AOL Acquires Affiliate Marketing Network Buy.at

Regardless of what Time Warner has planned for it down the road, AOL continues to make acquisitions… the latest is UK-based affiliate marketing network Buy.at. The acquisition will be used to bring a performance-based component to AOL’s Platform-A advertising offering. Basically, Buy.at, which is backed by DFJ Esprit, offers a pay-per-action alternative to traditional impression or click-based ad campaigns. Ticketmaster and Swarovski are among the advertisers in its network. Recently, the company has introduced new offerings specifically aimed at marketing content and marketing on social networks. The corporate name of the company is Perfiliate Technologies; it has 70 employees in the UK and NYC. The acquisition of Buy.at represents a shift in AOL’s construction of its Platform-A ad unit. An AOL rep told me that the company’s four other acquisitions over the past year - contextual ad firm Quigo, behavioral marketer Tacoda, mobile ad network Third Screen Media, and German ad net AdTech AG - have tended to concentrate on the ad serving aspect on online advertising. But Buy.at offers a more direct relationship to retailers and their e-commerce promotions.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-aol-acquires-affiliate-network-buyat/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/05/aol-acquires-affiliate-network-to-boost-ad-platform/