HitWise being sold is Anti-News as far as I am concerned - I've been detecting "nibbling" activity (search queries from investment firms that touched webmetricsguru.com) for over a year now.
In fact, I wrote that HitWise was for sale and going to be sold at least 3 times over the last year -and just in January I asked Was HitWise sold yet?
It was never a question in my mind that HitWise, overvalued, would be sold, just WHEN and to WHOM.
The sale of HitWise to Experian makes a lot of sense, and gives a backdoor to merging Experian's Mosaic Geo Demographic data with Microsoft AdCenter down the line (even though that's probably not on anyone's mind right now at Experian, Hitwise or Microsoft); an opportunity exists to get HitWise's excellent, but overpriced, data flowing into Experian's products - and that's a good thing.
Here's a part of the Press Release from Experian
"..Costa Mesa, Calif., 19 April 2007 - Experian, the global information solutions company, announces that it has acquired Hitwise, a leading Internet marketing intelligence company, which helps clients monitor the performance of their websites and target their online advertising spend more effectively. The purchase price is approximately $240m and will be funded from Experian’s existing cash resources. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval."
I think HitWise cashed out while they still could- in the last year Quantcast and Compete have been chipping away at Hitwise with free snapshots of data, on demand, that were almost as good as the high priced versions that HitWise is selling to select customers.
And no question - if you had deep pockets and needed precision data, HitWise was the right decision in most cases- but most people don't need that level of data and HitWise never figured that out. And even when they tried to release a crippled version of their keyword tool for 89 dollars a month, 2 years ago, it was totally overpriced then, and that keyword tool had limitations the full blown HitWise suite did not.
But the problem for HitWise - they only had 1200 customers - and I have read that some of those customers would buy HitWise, use it once or twice for a project, and then not ever use it again, cancelling after the year was up. Don't know how many cases of that there was. Still, it just shows me that HitWise was going in the wrong direction and if they did not sell soon, in a year or two, there might be nothing to sell.
But in the case of Experian, the acquisition of HitWise made a lot of sense - so, it was a win-win for both parties:
Andrew Walsh, Chief Executive Officer of Hitwise, said:
“Over the last 10 years, Hitwise has developed a truly unique digital intelligence service that helps inform the online marketing strategies of 1,200 clients around the world every day. We are excited to become part of Experian, having worked with them for over four years. We will now be able to accelerate Hitwise’s growth and profitability through access to Experian’s wider pool of data, tools and clients, while more quickly expanding our global footprint.”
Notice they keep pulling out the 1200 customers - why only 1200? They were overpriced. There are not too many companies that will pay for a product they don't understand how to use (well..maybe that's not 100% true - lots of companies bought Omniture but I hear many don't know what to do with Omniture either - but at least, that's a Web Analytics platform - what is Hitwise - not really a platform).
Again, the acquisition of Hitwise by Experian makes sense:
"..Hitwise strengthens Experian’s position in market research by bringing new, unique data to Experian on how consumers behave online, to complement our existing knowledge of how they behave offline. Hitwise’s services are also complementary to other Experian products. For example, Hitwise will leverage the sales and distribution network of CheetahMail, our email delivery and analytics company."
But I'm looking forward to getting some of HitWise's data filtered though Experian's products without the expensive price tag ..that's a Win - Win for everyone.
So... good move Experian. Hitwise did well too, selling before the company started sinking in value (which may have already begun).
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