ValueClick announced the acquisition of Click Agents.com, another leading provider of performance-based online advertising solutions. The merger of the two organizations considerably extends ValueClick's dominance in the pay-for-results advertising space, the fastest growing segment of the online advertising industry.
As part of the deal, Click Agents will receive 5.3 million shares of ValueClick stock. The acquisition, which is intended to be a pooling of interests, is expected to approximately double ValueClick's domestic business, adding approximately million in revenue and approximately million in operating profit to ValueClick's 2000 results.
Together, the two companies provide a wide range of solutions that allow online marketers to dramatically improve the accountability and ROI of their efforts, including performance-based banner and wireless advertising, opt-in e-mail, and powerful back-end tracking and analysis tools. Reaching over 20 countries around the world as well as approximately 40% of U.S. Internet households each month, the combined organization delivers over 320,000 qualified visitors every day to advertisers such as Discovery Channel, Network Solutions, Egghead.com, Microsoft, Verizon, and Chase Bank. ``Since our IPO, ValueClick has focused on a two-pronged attack for building a foundation for significant and predictable revenue and earnings growth,'' said Jim Zarley, Chairman and CEO, ValueClick. ``The first part of our plan was internal, which we began by considerably enhancing the offerings in our core banner business, building both our domestic and international bases, and introducing new products such as wireless and e-mail advertising. The second part of our plan is external, and is to find and acquire like-minded, profitable, market-driven companies with strong management teams, who will continue to round out the performance-based products and services that savvy online marketers have come to rely on from ValueClick. Click Agents is certainly one of those companies.'' ``The cornerstone philosophy at both Click Agents and ValueClick is performance-based, results-driven online advertising and marketing,'' said Gurbaksh Chahal, Chairman and CEO of Click Agents, who will retain the title of President of Click Agents. ``We are excited to join forces with ValueClick to expand our mutual leadership in this space, and to continue setting a new standard for online advertising. Separately, both companies have had great success in taking the guesswork out of online media buys, providing accountability to advertisers and generating revenues for publishers. Together, we will be able to deliver even better ways for advertisers and publishers to achieve what they are most interested in...bottom-line results.''
``We are very impressed with what Click Agents has accomplished in a relatively short time, and we are very proud of the improvements ValueClick has made over the past two quarters. Even so, we will keep exploring new ways to offer more and better value for our customers'' continued Zarley. ``With each acquisition we make, we will continue to distance ourselves from the competition by offering the best network, the best technology, the best products, and the best pricing model available in online advertising today.''
For the immediate future, both brands will continue to be supported, while the main focus will be to leverage the best of the two technologies and networks. The acquisition is the latest in a series of recent ValueClick announcements that further expand the solutions available to publishers and advertisers seeking to maximize results, including performance-based wireless advertising, opt-in e-mail, and the acquisition of ROI Measurement firm StraightUP!