The announcement from Velti today that it has bought Ad Infuse top to bottom heralds the creation of a mobile advertising “super-group.” Velti has been a powerful mobile advertiser for many years now. But while it’s presence in many markets was indisputable, it had yet to make significant inroads into the US. That could change now, as Ad Infuse has many deals in place in America. Velti now employs over 400 people in the US, Europe, China, India and Middle East – which is pretty damn hefty for a pure mobile advertising agency.
What will Ad Infuse do for Velti?
Quite apart from gaining a hefty US player, Velti will be absorbing the Ad Infuse management team, technologies and customer base into it’s own company. Of particular interest to Velti was Ad Infuses “personalisation” capabilities. Ad Infuse has built pretty advanced metrics and data gathering tools into it’s ad-serving platform – as a result, it is able to target ads much more specifically on a consumer-by-consumer basis. We can only assume that these measurement facilities will be incorporated into the Velti Mobile Marketing Platform (MMP) as soon as possible.
From the release:
“The acquisition of Ad Infuse will broaden our US team and enhance our global product offering. Mobile advertising and marketing continues to enjoy significant growth even in today’s environment: the marketing landscape is changing and mobile is the catalyst for this. Velti is pioneering the way that mobile impacts upon the worlds of advertising and marketing,” said Alex Moukas, CEO of Velti. ”This transaction provides us with a proven management team; a strong client base and proven technology that will help us further accelerate our global growth.”
Brian Cowley, Ad Infuse’s CEO, now assuming the position of General Manager of Velti North America, added: “This deal provides existing and prospective customers with the most complete solution available. We will be delivering even more compelling options for advertisers, brands, publishers, and operators.”
What we think?
This is pretty big news for people who want to advertise on mobile. Velti can now do pretty much… well, anything. Integrated display, search and SMS advertising campaigns, run across both Europe and the US, with advanced metrics? That sounds like a good package to me. Velti do end-to-end campaign management as well, from inception and creation through to delivery and measurement. Before now Velti was already claiming to be the largest mobile ad network in the world, with a reach of over 2 billion… it’s always best to take figures like that with a pinch of salt, but it’s true that with the acquisition of Ad Infuse, it has become one of the largest (if not the largest) “just mobile” advertiser in existence.
