Adobe has acquired data management platform company Demdex, which it says will help it "bring audience optimization to $109 billion global online ad market. The company will add it to its Adobe Online Marketing Suite, powered by Omniture.

The company says, "The online ad market is undergoing fundamental changes as advertisers increasingly shift from buying content-driven placements to buying specific audiences. This helps advertisers more efficiently spend ad dollars and avoid advertising to audiences that don’t meet their criteria. Publishers are increasingly seeking to provide audience data to match advertisers’ requirements so they can deliver ad inventory at premium rates. This shift to buying and selling audience segments requires advertisers and publishers to gather, consolidate and more easily share anonymous audience data. This has created a highly fragmented and complex ad buying and selling process."

"Our customers rank among the world’s largest advertisers and publishers and they have been asking us to help them optimize how they buy and sell online ads," said Brad Rencher, VP and general manager of Adobe’s Omniture Business Unit. "With the addition of Demdex, the Adobe Online Marketing Suite will enable advertisers to be smarter with their advertising spend and publishers to leverage their audience data to generate more revenue. With audience optimization, Adobe is literally changing how online ads are bought and sold."

"Adding our technology to the capabilities and vision of Adobe is a powerful combination for advertisers and publishers,” said Demdex CEO Randy Nicolau. "We will continue to evolve our technology as part of the Adobe Online Marketing Suite to help customers stay ahead of the rapidly evolving online ad market."

With the acquisition of Demdex, Adobe is partnering with Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) and becomes part of Evidon’s Open Data Partnership (ODP).