Advertising.com International, said: “Advertisers are increasingly coming to realise that alongside display and search engine marketing, affiliate marketing needs to be an important part of their online strategies.
“We are excited to begin working with buy.at as we continue to increase our network offerings in the UK and throughout Europe.”
Will Cooper, a reporter for New Media Age magazine who specialises in affiliate marketing, said: “buy.at are one of the biggest players in this market – they have called themselves the largest independent operator.
“At about this time last year, AOL offered $900m for the market leader in affiliate marketing, Tradedoubler, but got turned down, so it’s no surprise that they have continued to look for another affiliate network.
“buy.at connects merchants and affiliates together, and does it very well – they are now going to be part of a big advertising group.
“It makes sense as any company like AOL, which works online, is looking at all aspects of that world.”
