Akamai buys acerno, gets targeted ads

Akamai, the Cambridge-Mass.-based CDN, announced a foray into targeted advertising Tuesday with the acquisition of acerno. The transaction, slated to be completed by the end of the quarter, will integrate acerno's shopping and purchase data capture technology into Akamai's Advetising Decisions Solution, which was also announced Tuesday.

Anonymous data generated by acerno's technology will allow advertisers to select appropriate slices of viewership to market their products. According to Akamai, the partnership allows advertisers to streamline ad offerings and generate the most ROI possible. Attempting to allay privacy concerns from the start, Akamai assured customers that the data used in the targeted ads is completely anonymous end-user purchasing and browsing information.

Many top retailers give anonymous data to acerno so the company can generate its predictive reports about online consumer behavior. These reports indicate all steps in online purchasing and analyzes each to determine how consumers find a product, put it in to their online shopping cart, and eventually purchase the item.

Better metrics allow advertisers to star feeling better about placing this ad around online video content. So expect acerno and Akamai's collaboration to be a popular, and profitable one. 

For more:
- see the Akamai press release here 

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