Why would Travel Ad Network, which runs a travel advertising/media network for publishers and advertisers, buy the assets of travel-inspiration site TravelMuse?
Flush with $15 million from a new funding round, TAN could have gone shopping for a travel website with a far larger consumer base if it merely sought to head full-throttle into the consumer travel business.
Brian Silver, the TAN president and CEO, cites several reasons for acquiring TravelMuse's assets, but chief among them is that the site provides an effective means to ascertain the attributes of travel consumers early on in the travel-buying funnel.
TAN already is a buyer of such consumer data, and the TravelMuse acquisition enables TAN to harvest a whole bunch more and for free, Silver says.
Accessing that data about traveler intent is much more important to TAN than the current size of the TravelMuse audience, Silver says.
TAN can turn around and leverage that data about consumer attributes for its publishers and advertising partners, he adds.
In addition to having access to this data, TAN was interested in TravelMuse technology -- in particular its Inspiration and Bookmarker tools.
The Inspiration tool gauges travelers' budget, vacation interests, desired hotel class and length of flight, among other factors -- a treasure trove for advertisers.
And, the Bookmarker tool -- see the following image -- is a great trip-planning tool, which also gauges traveler search activity and intent.
Don't be surprised if sometime soon you see some of these tools making appearances on the websites of some of TAN's publishing partners, which include the likes of LonelyPlanet, SpaFinder, Rand McNally, Let's Go, Hawaii.com, HotelsByCity Network, HomeAway and a few hundred others, Silver says.
TAN was interested in TravelMuse's URL, its content and technology and is still mulling how it might position TravelMuse along with other TAN assets.
With travel inspiration websites having yet to prove their financial sustainability and TravelMuse having shuffled its executive lineup to execute a turnaround more than a year ago, TAN may have picked up TravelMuse's assets at an attractive price, although terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
And, the shopping spree may not be over.
Silver says he's "probably looked at 100 websites" from an acquisition lens and the vetting will continue as TAN considers other websites and tools that may be up for grabs.
Like many TravelMuse users who haven't settled on a destination and may be bookmarking websites as they plan potential trips, TAN sounds as if it still is in the dream portion of an acquisition phase.