AT&T acquires another company
On Monday, AT&T announced that it will purchase programmatic advertising firm AppNexus for somewhere between $1.6 and $2 billion.
AppNexus competes with companies like Google and Facebook, who also use their cloud computing software to best place ads for businesses. According to the company, they have roughly 34,000 publishers and 177,000 brands that use the ad marketplace to spread awareness of their various companies. The firm also uses advertising technology to track the performance of ads, similar to Google Analytics.
The company will provide AT&T with a few assets. First, it gives them another way of generating money from the enormous amounts of data it has on its consumers from their large network. Ad tech will help them increase targeted ads for consumers, which gives them more data and generates more revenue. Additionally, AppNexus has a global presence in Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America, which will help AT&T expand significantly past its isolated US presence.
CEO of advertising and analytics Brian Lesser remarked about the deal,
Ad tech unites real-time analytics and technology with our premium TV and video content. We went out and found the strongest player in the space. AppNexus has scale of infrastructure, advanced technology and diverse talent. The combination of AT&T advertising & analytics and AppNexus will help deliver a world-class advertising platform that provides brands and publishers a new and innovative way to reach consumers in the marketplace today.
This deal comes as one of the first that AT&T has made since it acquired Time Warner. It also recently launched WatchTV last week, their subscription service they hope will compete against Netflix and Amazon. Clearly, AT&T is looking forward with their business decisions and hoping to gain an edge on many leading firms.
Featured image via Flickr/Mike Mozart
Comment Template