NEW YORK – IgnitionOne, an international digital marketing technology and solutions company, has acquired AdJug, Europe’s leading display advertising exchange for unsold premium inventory. The two companies will integrate their technologies to provide marketers with a sophisticated solution that simplifies the buying, targeting and measurement of online advertising.

IgnitionOne’s Digital Marketing Suite (DMS) is a centralized set of tools and services that boost performance and measure online advertising across search engines, websites and Facebook. The DMS will incorporate AdJug’s Dynamic Creative Technology, which customizes advertising creative in real-time, based on people’s interests and Web behavior.

Furthermore, the AdJug Exchange will give IgnitionOne customers complete control over their display ad placements and traffic volume. The Exchange currently serves three billion plus ad impressions per month to more than 67 million unique users, across more than 2,000 publishers and 4,000 sites worldwide.

This deal will enable IgnitionOne, which currently generates more than $20 billion in online sales for marketer and agency clients such as General Motors, Chico’s, Ann Taylor and Fiat, to increase its global reach and offer an unrivaled suite of online marketing solutions.

“The online ad market is overcrowded with complicated and overlapping technologies. With this deal, IgnitionOne is simplifying digital marketing for agencies and brands,” said Will Margiloff, CEO of IgnitionOne. “We are growing rapidly to meet advertisers’ demands and, with AdJug on board, we can further realize our ambition for the Digital Marketing Suite to be the leading advertising technology platform.”

“Our Dynamic Creative Technology (DCT), combined with IgnitionOne’s audience scoring technology, will give AdJug’s customers better response, greater reach and efficiencies through the industry’s most advanced online advertising platform,” said Michael Stephanblome, co-founder and CEO of AdJug.

For IgnitionOne, which formed through the integration of SearchIgnite and Netmining’s on-site solutions earlier this year, the acquisition increases its global footprint to nine offices in Asia, Europe, the Indian sub continent and the USA, employing more than 200 people. AdJug’s Exchange will give IgnitionOne customers greater access to advertising inventory in new markets, and enable agencies and brands to create international campaigns from one dashboard.

AdJug Co-Founders Michael Stephanblome and Satish Jayakumar will join IgnitionOne’s executive team, strengthening the company’s leadership in Europe. Stephanblome was previously managing director for Gumtree.com and ran marketing for eBay in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Before AdJug, Jayakumar was the Director of European Strategy for MIVA.

Tomorrow Focus, a leading internet group in Europe, will retain a 20% share in AdJug and advise the company as it expands across Europe.

About IgnitionOne

IgnitionOne is the world’s first closed loop Digital Marketing Suite, offering multiple solutions to improve online performance within a single interface. Solutions include ad management (search, display and Facebook), cross-channel attribution and on-site optimization all through a single, simple-to-implement website tag. IgnitionOne currently powers more than $20 billion in revenue each year for some of the world’s leading online marketers and agencies, including General Motors, Chico’s, Ann Taylor, Fiat, MRM Worldwide, LBi and others.

For more information, please visit http://www.ignitionone.com or follow the company on Twitter @ignitionone.

About AdJug

AdJug Ltd., based in London, Munich and Bangalore, is the largest and longest-running transparent display ad Exchange for premium unsold inventory in Europe. The AdJug Exchange serves three billion+ ad impressions per month to more than 67 million unique users per month. Currently the company has over 500+ advertisers and relationships with more than 2,000+ publishers and 4,000 sites worldwide. AdJug helps advertisers and agencies to achieve superior campaign performance. Its optimization technology uses data aggregation to build dynamic re-targeting segments, which find conversions across ad Exchange inventories.

LONDON – AdMeld (www.admeld.com), the leader in ad network optimisation for premium publishers, announced the introduction of Real Time Bidding (RTB) capabilities in the United Kingdom. The move allows publishers across Europe to harness the enhanced levels of efficiency, transparency and control that RTB provides. Since launching support for the technology in the US earlier this year, AdMeld has processed more than 6 billion real time bids from a variety of trusted demand partners. The company’s initial RTB partners in the UK are AdJug, AppNexus, Infectious Digital, Invite Media and MediaMath.

“We’re excited to continue our history of innovation – launching the first demand-side platform in the US – and as a first adopter of RTB in the UK”

“Real Time Bidding is the latest in a series of innovations that are changing the way digital ad inventory is transacted,” said Michael Barrett, CEO of AdMeld. “We are pleased to lead its introduction into the UK and surrounding region by offering premium publishers the tools they need to generate the most overall revenue while accommodating their unique needs and enforcing their business rules. RTB is one in a suite of technologies AdMeld uses to help publishers worldwide maximise the true value of every ad impression.”

“AdMeld and AdJug have had a very successful partnership this year and we are looking forward to driving further expansion of our relationship through AdMeld’s RTB in the UK,” says Michael Stephanblome, CEO of AdJug. “Real Time Bidding will enable us to drive more campaign performance for our advertisers through optimisation.”

“AppNexus is committed to helping its advertiser partners around the globe achieve superior results online,” said Brian O’ Kelley, CEO of AppNexus. “AdMeld’s introduction of RTB in the UK is a major step forward for the industry, and will open up exciting new advertising opportunities for our clients. We look forward to extending our already-successful partnership with AdMeld in this area.”

“It’s a big step forward for the industry that premium publishers’ inventory is going to be available via Real Time Bidding,” said Martin Kelly, Managing Partner at Infectious Media. “Through our partnership with AdMeld, this represents a huge new opportunity for our advertisers to more efficiently reach the quality audiences at scale that they are looking for.”

“AdMeld represents the world’s top publishers and highest quality inventory,” said Zach Weinberg, CEO of Invite Media. “This partnership enables us to leverage the efficiency of Real Time Bidding to connect with those audiences in the UK, and do it in a way that benefits the publishers and generates increased ROI for our advertisers.”

“We’re excited to continue our history of innovation – launching the first demand-side platform in the US – and as a first adopter of RTB in the UK,” says Ari Buchalter, MediaMath’s Chief Operating Officer. “Expanding our partnership with AdMeld will produce incremental scale and performance for our agency-client’s campaigns today, and will help them better serve their advertisers in 2010.”

Today more than 130 of the world’s top online publishers use AdMeld’s technology to increase ad revenues and reduce operating costs. For AdMeld’s trusted network and demand partners, the platform provides access to quality audiences totaling more than 150 million unique users in the US and 270 million unique users worldwide, according to Quantcast.

AdMeld’s technology leverages Real-Time Bidding (RTB) and dynamically optimised ad tags to select the most lucrative mix of ads across hundreds of ad networks and exchanges. The company also provides a range of services that eliminate the complexities of working with multiple ad networks, such as consolidated performance reports and payments. Lastly, AdMeld protects publishers’ brands by aggressively enforcing ad block lists with FireMeld, an innovative tool that makes it quick and easy to identify and eliminate unwanted ad units.

AdMeld’s European headquarters are in London.

About AdMeld

AdMeld (www.admeld.com) helps the world’s premium online publishers maximise revenue from ad networks and exchanges, reduce operating costs and protect their brands from unwanted ads. AdMeld’s real time optimisation technology generates the highest possible yield from each ad impression, and its suite of tools and services enhance publishers’ understanding and control of their discretionary ad inventories. Current AdMeld customers include Answers.com, AccuWeather, Discovery Communications, FOX News, Hearst Television, IAC, New York Post, World Wrestling Entertainment® and more than 130 others worldwide. Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco and London.

Partnering with AdJug helps the Rubicon Project answer the increasing global demands to improve ad performance and placement. As part of the agreement, AdJug is able to monetize the UK inventory of hundreds of the Rubicon Project’s Certified U.S. publishers, offering high fill rates on ad impressions. This easy and efficient solution for advertisers and high profile publishers also allows AdJug to build deeper channels and provide enhanced performance for advertisers.

The Rubicon Project recently launched its Certified Ad Space program , that gives ad networks, and their advertisers, quality and safety assurance for content, placement, targeting and reporting. the Rubicon Project’s smart-matching technology deciphers ad inventory from thousands of sites, breaking it into micro-segments based on geographic, demographic and contextual information. the Rubicon Project’s Ad Network Optimization solution then matches certified inventory to the strengths of a specific ad network, bringing that ad network top-performing, “smarter” ad impressions.

“Partnering with AdJug in the international advertising market allows us to engage quality advertisers from the UK, while increasing revenue for our publishers,” said Frank Addante, CEO and founder of the Rubicon Project. “International monetization is a rapidly growing opportunity and, therefore, a key focus for us. Working with AdJug offers us a scalable solution to bring more sites with international traffic online, adding to our growing customer base of 1,000+ websites.” “Our partnership with the Rubicon Project marks a giant leap forward for AdJug by offering immediate access to a new breadth of quality ad inventory,” said Michael Stephanblome, CEO and founder of AdJug. “This instantly helps us to bring additional liquidity into our marketplace and creates new and exciting inventory opportunities for our advertisers.

About AdJug
AdJug is an online advertising marketplace where advertisers and publishers buy and sell ads directly. It eliminates the need to use an advertising network, giving advertisers and publishers greater choice, transparency & control on how ads are bought and sold. AdJug’s mission is to become Europe’s leading online advertising marketplace. The company is headquartered in London.

About the Rubicon Project
The Rubicon Project is an advertising technology company run by a group of industry-experienced, aggressive and passionate renegades on a mission to automate the large, yet highly inefficient Internet advertising industry. While online advertising is expected to reach $27 billion in 2008, up to 80% of a websites’ ad space goes unsold (directly). Unsold ad space is sent to ad networks. Today, advertisers spread money across 300+ ad networks causing fragmentation and complexity for websites trying to monetize their unsold ad space. In 2007, the Rubicon Project pioneered the Ad Network Optimization category with the launch of its first product.

The Rubicon Project’s Ad Network Optimizer uses smart matching technology to match each ad impression to the optimal money-making opportunities. Within the first 6 months of launch, the company optimized more than 25 billion ads for more than 1,000 websites and 150 of the top ad networks while reaching more than 150 million unique Internet users.Other innovations include a free-hosted Ad Network Ad Server for websites and a Certified Ad Space program to ensure safety, accuracy and trust for ad networks (and their advertisers) when placing ads on websites. The founders of the Rubicon Project created one of the first, and most successful, ad servers in 1998 (L90/adMonitor) that was later acquired by DoubleClick. Websites looking to make more money while doing less work should visit: http://www.rubiconproject.com/