A reliable source has informed AdExchanger.com that performance marketing company Dotomi (AdExchanger.com Q&A from 2009) is in the final stages of being acquired by… fill-in-the-blank. Yes, I’m sorry to say I don’t know who it is. But my source has been rock-solid in the past and says the Dotomi exit is about to happen as the term sheet waits for the ink to dry. We’ll keep digging here at AdExchanger.com HQ.
The Dotomi acquisition news follows recent acquisitions of Dapper by Yahoo!, which announced its Personalized Retargeting solution yesterday, and Fetchback by GSI Commerce, which is a big, growing eCommerce player looking to leverage its client relationships against a media strategy.
Boom-shocka-locka-locka if you’re well-positioned in the retargeting space as needy, data-driven online media companies look to leverage their vast, data treasure troves across an efficient, cookie targeting engine with relatively sophisticated decisioning that delivers at scale to the bottom line.
It will be interesting to see if some of the demand-side platforms start to pivot, or more closely align, with customer data-driven, retargeting strategy. Yeah sure, it’s all retargeting in the end, but eCommerce-focused companies are first to step into this world as its success metrics and ROI are easily tracked.
What’s also interesting about the pending Dotomi acquisition is its brand focus. As Dotomi CEO John Giuliani told AdExchanger.com last year, “Brand advertising, like all advertising, ultimately has to be accountable and lead to increased sales. Dotomi has the analytics to demonstrate the brand effect and create a lot of transparency for our clients. That’s why we’re able to bring some big brand dollars – that haven’t otherwise been able to make display advertising work – to our media partners.”
So, who will the acquirer be? Someone who wants its fingers in the brand marketer cookie jar -or maybe its a DR-focused, brand marketer (oxymoron!) that wants a retargeting tool for itself -and not for its competitors.
Tick tick tick tick tick….
By John Ebbert
