Bluestreak Buys Engage AdKnowledge

Newport, R.I.-based online ad technology firm Bluestreak continues its efforts to expand its ad services, purchasing ad network Engage’s ad management and optimization service, AdKnowledge, even as that company is retreating from the sector.

Financial terms of the purchase weren’t disclosed, but it covers AdKnowledge’s intellectual property and customer lists.

Bluestreak said the purchase would help to boost its position as a leading third-party ad server, now being to add new analytical capabilities to its own ad serving platform, Ion, and its analysis product, Ion Data Concert.

“Engage AdKnowledge’s market offerings are in direct alignment with Bluestreak’s vision and strategy for the future of online advertising,” said Bluestreak chairman Annette Tonti. “Bluestreak is committed to delivering excellent customer service and leading edge technologies that focus on obtaining the best results for online marketers and agencies. This acquisition brings together a powerful team to achieve our market goals more quickly.”

The firm said it would immediately begin talking to AdKnowledge customers about their continuing to use the product under Bluestreak, and would also discuss their switching over to other Bluestreak services, such as its ad serving and well-known rich media ad technology.

The news comes amid Engage’s effort to divest itself of all of its online advertising services, preferring instead to focus instead on providing out-of-the-box marketing software. Engage, which is majority owned by Internet holding company CMGI, first acquired then-independent Palo Alto, Calif.-based AdKnowledge two years ago, for about $193 million in stock. In August of this year, however, the company said it planned to sell or close all of its media-related services, including its ad network.

Bluestreak, meanwhile, is busily expanding from its background in rich media technology into areas vacated by Engage and other outsourced ad servers. In early August, the company debuted its Ion outsourced ad serving product, which it said uses new technology to generate faster campaign data than competing services.