Google has recently won a bidding battle with rivals Microsoft and Yahoo over acquiring DoubleClick, one of the early pioneers of online advertising. It has agreed to takeover DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion in it’s biggest-ever acquisition, laying hand on software for creating and measuring Internet advertising campaigns. The buyout is definitely a windfall for Hellman & Friedman, the San Francisco-based private-equity firm that acquired DoubleClick for $1.1 billion in two years back. Google ha announced that it will pay cash for New York-based DoubleClick.
The deal tenders Google access to DoubleClick’s advertisement software and more significantly, its relationships with Web publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies. In recent times, Google has been trying to widen its foothold in online advertising into display advertisements, the section where DoubleClick is most effective.
Google still generates most of its revenue from search and contextual text ads. DoubleClick has also a short time ago launched a Nasdaq-like exchange for online ads that experts say could be profitable for Google.
The deal broadens Google’s lead over Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. in an almost $28.8 billion online-advertising market and stamped its aspiration to be a stronger competitor in sales of so-called display ads.
