In something of a surprise move AOL has sold Buy.at, the affiliate marketing network it bought in early 2008, to UK network Digital Window. AOL acquired Buy.at for a rumoured $150 million but although sale terms have again not been disclosed this time round it’s fair to say it will be for substantially less that that.
Buy.at was operating as a wholly-owned business unit of Advertising.com, part of AOL’s Platform-A organization. Buy.at ‘special play’ of marketing on social networks does not appear to have come off as planned. buy.at is based in Newcastle, UK and NYC.
The purchase at the time was about AOL expanding globabaly but with the advertising sector in the doldrums, it’s clear this hasn’t all gone as planned.
In 2009 a majority stake of Digital Window was bought by the German-based media group Axel Springer AG and the Swiss-based communications group Publigroupe S.A. which also owns Berlin’s Zanox AG, a major performance-based online marketing network in continental Europe.
Here’s the release.