AT&T expands ad portfolio with Ingenio purchase

AT&T Inc. said that it agreed to acquire Ingenio, an advertising technology firm whose pay-per-call technology will be integrated into the company’s directory services and local search advertising portfolio.
Ingenio’s product is an advertising platform AT&T described as “[allowing] businesses to mange their ad programs and generate . phone leads. The platform uses proprietary technology to provision unique published phone numbers to track calls to businesses generated by those ads, and advertisers’ fees are based on the volume of these leads.”
AT&T said the acquisition will give advertisers the flexibility to purchase leads “in a consistent manner across online, mobile or print media whether or not they have a Web site.”
Ray Wilkins, AT&T’s group president of diversified business, added that as advertising shifts towards a performance-based model, the investment in Ingenio makes sense and will differentiate AT&T from its competitors.
Mark Britto, president and CEO of Ingenio, said that so far the company has lacked the scale and ability to “bring [its] solutions to the market in the biggest possible way.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although AT&T said that the purchase is expected to have only a minimal impact on its results. The transaction is expected to close in early January.
AT&T said it will keep Ingenio’s management team and that the company will be integrated with AT&T’s YellowPages.com, which recently expanded its mobile search products with an application for iPhone users. YellowPages.com also has a downloadable local search application available on 20 AT&T Mobility handsets.