Business software giant SAS didn't have to look far to expand its portfolio of marketing products.
The Cary-based company announced Tuesday that it purchased Raleigh company aiMatch for an undisclosed price. The 20-employee company was founded in 2009 and 13 months later launched its online ad technology, which helps web publishers ensure the right ad appears at the right place at the right time. It also figures out the optimum pricing of ads and forecasts how much ad inventory a publisher will have on hand.
Combining SAS' analytics software and its expertise with "Big Data" - analyzing humongous quantities ofdata about customers and competitors - with aiMatch's technology is expected to bolster the ability to maximize online publishers' revenue. Corporations, government agencies and others use SAS business intelligence and analytics software to analyze their operations and predict trends.
"This really just fits so cleanly within the space that we call customer intelligence, (giving SAS entree into a market) that is already exploding in terms of growth and is poised for a lot more of it," said John Bastone, global product marketing manager for customer intelligence at SAS.
SAS has other products in the marketing arena, including software that helps companies determine the most effective use of advertising and marketing dollars.
Research firm eMarketer projects that U.S. online advertising spending, including ads on mobile devices, will jump 23 percent to $39.5 billion this year. Being part of SAS also will help privately owned aiMatch compete with Internet giant Google, which entered the field in 2007 when it acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
"AiMatch is a very small company," said Jeff Wood, the company's CEO. "The combination of the brand and the customer base that SAS has, and the complementary products, makes it a much stronger offering."
SAS' revenue grew 12 percent to $2.725 billion last year. The company has 12,502 employees worldwide and is one of the Triangle's largest employers with 4,860 people in Cary.
Wood and his two co-founders, Guy Taylor and Ryan Treichler, are veterans of Accipiter Solutions, a Raleigh online advertising company that was sold in 2006 for $30.3 million in cash.
All of aiMatch's employees will be absorbed into SAS, with aiMatch becoming a division of the Cary company. Wood will be the senior director leading the division.
"We need all 20 of those people and we'll likely need many, many more with similar skill sets to grow this business," Bastone said.
AiMatch hopes to move from its offices in North Raleigh to SAS' massive Cary campus within 60 days.
AiMatch's revenue wasn't disclosed. Its more than 30 customers include Photobucket, a photo and video sharing service, and Popcornflix.com, which offers free movies online. Each of aiMatch's employees had an ownership stake in the business.
"I think everybody here is extremely happy," Wood said. "We want to grow this into a larger market share. We're proud of what we've built."
