• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 23, 2017

Neither party is discussing financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close during the first quarter of the year.

Adelphic’s self-service model proved particularly attractive to Time Inc., according to President and CEO Rich Battista.

“This deal combines Adelphic’s proven suite of self-service execution tools that our clients want at their fingertips with an unmatched data layer of 1 billion registered users from Time Inc. and Viant,” Battista told Mobile Marketing Daily on Monday.

Since acquiring Viant last year, Time Inc. is pleased with its foray into programmatic advertising. Last November, Battista said Viant was already “beginning to yield incremental revenue across the [company’s] portfolio.”

Partly as a result, Time Inc.’s digital ad revenue increased 63% to $129 million, during the third quarter.

Overall, the company’s ad revenue increased $19 million -- or 5% -- in the third quarter of 2016, year-over-year.

Analysts on Monday said the deal makes good sense.

“Time Inc. has deep first-party data assets,” said Susan Bidel, an analyst at Forrester Research. “This acquisition of Adelphic, with its mobile-first platform, means Time Inc. is now positioned to offer marketers access to first-party data and a platform with which to activate person-based marketing against that data.”

She called it an “alternative to the walled gardens and to Verizon/AOL.”