The Industry 'Take' On SAS Acquiring aiMatch

Yesterday, SAS acquired publisher ad server aiMatch for an undisclosed sum. According to the release, “SAS’ advanced analytics combined with aiMatch’s technology will provide publishers with an end-to-end solution to help manage, forecast, optimize and measure ad inventory to maximize ad revenue”. Read more.

AdExchanger reached out to executives in the industry for their “take” on the transaction.

Click below or scroll down for more:

Bill Wise, CEO, MediaBank

Two years ago I made a bet with my own career that we would see a true convergence between traditional and digital media. What I didn’t see coming was how fast the large enterprise technology, software and ERP players would start making significant plays into digital advertising and analytics– this market is not just $32 billion in domestic spend– it’s a proxy for the trend of all advertising dollars, which at nearly a half trillion globally is too material to ignore. All advertising will be addressable in short order.

Frank Addante, CEO, Rubicon Project

SAS acquisition of aiMatch is validation that the digital advertising market is maturing. Digital advertising is the next frontier for enterprise software companies; it’s finally becoming “electronic.” Enterprise companies see it and they’re going to jump in because they understand the revenue opportunity.

Real time trading creates new demands on enterprise and traditional enterprise business infrastructure systems (analytics, financial systems, CRM, etc.) are all going to need more direct, real time integrations. Adobe was one of the first to jump into the market. Expect others with enterprise assets to follow.

I believe in 5 years we’re going to see many NASDAQ listed enterprise software companies with in-market solutions for digital advertising — it’s the fastest growing market that they’re not in. They need to upgrade their systems to operate in a real time environment and adapt at the pace of change in this market. They have an opportunity to be in the revenue stream; right now they’re outside of it.

Real time trading is going to get all these guys moving. If they don’t, it’s going to move too fast for them to catch up and it’s going to look like what Salesforce.com and Omniture did to legacy CRM and reporting/analytics solutions.

Eric Franchi, Co-Founder of Undertone

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“The SAS acquisition of aiMatch is one of those deals that takes you by surprise for a minute, namely because of the acquirer SAS. But it really shouldn’t. Technology companies have arguably been the most aggressive “strategic” acquirers and investors in digital media for the past couple of years. Think about it… Adobe, Akamai, Accenture and IBM have very publically shown their strategic direction to build a stack for their enterprise that includes online marketing. Add SAS to that list now. I also think this deal is important since it’s focused on the publisher, who can presumably benefit from other solutions SAS is known for.

This announcement further validates an industry trend of leveraging technology to make the buying, selling and optimization of online advertising more efficient, automated and intelligent. That’s positive and is the thesis of many in the space. However, we continue to see a lack of industry focus on and investment in ad formats and cross-screen products that truly get brand marketers excited. This is the trend that will drive dollars online as much, or more than, making transactions easier.”

By John Ebbert

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