The First of Many
Mediapost reports on Marchex’s $30m acquisition of IndustryBrains, one of the gazillion providers of contextual ad networks. IndustryBrains was doing about $6m in revenue and generating $1m in profit, so the acquisition price was a good one. The firm grew sensibly through specific verticals like technology and finance, growing a reputation for premium distribution instead of the much worn catchcry of "I have a better mouse trap! Look at me!".
Perhaps more interestingly is the link into direct navigation. OK it’s not that interesting. But a little while back I caught up with Mark Peterson and Kirby Winfield of Marchex and chatted about their entrance into the space and plans for the future. They are making some interesting moves here and the integration of IndustryBrains with their portfolio of 200,000 domain names is one.
In other exciting direct navigation news, Matt Flanagan, who represents Sedo.com (who have 500,000 names) and reads this blog, kindly setup a meeting with their CEO Matt Bentley. I’ll try to dig down deeper into the economics of slapping search ads and feeds onto domain names next week. Don’t change that channel!
