Engaging visitors has always been the primary goal of both publishers and advertisers in the affiliate marketing industry, but for most of the existence of the Internet, their collective ability to interact with consumers has been limited, to say the least.

But the times they are a-changin’. These days, there are companies making impressive strides in the development of new technologies that can increase the value of display ads by making them more alluring to the average Web user. One such company is mediaFORGE, the dynamic display media organization that was recently acquired by Rakuten LinkShare.

The deal adds to LinkShare’s arsenal of affiliate marketing services and solutions, as well as its search marketing and lead generation tools, to help online retailers drive multi-channel, integrated marketing campaigns using the mediaFORGE Consumer Engagement display platform. This platform gives online advertisers the opportunity to prospect, retarget, nurture and engage customers for higher conversions.

According to mediaFORGE CEO Tony Zito, the platform provides “real visibility for how banner and display ads work with other performance channels.”

mediaFORGE’s ad platform features dynamic, engaging and uniquely relevant content meant to entice consumers to interact with the display, which not only increases user interest in an ad, but also provides additional engagement metrics (outside of just views or clicks) that can be used to better understand the actual value of each advertisement thanks to a built-in rich analytics platform that measures how consumers interact with the content inside the ad, providing a clear picture of how the ad influences users.

Incorporating this technology into its existing marketing services made perfect sense to LinkShare. The company didn’t just want any old display solution and felt that mediaFORGE presented a platform that had a unique value to its clients, making it a great fit for the performance marketing channel. In the future, LinkShare would like to continue to build mediaFORGE technology further into its network to work with advertisers and publishers to identify “multi-channel synergies and technical integration opportunities” with dynamic online advertising.

In acquiring mediaFORGE, LinkShare is accelerating the company’s expansion and reach throughout the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Japan.