Yahoo to Buy Premium Ad Network 5to1 for $28 Million
L.A. firm's founders and advisors had many ties to both Yahoo and Fox Interactive Media.
L.A. firm's founders and advisors had many ties to both Yahoo and Fox Interactive Media.
Yahoo will acquire 5to1, a premium ad network consolidating inventory from major media sites, for $28 million. The firm launched in 2009 as a way to ease brand marketers’ concerns about buying unsold inventory.
With a staff of eight and some very high-profile advisors, Los Angeles-based 5to1 works with “more than 20” premium publisher partners but does not disclose their names. That’s presumably to avoid channel conflict, which occurs when media buyers forego direct ad buys from posh sites in hopes of getting a better price through ad networks or exchanges.
Many of the firm’s founders, advisors, and investors have a history working for MySpace and other businesses within News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media division – including CEO James Heckman and Chairman Ross Levinsohn.
Levinsohn, who ran FIM from 2005 to 2007, may have helped fuel negotiations between the two companies. After serving as president of FIM, Levinsohn joined Yahoo last fall as EVP of its Americas region – responsible for the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and South America. He was also a founder of Fuse Capital, an investor in 5to1, but divested when he joined Yahoo, according to AllThingsD, which first reported rumors of deal talks between the two companies.
But Levinsohn is not 5to1’s only significant connection to Yahoo. Among its advisors is Wenda Harris Millard, former head of global sales at Yahoo. Other advisors and investors include digital media hotshots Michael Kassan of Media Link; Quincy Smith, former head of digital at CBS; and Jason Hirschhorn, previously chief digital officer at MTV and chief product officer at MySpace.
Wayne Powers, Yahoo’s SVP of North American sales, said in a statement, “5to1 provides additional access to publishers and unlocks the value of unsold inventory for premium brand advertisers.”
More about:
Lucy helps organizations leverage knowledge for in... View Tech Talk
TVSquared is the global leader in cross-platform T... View Tech Talk
Grata is a B2B search engine for discovering small... View Tech Talk
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing ... Download Now
Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. ... Download Now
This report documents the findings of a Fireside c... Download Now
Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touc... Download Now
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...
View resourceData is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...
View resourceThis report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...
View resourceCustomers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...
View resourceThe Asia Pacific region is expected to overtake North America this year as the world's biggest market for digital advertising spend, according to a re...
View articleAs the world becomes more smartphone-centric, failing to master mobile marketing is no longer an option. Here are some of the best and worst ad format...
View articleHere are eight refined tips to make sure that you're getting the most out of your native advertising strategy and enjoying the highest levels of consu...
View articleFor our final Ads of the Week, the whole ClickZ editorial team joined together for this one, each sharing one or two of our favorites from the whole y...
View articleNative advertising is all the rage in digital marketing, though not everyone quite gets it. Here are some of its pluses and minuses, as well as exampl...
View articleTo compete with Google and Facebook, Microsoft and AOL are training one another on their respective strengths: content and programmatic. Read More...
View articleYahoo is the first major digital publisher that lets brands fact-check viewability and ad fraud by themselves. Read More...
View articleNew research from eMarketer shows that Facebook and Twitter together will account for approximately 34 percent of U.S. digital display ad revenues by ...
View article