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Are Google about to buy Admeld and complete the stack?

Posted by Adam Russell June 10th, 2011

Michael Arrington has reported that Google have just acquired publisher ad optimisation platform Admeld over at TechCrunch. Whilst AdExchanger.com are reporting that AdMeld have confirmed no deal has taken place so far, the rumours certainly suggest an acquisition may be about to happen. If true, this would give Google access to solutions that operate throughout the whole supply chain for display advertising.

Admeld

Over the past few years Google have made a string of acquisitions that operate within the display advertising space – recent purchases include Demand Side Platform Invite Media and dynamic creative solution Teracent, as well as DoubleClick and the DoubleClick exchange. However, until now at least, Google has had no offering to optimise the advertising supply side.

Admeld, known as a Supply Side Platform (or SSP), are one of a number of companies that help publishers maximize the yield on their advertising. With an ever more fragmented display advertising marketplace it will be increasingly important for both publishers and advertisers to utilise technology to maximise performance.

Exchange Wire have pointed out that what would make this acquisition particularly notable, if it happens, is that it represents Google ‘completing the stack’ – in other words they would operate throughout the entire display supply chain. Admeld will also grant access to premium inventory Google have previously been unable to sell, giving Google more clout within the display space.

If a deal does go through this could be the tipping point that puts Google unquestionably ahead of the other major players in the display marketplace. Whilst Yahoo were the first major player to purchase an ad exchange, acquiring Right Media in 2007, both they and Microsoft appear to have struggled to make the most of their respective technologies and neither appears as close as Google to having a fully integrated offering. The implementation will inevitably take a while (indeed, Teracent’s integration is still not complete) but the acquisition of an SSP would be an clear indication of Google’s intent to be the market leader within the evolving display market.

Adam Russell is a Digital Account Director at LBi. This post originally appeared on The Wall.

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Unlikely antitrust alliance over DoubleClick purchase

Posted by Manley October 1st, 2007

While we wait for the result of the EU Competition Regulator’s review of Google’s proposed purchase of rival on-line advertising mogul, DoubleClick, following similar submissions to both the Australian competition regulator and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, some big guns who have previously suffered at the hands of antitrust officials are forming an unlikely alliance to oppose the purchase.

Microsoft, Yahoo! and AT&T have all been supplying the press with tasty quotes as the issue goes before the senate. Microsoft has sent Brad Smith, to argue that Google will become the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of on-line advertising., the irony of which is not lost on us.

Microsoft seems to have set up its own straw man here and Google’s David Drummand was quick to highlight to a panel of senators that Microsoft is the largest purchaser of on-line ads, an email service with 280 million or so users and a billion in revenues from display ads. . . They have a lot more information than Google has.

After these privacy issues, Microsoft’s case seems to rely principally on the Sherman Act and, more specifically, the words "no one is permitted to buy a dominant position by acquiring its single largest competitor". With its current move into the on-line office suite sector, its dominance in search and the nature of its applications, I’d have put Microsoft itself as Google’s #1 competitor, closely followed by Yahoo!, freshly bolstered by its acquisition of Zimbra.

Google has a solid base to work from, but if Microsoft does succeed in fouling the water in Google’s multi-billion dollar concern, the hostilities should become interesting.

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