DG buys ad-tech startup Peer39

DG, a traditional-TV ad delivery company that moved into the online-ad space when it acquired MediaMind last year, has purchased ad-targeting start-up Peer39.

The deal is thought to be worth $15.5 million in cash and stock. Peer39 will get $10 million up front in addition to approximately 357,000 shares of DG stock. The acquisition also includes a $2.3 million earn out.

Peer39 has raised $27 million to date. It claims to provide “critical data about web pages for buyers and sellers of online advertising”. DG will integrate it into the MediaMind online-ad-serving platform, although it will also continue to make its targeting technology available on demand-side platforms and ad exchanges.

“Clearly there’s a reassuring core of intelligence in the product,” Michael Bayler, strategist and author, Bayler & Associates, said. “In the context of the current backlash against ‘blind’ or just plain cynical targeting – and behaviourally-led services are often the culprits – Peer39’s use of semantically-based techniques to more closely align ads with content bodes well for consumer comfort and therefore, potentially respectable CTR’s.

“This ‘content as context’, consumer-friendly approach, along with their ability to scan for brand-safety within the content, makes their offering potentially more future proof at a time when regulators, activists and citizens are turning up the heat for the less mindful data plays.”

Read the full Ad Age article here.

Michael Bayler will be speaking on one of the four panels at this year’s Media Playground event. For more information and to book your ticket, click here.