Google Confirms AdMeld Buy

Google confirmed it has agreed to acquire New York-based display ad yield optimization provider AdMeld. The company’s platform enables publishers to easily aggregate ad buys from multiple channels – such as direct relationships, ad networks and exchanges – and makes real time decisions on which parties to sell ads to in order to maximize revenues.

Following the launch of the DoubleClick Exchange, the acquisition of creative optimization player Teracent, and the purchase of demand side platform Invite Media, the addition of AdMeld to its suite of ad technology products will enable Google to participate in virtually every link of the complicated real-time display ad buying chain. On the demand-side advertisers can tap Invite to manage and execute media buys from exchanges on a real-time basis, while publishers can now do the same on the sell-side with AdMeld with both utilizing Google’s DoubleClick ad server to actually deliver those ads.

“It’s now clear that investments in new technologies, new ad formats and improved buying and selling processes are helping to grow the display advertising pie,” Commented Google’s VP of display advertising, Neal Mohan in a blog post today, adding, “We hope to make display advertising simpler, more efficient and more valuable.”

Mohan pointed to recent growth for companies such as OpenX, The Rubicon Project, and even Microsoft’s display ad business as evidence of the growing potential of the display ad space. Though AdMeld’s products are primarily publishers-focused, he argues that advertisers, publishers, and ultimately users, continue to benefit from the efficiencies ad technology provides. In February, for example, Google reported spending through its DSP Invite Media had grown 300 percent since June.

Google didn’t disclose what it paid for AdMeld, though reports put the deal’s value at around $400 million.