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Imwave Acquires Move Marketing
This morning, imwave has announced that it has acquired move marketing’s performance search marketing business. Although we are unable to disclose the financial nature of the deal, I would like to let you know my thoughts on why I think this deal worked, and why a similar deal down the road might make sense as well.
Affiliates are entrepreneurs, and often have many irons in the fire. Entrepreneurs tend to want to move on to new things. When you sell your company, most buyers will require at least a 2 year employment agreement for the prior owners, making it difficult for the owner to move on to their next big project. By doing this deal with imwave, Anthony Bajoras, move’s president, was able to sell the business to a proven team who could hit the ground running, continue managing and enhancing the search campaigns, and not require a long term employment contract.
Anthony will now be focusing on m o v e Software and joins the ranks of Kenshoo, Marin, and Clickable, offering much need PPC management tools for our industry. Having looked at these tools, I can say that hands down, m o v e Software, with their experience in affiliate marketing, offers the most integrated and complete solution for affiliate marketers looking to license this type of bid management and reporting technology. Trying to work the affiliate model into the other platforms would have been a kludge at best. I also believe that selling of their affiliate paid search business removes a critical barrier to having other top search affiliates serious consider licensing the their technology, the threat of competition and exposure of your top keyword lists to a serious active competitor.
As far as I am aware, the last performance search company acquisition occurred in June of 2007, when Linkshare acquired TraficStrategies.com. When I originally wrote about the TrafficStrategies deal on Revenews, Kris Jones at Pepperjam had the following comments:
“Does this mean that other top affiliate marketers such as Vinny Lingham’s Clicks2Customers or Jeremy Palmer’s Quit Your Day Job may also be viable affiliate marketing buyout candidates?
It’s been a long-time coming that pure affiliate marketing business models are recognized as powerful and sustainable businesses. Affiliate marketing search arbitrage is a real business and in TrafficStrategies.com Linkshare just acquired one of the top affiliate marketing search arbitragers in the United States.”
I agree with Kris’ comments about the opportunity and strength of the performance search business model, and although there has been some consolidation activity among the large affiliate networks and ad networks, I have to admit, that consolidation in our industry hasn’t happened as quickly as I thought it would. I do think there is a lot of opportunity out there though!
Congrats guys!
Thanks Scott!
Adam,
I think this is exciting news for affiliate marketers - congrats!
While the economy has made it more difficult for business owners to realize the exit value they’ve been building all these years, I stand behind my original thought that “affiliate marketers” are ripe for acquisition.
Clearly, your acquisition of Move Marketing sets an example of what’s possible for other affiliate marketers.
Kris
Thanks Kris!
I agree that “affiliate marketers” are ripe for acquisition. I think it’s important for affiliate marketers to think about possible exit strategies, and look at their business and ask themselves, “have I built something that someone could purchase if I decided I was ready to move on to something else?”
About 2 years ago, I looked at my business, asked that question, and determined the answer was no. I had built some great campaigns and had build a good income for myself, but it was just me, and at that time I was the business.
I hired Tony Pantano as imwave’s CEO, and we started building a solid team and better technology to manage the business. I taught them the business, and that freed me up to explore strategic opportunities, like the move marketing deal.
I don’t think this would have been possible if I hadn’t “let go” and opened myself up to the help of others to continue to grow the business.
Adam
Congratulations Adam! And I have to concur with that the our industry becomes more attractive as online marketing looks towards models that offer strong ROAS for the advertiser.
Adam/Anthony!!!!
Congrats guys! Happy for you both
Cheers,
Beth
Congrats again Adam!
I’m excited and thrilled for all involved, I really think this deal opens up a new layer of acquisition possibilities for affiliate marketers. It’s smart, and adds tremendous value to IMWAVE, moveSoftware, and the industry as a whole.
Karen
Karen,
Thanks! I think the deal was a win-win for all of us, I hope it bodes well for the Industry and other affiliates as well.
Adam
Adam,
What makes you think m o v e Software’s SEM tool is any good? Specifically, what do you mean by ‘integrated’ and ‘complete’ as pertains to affiliate marketers specifically?
Thanks,
Chris
Chris,
I will forward this blog post to Anthony so he can answer directly. But from my point of view, it was built initially to handle Move’s search affiliate marketing business, so it tracks every keyword with ID codes passed through the major affiliate networks.
Adam
Adam, Tony, Andre and Anthony: Great purchase and sale that enhances all parties to the transaction.
I am sure you’ll all continue on your success paths!
Hey Adam,
Great work. It was a very nice post. Short and simple. I had never heard of those 2 companies before in my entire life but I made some searches about the deal and the companies to know more.
Seems like you people are damn professionals and you people gather complete information before making a post live and the way you prove the stats is so professional.
Great post. Thx
Regards
Laksh
Its “provide” instead of “prove”