In a move designed to cash in on the growing ecommerce trend AOL announced today that it has acquired buy.at, a leading independent affiliate marketing network which enhances sales by partnering publishers with advertisers. Unlike traditional display advertising or pay-per-click (PPC) models, at buy.at, an advertiser only pays when a visitor to its site takes action (such as making a purchase or signing up for a free trial). buy.at will operate as a wholly-owned business unit of Advertising.com, part of AOL’s Platform-A organization, and is the fifth advertising acquisition AOL has made in the past year.
“This acquisition further enhances our Platform-A advertising offerings by enabling us to offer a new set of advertiser and publisher products, while also supporting our international strategy,” said AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco.