Trada, the crowdsourced PPC marketplace, has secured an additional $9 million in funding from their existing investors, Google Ventures and Foundry Group. This additional seed of Series D financing brings the total money raised for Trada to $17 million. Trada basically lets you offload your PPC management onto a community of SEM experts, who spend the budgets you set up as they see best. The money is spent on Google, Bing, Facebook and other PPC platforms and Trada handles the payment exchange between the SEMs and the company advertising, while taking a small percentage of that spend. [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: General

Acquisio, provider of automated tools for search, display and social advertising, has acquired the ClickEquations search marketing platform from Channel Intelligence, and announced a partnership with that firm. Acquisio plans to integrate some of the search-focused functionality currently available on the ClickEquations platform. Acquisio’s existing clients will gain access to the Channel Intelligence Shopping Engines and Channel Intelligence Product Search solutions. ClickEquations clients will now be managed and supported by Acquisio and will have access to all Acquisio services. Mo [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Acquisitions

Adobe has agreed to acquire digital marketing agency Efficient Frontier, which has a strong search marketing practice and technology to manage Facebook advertising. The companies didn't disclose the terms of the deal. The companies said Efficient Frontier would become a part of Adobe's Digital Marketing suite, which includes technologies and services it acquired with web analytics and optimization firm Omniture in 2009. Adobe has long been building up its capabilities in the digital marketing space, largely through acquisition. Earlier this month, it bought Auditude, a video ad manag [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: SEM | Search Ads

BusinessWeek has published a terrific and lengthy article on Chinese search engine Baidu, how it "won" China and its global aspirations. The following is the CliffsNotes version. Baidu holds a 73 percent market share in China, the world's largest internet market. The company is worth $38 billion and is 57 percent larger than Yahoo. Its shares have doubled in value since Google "withdrew" from China to Hong Kong earlier this year. Baidu CEO Robin Li (41) got a masters at SUNY Buffalo. He once worked at Infoseek and is now the second richest man in China. The piece contains a number of [...]

Related Topics: Baidu | Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Search | Google: Business Issues | Search Engines: Baidu | Top News

First to pounce on the SEC 8-K filing by Yahoo was PaidContent, which provides an extensive bulleted list of many of the deal terms not revealed last week during the frenzy of conference calls and articles that followed the official announcement of the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. CNET also writes about selected aspects of the deal contained in the filing, specifically an "escape clause" (termination) for Yahoo (see below). And the AP has a short piece on how the deal terms require Microsoft to hire at least 400 Yahoo employees. Here are some verbatim excerpts from the SEC filing: Negotiat [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: SEM | Features: Analysis | Google: Business Issues | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Employees | Microsoft: General | Search Ads: Contextual | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Top News

The deal is done. Microsoft has swallowed Yahoo search whole and we can all be put out of our long, lingering misery. Yahoo has given up on search and thrown in the towel. But, outside this industry and our incestuous little gossip circle, what does it really mean for average folks? Does it make a difference... really? When all is said and done, will the news amount to a hill of beans? Well, in the long run, it's probably a good thing for most of the players involved, including users. My original concern when rumors of Microhoo started to fly was the distraction that the integration of two [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Content | Search & Usability

Conductor, a search marketing firm, has announced they have raised $10 million in funding from Matrix Partners and FirstMark Capital. This is more good news from the search industry showing that venture capital companies are still investing in search marketing firms. Yesterday, we reported that Marin software raised $13 million and today, Conductor raised $10 million. Here are statements from the release: "We see persistent demand from large organizations to invest in SEO. However, lacking the tools to manage and measure that investment, many large organizations are effectively ina [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Organizations

paidContent.org reports Marin Software, a search marketing company, has raised an additional $13 million venture capital. The primary source of the money came from DAG Ventures, adding up to Marin raising a total of about $25 million in funding from sources such as Benchmark Capital, Amicus Capital and Focus Ventures. Marin reportedly manages $300 million of online ad spend annually for clients such as ZipRealty and Microsoft's Razorfish. It is nice to see companies in the search field still able to raise money in these slow economic times. [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Organizations

Mozilla's General Counsel, Harvey Anderson, announced the Russian builds of Firefox 3.1 will drop Google for Yandex. He explained that after months of research and surveys, Mozilla learned that their "Russian users really wanted direct access to the Yandex search." So, in the next build of Firefox, the default search provider will be Yandex for Russian users. The big loser in all of this might not be Google. PaidContent.org reports that Rambler, one of the big Russian portals, will be letting their CEO go after seeing their market share drop from 14.9 percent last year to just 6.4 percent [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Business Issues: General | Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Search Engines: Other Search Engines

The rumors that Twitter will be buying Summize have now been confirmed. Twitter, the popular micro-blogging platform, has acquired Summize, a search engine that searches Twitter. You can read all the news at Techmeme and also make sure to check out Danny's write up on Summize named Summize Gains "Local" Twitter Search Option. [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Social | Search Engines: News Search Engines | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

Sphere, software that connects contextually relevant content to your content, has been purchased by AOL. The Sphere Blog confirms the acquisition, and TechCrunch suggests the purchase price was at about $25 million. Sphere initially launched as a blog search engine but then adapted into a "related content engine," with clients from the Wall Street Journal, Time, Reuters, and others. In other AOL news, AOL Search has created a unique user interface for searching on AOL via your iPhone or iPod Touch. iPhone/Touch users just need to go to search.aol.com and to be presented with the new user i [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | AOL: Mobile | Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Mobile

Yahoo, AOL Close In on Tie-Up Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo and AOL are close on finalizing a deal that would combine parts of both companies. The deal would bridge Timer Warner's Internet operations with Yahoo by folding the AOL unit into Yahoo. In return, Time Warner would make a cash investment of about 20% of the combined entity, valuing AOL at about $10 billion. Note From Danny: "In my talk today at SMX Sydney with Google vice president Marissa Mayer, she noted that the Yahoo deal was a way for Google to measure Yahoo’s traffic and how well it monetizes. This i [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Partnerships

Geary Interactive has announced acquiring Fathom Online, an SEO company. Fathom was formed in 2002 and is based in San Francisco. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Geary is a full service digital marketing agency based in San Diego. Some of Fathom's employees are now working out of the San Diego office. Andreas Roell, president and CEO of Geary Interactive, said: Search engine tactics are the most popular element of a digital marketing campaign. In order to effectively generate search demand and convert customers’ search clicks, the campaign must also include a stron [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

Andrew Girdwood notes that Compete.com was purchased by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) for $75 million. TNS's release reports that Compete.com's 2007 revenue was "$14.9 million, over 50 per cent higher than in the previous year." TNS will pay in deferred cash payments throughout now and 2010, up to a maximum of $75 million. David Lowden, Chief Executive of TNS, said: This acquisition is an important move for TNS that builds on our ability to help clients understand consumer behaviour in the new and highly complex digital world. Compete has built a world-class digital intelligence capability [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Strategy | Stats: Compete

With all the furor about Microsoft's potential acquisition of Yahoo!, how do the Yahoo! employees feel about the possibility? Top Yahoo! execs addressed employees on Friday and followed it up with a company-wide email. The email emphasizes that the bid was unsolicited, that no decisions have been made, and that Microsoft's proposal is one of many options the board is considering. Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock (the new non-executive chairman, after Terry Semel's departure last week) encourage employees to keep focusing on their core business and executing current strategy. The email reads [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Employees | Yahoo: Employees

On Friday comScore put out ad publisher site rankings. Unsurprisingly, Yahoo ranked as the top site with just under 19 percent of US online display advertising. MediaPost took this data and further analyzed it, finding that Yahoo enjoys the industry's highest CPM rates at $12.65, more than $4 higher than the next highest site, MSNBC. Google, by contrast, enjoys just 1 percent of online display advertising, which Microsoft fears will change if/when the DoubleClick acquisition is approved by European regulators. Microsoft has a 6.7 percent share according to comScore. comScore display ad shar [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Display | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Search Engines: Answer Search Engines | Yahoo: Display Ads

The industry has been buzzing for awhile about private equity buyers that just might be interested in picking up some search firms. Here are the details on the acquisition of Fathom SEO by PromiseONE, a private equity buyer. Exclusive advisor Agile Equity gives these details * Fathom SEO sold to PromiseONE, a private equity buyer. * The buyer is actively integrating with the existing management team to sustain and accelerate a supernormal growth rate. * This is PromiseONE’s first acquisition in the digital media sector. [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | Searcharazzi

Voice services provider CallGenie announced the acquisition of mobile content provider and ad exchange PhoneSpots. The mostly stock transaction was valued at $5.75 million and provides a range of new client relationships and capabilities to Canada-based CallGenie. PhoneSpots has been around since 1999 and pioneered the "send to mobile" feature now in widespread use on local search sites. PhoneSpots originally partnered with European mobile operators to offer enhanced results (additional content and links) from directory assistance queries when users opted to receive them as text messages. Mo [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Pay Per Call | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines

Gary Price reports that LookSmart has sold off FindArticles to CNET Networks for $20.5 million. LookSmart published a press release that details the sale is in cash, not in stock. Neil Ashe, CEO of CNET Networks, said: CNET Networks understands that access to premium content is critical for our users' online media experience. The addition of this high-quality content from leading independent publishers allows us to further improve the experience for our users. In other LookSmart news, the Silicon Alley Insider reports having third quarter earnings. Those earnings were less than impressiv [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry

There are rumors and reports circulating that AOL is about to add Quigo to its now pretty full roster of online ad networks and technologies, which includes Tacoda, Advertising.com, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast, and AdTech. These entities are the backbone of AOL's "Platform A" integrated online (and mobile) advertising, er, platform. AOL now claims that its has greater reach than any of its online competitors. Quigo has an impressive client roster of online publishers and has captured a number of publishers from Google with its technology and notion of "independence." There were rumors [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | AOL: Search Marketplace | Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Search