Dive summary:
- Facebook officially announced the acquisition of Microsoft's Atlas, which Facebook's director of product marketing Brian Boland says will provide the social network's advertisers another tool to see the effectiveness of ad spend across channels.
- It seemed originally to many industry experts that the Atlas buy was a move for Facebook to build an external ad network powered by its social data.
- Most, if not all, of Microsoft's Atlas employees will be retained in the deal and continue to work out of the Seattle location.
From the article:
"The deal price was not disclosed, and the parties would only say that a 'commercial agreement' will be put in place whereby Microsoft will continue to buy its own ads through Atlas. The price had been expected to be less than $100 million, based on prior bids for Atlas, which were in the $30 to $50 million range."
