AOL is expanding its advertising arm deeper into contextual advertising with the $300 million acquisition of Quigo and their AdSonar & Feedpoint platforms.
The seed was planted for this acquisition when Time Inc. (owned by the same parent company as AOL) signed on Quigo to offer custom pay-per-click advertising for Time.com properties. TimeWarner Interactive executives and AOL must have gotten a good whiff of the potential Quigo means to their entire network from this Time.com deal, and made the move.
With their own proprietary pay-per-click contextual and search sponsored advertising service, AOL moves closer to offering multiple channels for their advertisers. Furthermore, Quigo has their own suite of advertisers, which AOL can bring into their Advertising.com / PlatformA network
Believe me, Google should be paying attention to the moves that one of their largest distribution partners is making, because under their entire ad network, especially with the addition of Quigo, AOL & AOL Search may be able to operate independently after 12 months.
Good post – haven’t seen anyone pick up on the fact that Google might lose a HUGE partner.