Marketing & Advertising Acquisitions in 2012

Rakuten LinkShare has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire mediaFORGE, a Salt Lake City–based dynamic display advertising and retargeting platform. The acquisition expands Rakuten LinkShare’s marketing services beyond affiliate marketing into display and retargeting capabilities; terms were not disclosed and mediaFORGE’s ~50 employees will remain in Salt Lake City.

Inuvo, Inc. completed a stock-for-stock merger with Vertro, Inc. effective March 1, 2012, making Vertro a wholly owned subsidiary of Inuvo. The deal combines Vertro's ALOT product portfolio and online advertising/search capabilities with Inuvo's marketing technology and publisher network to expand product offerings and realize cost synergies.

SAS, the leader in business analytics and integrated marketing management, has acquired aiMatch, a cloud-based ad server technology company. The acquisition integrates aiMatch's ad-serving and yield-management capabilities into SAS' Customer Intelligence suite to provide publishers and advertisers with end-to-end ad inventory management, forecasting, optimization and measurement.

Parago, a Lewisville, Texas-based provider of consumer and corporate incentives, has acquired Intuitive Group International, a Reading, UK-based provider of global channel management, marketing automation and rewards platforms. The deal expands Parago's international footprint and adds multi-channel channel/employee engagement and marketing automation capabilities for global clients.

Constant Contact, Inc. acquired Boston-based CardStar, Inc., a mobile loyalty platform with over two million users, to expand its mobile, loyalty, and consumer capabilities for small-business marketing. CardStar's employees, including founders Andy Miller and Danny Espinoza, joined Constant Contact; financial terms were not disclosed.