DoubleClick, AdKnowledge Form Strategic Partnership

DoubleClick Inc. in New York and AdKnowledge in Palo Alto, CA said they formed a strategic partnership to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Web advertising by creating standard industry platforms.

The goal of the partnership “is to facilitate the process of advertising on the Internet, thereby accelerating the acceptance and growth of Web advertising,” the companies said.

AdKnowledge said it will now focus primarily on solutions for advertising agencies and their clients–the “buy” side of the advertising industry. DoubleClick will partner with AdKnowledge to support AdKnowledge’s “sell” side publishing business.

Customers of AdKnowledge’s ClickWise Web site ad management software will now be able to use DoubleClick’s DART service for proprietary ad serving, reporting and tracking. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.

Initiatives in the partnership will include streamlining the process for trafficking, campaign management and reporting through a closer integration of information exchanged between DoubleClick’s DART technology platform and AdKnowledge’s media buying and campaign management tools, MarketMatch and SmartBanner. Currently, more than 1,750 Web sites use DoubleClick technology, and more than 100 top advertising agencies use AdKnowledge’s products, the companies said.

“As the online ad industry continues to expand, there is significant benefit to creating uniform standards for site publishers and advertising agencies,” said Kevin O’Connor, chairman and chief executive officer of DoubleClick. “With the standardization that this partnership represents, we believe that online advertising will improve industry-wide. And, by consolidating our efforts with AdKnowledge, we believe we can expand DART reach and market penetration.”

“AdKnowledge and DoubleClick share a commitment to superior customer service and this was an overriding influence as we considered strategic partnering opportunities,” said Scott Kauffman, AdKnowledge president and chief executive officer. “We believe DART provides the best solution for Web site publishers and we are confident our ClickWise customers will benefit tremendously from the power of DoubleClick’s advanced technology.”

Privately-held AdKnowlege was born out of last year’s merger of FocalLink Communications and ClickOver.