Partner Article

AOL sells Newcastle internet firm

An online marketing firm based in Newcastle has been sold by its American parent AOL just two years after being taken over by the global internet giant.

Perfiliate Technologies, which trades as Buy.at, has been sold to London-based joint venture Digital Window.

The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will create what Digital Window describes as “Britain’s largest performance-based marketing company.”

Perfiliate employs around 70 people at its offices in London and in Newcastle’s Cathedral Square business hub.

The company was founded in 2002 and today produces marketing campaigns for a number of heavyweight clients including telecoms firm O2 and Virgin Media.

AOL bought Perfiliate in early 2008, saying at the time that it would help its Advertising.com business “serve merchant and retail advertisers with the industry’s most comprehensive set of e-commerce offerings.”

However, the company’s efforts to boost advertising revenue have struggled in the past year. Digital Window is a joint venture between German publishing firm Axel Springer AG and Swiss company Publigroupe SA.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .