IgnitionOne, a global market solutions provider, has acquired leading European ad exchange, Adjug, for an undisclosed sum. The two will now integrate their technologies, with Adjug taking IgnitionOne into the European market. Adjug has been developing its own dynamic creative tools over the past twelve months, which will now be available through the combined solution. Adjug has seen a lot of growth since it launched its exchange in the UK and subsequently Germany. With strong market share in two of Europe's biggest display markets, it is now poised to offer advertisers and agencies search, social and online display buying capabilities. There will also be a big focus now on both prospecting and re-targeting as the European data-driven display market continues to grow. Tomorrow Focus, the powerhouse German digital media company and existing shareholder, will retain a 20% share in AdJug. The full press release can be read below.

August 16, 2011 -- LONDON -- 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.

Display advertising is growing rapidly, fuelled in part by the transparent buying environment offered by advertising exchanges such as AdJug. According to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau UK’s PwC Ad spend report, in 2010 online advertising reached a record £4 billon, or 25% of total ad expenditure in the UK. Display advertising accounted for the biggest gain, growing by more than a quarter (27.5%) to a new high of £945.1 million, and representing 23% of total online spend. The IAB UK also reports that more than half of media agencies in the UK (54.2%) expect to increase the amount of display advertising bought through ad exchanges.

IgnitionOne’s Digital Marketing Suite (DMS) is a centralised 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 behaviour.

Furthermore, the AdJug Exchange will give IgnitionOne customers complete control over their display ad placements and traffic volume. The Exchange currently serves five 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 £12 billion in online sales for marketer and agency clients such as General Motors, Fiat, LBi and Golley Slater, to increase its global reach and offer an unrivalled suite of online marketing solutions.

Michael Stephanblome, co-founder and CEO of AdJug, said: “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.”

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

Satish Jayakumar, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of AdJug said: “This deal also allows us to significantly scale AdJug’s real-time bidding and optimization capabilities to new markets in combination with IgnitionOne’s cutting edge platform.”

For IgnitionOne, which formed through the merger of SearchIgnite and Netmining Europe 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 Satish Jayakumar and Michael Stephanblome 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 as well as having run other start up companies in the European ad technology space.

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 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 optimisation technology uses data aggregation to build dynamic re-targeting segments, which find conversions across ad exchange inventories.

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 optimisation all through a single, simple-to-implement website tag. IgnitionOne currently powers more than £12 billion in revenue each year for some of the world’s leading online marketers and agencies, including General Motors, Fiat, MRM Worldwide, LBi, Golley Slater and more.

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