Vertical content network Glam Media has acquired three-yar old ad technology firm AdaptiveAds in a bid to improve its brand ads platform with better audience targeting, ad optimisation and brand engagement tracking.

Through the acquisition, Glam Media is opening an office in Mumbai and establishing an engineering presence in Pune, India. The purchase of AdaptiveAds, a venture-backed display ad targeting and optimisation company, with facilities in California and India, will see the US employees of AdaptiveAds joining the Silicon Valley-based Glam's engineering and product development teams in Brisbane, California.

AdaptiveAds co-founder and CEO, Yogesh Sharma, is becoming Glam's vice president and general manager of ad solutions, while Sanjay Sharma, the other co-founder, will oversee the team in India. Glam said the acquisition will add about 20 people to its employee roster, bringing it to 200.

''AdaptiveAds supercharges Glam Media's brand engagement technology, delivering insight into how ads behave with different audiences and giving brands the ability to dynamically act based on this knowledge,'' says Samir Arora, chairman and CEO of Glam Media. ''This acquisition will help optimise results for brand ad campaigns across Glam Media's targeted content verticals, passion groups and geographies.''

With the acquisition, AdaptiveAds' ad serving platform is being renamed GlamAdapt and its self-service ad technology will become the platform for GlamAds, a self-service brand ad system for premium display ads. Additionally, AdaptiveAds' BrandWords contextual display ads are being re-named Glam AdaptAds.

In the current economic environment, GlamAdapt would help provide reporting intelligence for brands by delivering valuable return on investment analysis, essential for managing marketing programmes.

''The integration of Glam Media and AdaptiveAds delivers the next generation of ad targeting, serving, optimization and reporting technologies that provide brands smart audience engagement not possible in print and TV advertising,'' said AdaptiveAds cofounder Sharma. ''Together Glam and AdaptiveAds are bringing advanced technology to help break down the barriers to effective brand ads online.''

Glam Media has more than 900 publishers in its vertical content networks. In December it reached more than 100 million unique visitors for the first time, according to comScore Media Metrix.

In a statement, Fernando Ruarte, co-founder and CTO of Glam Media, said Glam has always relied on technology innovation to differentiate itself from competition. Glam Media CEO Samir Arora said the acquisition "supercharges Glam Media's brand engagement technology, delivering insight into how ads behave with different audiences and giving brands the ability to dynamically act based on this knowledge."