Late last week, there were conflicting reports as to how close Google was to finalizing a deal to buy Admeld. Now, it's official. Google confirmed the acquisition on its official blog, noting that it will give the Goog a bigger boost in developing interactive display ads:
By combining Admeld's services, expertise and technology with Google's offerings, we're investing in what we hope will be an improved era of flexible ad management tools for major publishers. Together with Admeld, we hope to make display advertising simpler, more efficient and more valuable, provide improved support and services, and enable publishers to make more informed decisions across all their ad space. These are all things our publisher partners have been asking us to further invest in. Of course, Admeld will continue to support other ad networks, demand side platforms, exchanges and ad servers, to yield the best possible results for publishers.
Certainly, Google is already a leader when it comes to online advertising, to say the least. But it hasn't been much of a player in the digital display advertising market. Thus, Google can get ahead quicker by just buying up a smaller company already dedicated to and rather successful in this sector.
Although neither Google nor Admeld has discussed the financial terms of the merger, but most reports cite that the deal is worth roughly $400 million. If the deal goes through, The Wall Street Journal reports that this would be Google's sixth-largest acquisition to date.
This story was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.