AdKnowledge Snatches Up AdParlor, 'Largest' Facebook Ad Platform

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AdKnowledge, a performance-based ad network focused on the long tail, has acquired Toronto-based AdParlor, a three-year-old Facebook ad platform that manages over a billion impressions per day of the social network's ubiquitous right-margin placements.

AdKnowledge CEO Scott Lynn said his company's due diligence convinced him that AdParlor is the biggest revenue earner among a growing field of ad technology firms offering Facebook campaign management.

AdParlor's three main customer types are Facebook game publishers, online direct marketers, and brand advertisers. It worked primarily with the first group in its early days, and today has relationships with "pretty much every game developer on Facebook," according to CEO Hussein Fazal.

The second group, marketers keen to drive traffic to their own sites, most notably includes Groupon, which relies exclusively on AdParlor for its Facebook PPC campaigns. The third group consists of large brand advertisers that want to drive traffic to their Facebook Pages, a major growth opportunity that Fazal believes will be accelerated by AdKnowledge's global reach.

Fazal said, "We feel that category is going to be the largest and fastest growing category. With a bootstrap office in Toronto it's difficult to get those clients."

AdKnowledge operates a large ad network focused on inventory in e-mail, search, games, and other venues. It previously acquired Miva, Super Rewards, and Hydra, and its top ad buyers include Ubisoft, SEGA, OMD, and Digitas.

According to AdKnowledge's Lynn, the company has over 10,000 unique offers live on its network, which are spread across 1,200 categories ranging from broad subject areas like home improvement to specific ones, for instance "steel-toed boots."

AdParlor's executives and entire staff will remain in place at the company's Toronto offices. Deal terms weren't disclosed.