Digital advertising platform Intent Media has bought Voyat, in a bid to branch out and push into hotel technology services.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Voyat is best known for its personalisation tools that allow hoteliers to target travellers with specific offers based on demographics such as age, gender and nationality.

It was created in 2012 by Bob Lund and Benjamin Habbel, the former chief of staff at Google for Marissa Mayer before she left to head Yahoo.

Announcing the deal, Intent Media say:

“Both companies are in the business of extracting the most value from each visitor to a website by delivering the right user experience in real time – in other words, increasing revenue and profit per search.”

But at the heart of the acquisition is the challenge of giving supplier brands a different outlet for their marketing spend beyond search (and Google).

In other words, Intent Media wants to give brands the chance to keep potential travellers within a brand’s existing ecosystem or offer deals on partner sites.

“For some that’s might be ad that helps them keep shopping without going back to Google (which drives up acquisition costs), for others it’s a personalized offer and easy booking.

“This, in turn, drives better monetization, retention and life-time value.”

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