Adknowledge Acquires Hydra to Form Largest Affiliate Network

Adknowledge has acquired Hydra in a move that will eventually create the online advertising industry's largest affiliate network. The purchase, Adknowledge's eighth acquisition in three years, comes three months after Hydra cut 15,000 publishers in an effort to increase the quality of its network.

The deal provides a boost to the inventory of Adknowledge's auction-based platform called Bidsystem, in which more than 50,000 advertisers bid for traffic across the company's cost-per-click network. Hydra affiliates will gain immediate access to Adknowledge's more than 6,500 advertiser campaigns, and affiliates of the combined ecosystem will be able to choose from more than 7,000 of the industry's highest-yielding offers following full integration.

The move pushes Adknowledge closer to its goal of creating a single marketplace for advertisers looking to expand beyond Yahoo!, Google and AOL.