Google Buying Display Ad Firm
November 24th, 2009 | Published in Advertising, Business
Google yesterday said it has agreed to acquire display advertising startup Teracent, which is viewed as an agressive effort to expand its display advertising technology to take on market leader Yahoo!. Google is dominants search advertising, but only ranks sixth in display advertising (behind Yahoo!, Fox Interactive, Facebook, Microsoft, and AOL).
Teracent’s technology customizes display based on who is watching them, so that a retailer’s closest store could become part of an ad, for example, or new products could be swapped into a company’s standard ad with minimal effort. Ads can also be changed based on the time of day and a person’s language, the content of the site, and past performance of the ad.
Google, with only 2.2% market share has a long way to catch market leader Yahoo! with 16%, but I wouldn’t bet against them.







