America Online Collaboration with Abacus and DoubleClick Redefines E-mail Database Marketing AOL's Mercuri Database Awarded Top Honors at NCDM Conference
Friday, 23 December 2005
Abacus, provider of data-driven marketing services, and DoubleClick Email Solutions on December 13 announced that America Online, Inc.’s (AOL) Mercuri Database has been selected as the Gold Award Winner in the Technological Applications Category for the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) Database Excellence Awards.
The solution is a comprehensive e-mail marketing database that has revolutionized AOL’s ability to create a centralized, controlled flow of communications to its members via the e-mail channel, saving millions of dollars in reduced costs and cutting campaign turnaround time from weeks to days. AOL worked with Abacus to design, build and maintain the Mercuri database, while the partnership with DoubleClick provides the underlying e-mail technology.
Since it went live in 2004, Mercuri has helped AOL satisfy a broad array of business initiatives including the creation of newsletters for customer retention; real time messages for member service events; list based ad hoc campaigns for member retention, notices, up-selling and cross-selling; and pop-up advertising targeted list selection. In 2006 AOL and Abacus will add two new dimensions to the Mercuri solution with the integration of Direct Mail and Telemarketing campaigns.
“The Mercuri database has provided a dramatic increase in our ability to execute effective e-mail campaigns,” said Tom Craig, Director, Information Management of America Online, Inc. “Before Mercuri, our e-mail campaigns were less targeted, and we did very little with the collection of promotion history. Through our partnerships with Abacus and DoubleClick Email Solutions, Mercuri has been able to solve each of these issues by letting us know what is being sent, how much is being sent, and what should be sent at the appropriate time. We are honored to accept this award in recognition of this superb combined achievement.”
Mercuri has allowed AOL to consolidate all e-mail communications to their customer base across varying objectives, business owners, delivery methods and infrastructures. Results to date include:
· Improved forecast for revenues generated from e-mail campaigns
· Reduction in costs associated with shutdown of legacy systems
· Reduction in e-mail costs due to aggregation of volumes across the corporation
· Promotion tracking across independent campaigns
· Reduced campaign turn around time from 3-5 weeks to 3-5 days for many major campaigns
“Abacus is dedicated to making our customers successful by providing the solutions necessary for a flexible, corporate marketing environment, extensible to all channels,” said Jeff Lundal, VP, Abacus Advanced Database Services. “The Mercuri project represents a true win for the promises and vision of database marketing by allowing AOL to use e-mail as an effective marketing channel while streamlining processes, cutting costs and decreasing turnaround time. By allowing Abacus to manage the infrastructure, AOL is able to devote its time and resources to managing the marketing.”