Yahoo announced this week its acquisition of BlueLithium, the fifth largest ad network in the United States and second largest in the UK. In addition to beefing up Yahoo’s ad network, BlueLithium’s behavioral targeting and data analytics capabilities are expected to boost Yahoo’s performance in those areas. Todd Teresi, SVP of Yahoo’s Publisher Network, wrote:
With more than 100 employees, including computer scientists and researchers, BlueLithium is known for providing powerful data analytics to help customers get the most out of their campaigns as well as impressive behavioral targeting capabilities. They provide the dashboards and insights our performance customers have been asking for — capabilities that have been a bit of an Achilles heel for us.
BlueLithium’s strong presence in Europe also has great benefits for Yahoo. According to Times Online, “Yahoo said that a combination of its own online reach with BlueLithium’s will reach more than nine of ten UK web users.”
The BlueLithium deal follows Yahoo’s acquisition earlier this year of Right Media, and analysts approve, citing both deals as an indicator that the company is headed in the right direction. Compared to the billions paid recently by Google for DoubleClick and MSN for aQuantive, Yahoo’s purchase looks like a pretty frugal buy. However, AOL bought BlueLithium behavioral-targeting rival Tacoda this summer for between $200 million and $300 million.
[...] capability comes as a result of their recent Blue Lithium acquisition, which had been operating a behavioral ad network competing with the likes of Tacoda (now part of [...]