TargetClick Marketing Solutions, a year-old company in Cedar Falls, announced Tuesday it was acquired by Mudd Advertising, a company that began in Jim Mudd Sr.'s Cedar Falls basement in 1981. Since then, Mudd has grown to a worldwide advertising agency focusing on automotive and education clients.

TargetClick was formed from the merger of Doug Drees' and Greg Jass' two companies on June 1, 2011 and one year later, to the day, the acquisition by Mudd was complete. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.*

TargetClick specializes in online marketing – "building trust, without the person searching for you knowing who you are," in Jass' words. Jass (far left) is the director of search engine optimization, Drees (middle) is the director of search engine marketing, and their third team member, Therese Kuster (right), writes content for websites. They said all three are important for driving traffic online, and turning clicks into customers.

Mudd has expertise with more traditional forms of advertising, and TargetClick will head up Mudd's online department. They will maintain their current clients, spread throughout Iowa and the nation, and begin to provide their online services to Mudd's existing clients. TargetClick will retain their brand name, with a slight addendum: "Powered by Mudd Advertising" (above).

"One of the things that attracted us to Mudd, as entrepreneurs, is that entrepreneurial spirit," Drees said. "They're energetic and forward thinking." Mudd approached TargetClick about three and a half months ago because they were interested in expanding their digital presence.

In addition to sharing their online expertise, the TargetClick team is excited to learn from Mudd's decades of experience.

"We're going to be able to build things that are going to benefit our clients," Drees said.

*Update 11:30 a.m. - Added: Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. 

Credits: Photos from targetclickmarketing.com.