The 65,000 thousand apps that Millennial Media says use its technology to automate their ad sales should help to close the gap with AOL’s competition. The solution is expected to be a key component of Verizon’s pending mobile-first OTT video service, which is expected to debut soon.
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Millennial Media offers end-to-end mobile platform services for advertisers as well as solutions for advertising on mobile and monetization of sites or apps. Millennial Media, based in Baltimore, runs a marketplace where publishers and marketers can buy ads or sell ad space on mobile websites, videos and apps. In that regard, coming together with a company like AOL to wrap more ad tech around its network also makes some sense. AOL will pay $1.75 per share for Millennial Media, which is a 31% premium to their closing price on Wednesday; it works out to a total value of $238 million.
Both companies would fall under the corporate umbrella of Verizon, which closed a $4.4 billion bid to buy AOL in June.
“By joining AOL, we will be adding additional mobile expertise to AOL’s growing technology assets”, said Michael Barrett, President & CEO of Millennial Media.
Millennial went public in $13, and ended its first day of trading at $23.50. The more the name “Millennial Media” showed up on media plans, the more clients trusted that line item, based more heavily on familiarity than actual results.
AOL President Bob Lord stated in a press release that the addition of Millennial’s know-how will assist its digital advert community, dubbed ONE, higher compete for advertisers’ dollars. “This acquisition will help [Verizon] monetize its upcoming OTT offering by enhancing its advertising scale and programmatic ad capabilities”.
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“Millennial brings us the in-app inventory as well as it brings us the programmatic and automated technology to serve content and advertising”, Mr. Lord said. Meanwhile, Google holds around 37 percent mobile ad revenue.
