Speaking at the IAB Engage 2007 event in London this morning, Falco said: “We’ve just signed an agreement to acquire Quigo.” Falco declined to reveal further details of the deal.
Quigo has developed online advertising technology that makes it easier for people to receive targeted ads. Falco said that the acquisition means AOL customers would have more choice over the ads they receive.
The purchase follows AOL’s $275m acquisition of ad targeting firm Tacoda earlier this year and subsequent ad targeting deals with Revenue Science and Wunderloop.
Falco said that there is “a pent up aggression” in the digital sector for analytics and video and that AOL intended to increase its focus on these areas.
Falco, who spent over thirty years in the TV industry before joining AOL last year, also called for the online industry to work together to make life easier for advertisers.
He added that there is “too much friction” in the buying process in online and said that the IAB can help in setting industry standards.
He said: “Online is getting increasingly complex and we need to fix this to make it easier to do business. There are not enough standards in display advertising. We need to have common display ad sizes. That’s something the IAB can help with.”
Falco remarked that Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick and Microsoft’s purchase of aQuantive was a taste of things to come in the sector.
“The sustainable growth of ad platforms will be the story of the web in the next few years,” he said.
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