On Monday, AT&T announced its plans to purchase programmatic advertising firm AppNexus for somewhere between $1.6 and $2 billion.
AppNexus competes with companies like Google and Facebook, who also use their cloud computing software to best place ads for businesses.
According to AppNexus, the company has roughly 34,000 publishers and 177,000 brands that use the ad marketplace to spread awareness of their various companies. The firm also uses advertising technology to track the performance of ads, similar to Google Analytics.
The company will provide AT&T with a few assets.
First, AppNexus gives AT&T a new way to generate money from the enormous amounts of data it has collected from its consumers. Ad technology will help AT&T to increase targeted ads for consumers, which in turn gives them more data and generates more revenue.
Additionally, AppNexus has a global presence in Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America, which will help AT&T expand significantly past its isolated U.S. presence.
CEO of advertising and analytics Brian Lesser stated,
Ad tech unites real-time analytics and technology with our premium TV and video content. We went out and found the strongest player in the space. AppNexus has scale of infrastructure, advanced technology and diverse talent. The combination of AT&T advertising & analytics and AppNexus will help deliver a world-class advertising platform that provides brands and publishers a new and innovative way to reach consumers in the marketplace today.
This deal comes as one of the first that AT&T has made since it acquired Time Warner. It recently launched WatchTV last week, the subscription service which they hope will compete against Netflix and Amazon.
Clearly, AT&T is looking forward with their business decisions and hoping to gain an edge on many leading firms.
Featured image via Flickr/Mike Mozart
