AOL Acquires Content Exchange Vidible

Expanding its automated video advertising efforts, AOL on Monday announced the acquisition of content exchange Vidible.

Financial terms of the deal were not revealed. Unconfirmed reports put the sale at around $50 million, but a source close to the deal said the figure was incorrect.

Vidible markets itself as a cross-screen video management and exchange platform for both buyers and sellers. The platform is designed to help content creators scale distribution and advertising, while providing publishers with contextually relevant material with which to fill their video players.

Per the deal, Vidible’s exchange will be plugged into AOL’s other monetization platforms, including its soon-to-launch centralized offering, “ONE by AOL,” and help create an open marketplace for video, according to Dermot McCormack, president of AOL Video and Studios.

“AOL stressed to us during the [acquisition] talks that they are focused on creating an open marketplace for video -- and that's what we built, so the synergy made sense,” said Tim Mahlman, co-founder and president of Vidible.

Vidible’s content exchange currently boasts over 300,000 videos, and more than 800 million monthly video plays, which will add to AOL’s existing library of roughly 1 million videos.

Investments in programmatic advertising technology have been key to AOL’s resurgence under CEO Tim Armstrong. And the company clearly has not planned to let up on its programmatic push.

In addition to its Vidible buy, AOL just recently named programmatic veteran Allie Kline as its new chief marketing officer. Kline joined AOL in January 2013 as CMO of AOL platforms, focusing on marketing the company’s programmatic platforms to advertisers, agencies and publishers. Kline will succeed Erika Nardini, who is expected to leave as CMO of AOL Advertising at the end of the year.

Thanks to the continued success of its automated ads sales business, AOL beat Wall Street’s revenue estimates for the third quarter of the year.

Year-over-year, the Web giant saw total revenue rise 12% year-over-year, which it attributed to strong growth in global advertising. Specifically, global advertising and other revenue grew 18% year-over-year reflecting, which was driven primarily by 44% growth in third-party platform revenue, the sale of premium formats and inclusion of revenue from Adap.tv for a full quarter in 2014, versus approximately one month in 2013.

Earlier this year, analysts said AOL’s programmatic strategy was clearly paying off. “AOL has successfully turned around its ad business by taking advantage of premium video advertising through Adap.tv and its programmatic buying platform,” said eMarketer analyst Lauren Fisher.

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