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AOL announced today that it has completed its purchase of Tacoda, an online behavioral targeting network. AOL originally made the announcement to acquire Tacoda back on July 24. Tacoda will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.

Tacoda was founded in 2001 and uses technology that allows advertisers to serve ads based on consumers' online behaviors. Using Tacoda's technology, AOL will extend its targeting capabilities to advertisers and publishers along with extending the reach of its third-party display network Advertisng.com.

"Behavioral targeting is a fast-growing part of the advertising business, as marketers increasingly look to get efficient and measurable results from their advertising dollars. With Tacoda, we can offer advertisers state-of-art targeting tools," said AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco.

"Combined with our own network, our Advertising.com third party network, and our other recent acquisitions in the advertising space, AOL now has one of the most robust and sophisticated advertising platforms in the business."

According to eMarketer, the behavioral targeting market is on track to increase to $3.8 billion by 2011, from $350 million in 2006.  There have been a number of companies buying online ad networks, the largest being Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive for $6 billion and Google's acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

Financial terms of the deal were not released but estimates put the amount between $200 million and $300 million according to the New York Post. Tacoda will continue to be based in New York.