Media Contacts, the interactive wing of Havas' Media Planning Group, announced Tuesday the acquisition of French search marketing firm Iando. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The
acquisition comes one month before Microsoft is scheduled to start testing Keywords, its own sponsored search product, in France; Microsoft debuted the program in Singapore earlier this month.
Ester Pascual, Media Contacts Global's vice president of marketing and communications, said the purchase wasn't influenced by Microsoft's upcoming pilot program. "We were quite strong in search in
Europe, but it was a good match," she said. "We thought that it would be very interesting to have stronger search people in Europe."
Before the acquisition, Media Contacts handled search
marketing in-house. One of the company's major clients, Expedia in the United Kingdom, runs over 2 million keyword ads, said Pascual. Media Contacts also maintains a search marketing office in Brazil.