The Redmond company continues its acquisitions of Web and media companies. After last year bought aQuantive, today Microsoft said it will acquire Rapt Inc., the leading provider of advertising yield management solutions for digital media publishers.

According to a press statement released by Microsoft, Rapt’s technology, along with its information and advisory services offerings, will become key components of the Atlas Publisher Suite, part of Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group.

“Online publishers have a complex array of needs, and they require more attentive and sophisticated partners to help them solve these challenges,” said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. “With this acquisition, we are uniquely positioned to help publishers succeed on all fronts. Our end-to-end solution will include workflow tools, ad package and delivery, turnkey distribution, content partnerships, and yield management and optimization.”

Founded in 1998, Rapt is a privately held, with offices in San Francisco (HQ) and New York City. The company is funded by Accel Partners and Levensohn Venture Partners.

Rapt delivers critical yield management technology to many digital media leaders, including Dow Jones & Company, MTV Networks, and Yahoo!; the most recent additions include Expedia, Fox Interactive Media, New York Times, Reuters, and USA TODAY.

Even Microsoft was one of the Rapt’s clients and according to Associated Press, Tom Chavez, Rapt's chief executive, said in an interview that his company's technology helped boost MSN's ad revenue 15 percent to 20 percent.

With the inclusion of Rapt, the Atlas Publisher Suite allows Microsoft to provide its customers with integrated asset and inventory management, forecasting, yield and sales management, and ad delivery and operations.

Last month, Microsoft proposed a new approach on how the effectiveness of an online campaign should be measured.

With its Engagement Mapping concept, Microsoft tries to go beyond the current "last ad clicked" standard that has been widely accepted in the last ten years. According to the software company, Engagement Mapping take into account all the various online touchpoints and interactions a consumer experiences before an eventual sale.