Alterian Acquires E-Mail Marketing Software Company Dynamics Direct
Thursday, 25 May 2006
Alterian, a global provider of database marketing and customer insight solutions announced today it has acquired Dynamics Direct, an e-mail and online marketing technology innovator.
Based in Los Angeles, Dynamics Direct was recently ranked as one of the world's leading e-mail marketing software providers by Jupiter Research (Email Marketing Buyer's Guide, 2005). Its rapidly growing partner and customer base includes clients such as Princess Cruises, Countrywide Financial Services and Marsh Affinity Insurance, plus marketing services providers (MSPs) such as Euro RSCG Worldwide and Vertis.
Alterian, whose partner list includes eight of the top ten database marketing services providers in North America (evaluated by Forrester Research), will introduce immediately a new product, Dynamic Messenger, which adds e-mail and online marketing execution capabilities to its award winning Alterian Marketing Suite.
Through the acquisition, Alterian seeks to meet a critical marketing need: the integration of online and database marketing. Shar VanBoskirk, a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research's Marketing Strategy and Technology research team, states that, "Multichannel marketing and the level of analytics needed to make it work can't come about until e-mail is part of a marketer's database marketing operations."
The transaction results in the most comprehensive marketing services platform of its kind, merging permission-based e-mail and online marketing with core database marketing operations such as modelling, campaign management, list management, data visualisation, analytics and reporting.
Marketers can analyse and create highly targeted list segments in seconds using intuitive visualisation tools and immediately execute rich, behaviorally driven campaigns from their desktop, encompassing multiple online touch points. These include e-mail featuring fully dynamic content, Web form data collection and personalised Website landing pages.
"The marketplace is demanding online and multichannel marketing solutions featuring the analytical rigor and integrated functionality of database marketing," said David Eldridge, Alterian's Chief Executive Officer. "To meet this need we believe that Dynamics Direct's established presence in North America, deep experience in database and direct marketing, best of breed offering and approach to the marketplace, is the ideal complement to Alterian's existing technology and channel relationships with MSPs. The combination of an expanded Alterian Marketing Suite that encompasses online marketing with MSPs' data, services and expertise, will provide tremendous value by enabling marketers to execute highly targeted, measurable multi-channel marketing campaigns."
"Being able to offer our clients proven, real-time e-mail and online capabilities, combined with the speed and modelling of the Alterian engine is certainly an attractive proposition," commented Scott Logie, Managing Director, Occam. "This new offering is not about batch blast e-mail campaigns but highly targeted and relevant interactive communications driven by the same data as the rest of a campaign. Sophisticated marketers should be maximising this type of multi-step, trigger and transaction-based e-mail to increase order value - as e-mail marketing continues to rise unabated, differentiation and relevancy is vital to success."
As a component of the Alterian Marketing Suite, the Dynamic Messenger e-mail marketing solution will comprise a fully customisable client interface, an XML Web Services API, a .NET Library supporting broad online marketing execution functionality and a flexible real-time database system which has already been integrated with the Alterian Engine. Dynamic Messenger's distributed platform also features enterprise class user management controls which provide permission based access to all data, content and functionality. This ensures appropriate influence at the corporate level over messaging, content and compliance, while still permitting localised campaign selection and execution. Online campaign history and results can be integrated with a marketer's off-line data for cross-analysis.
Jason McNamara, President and CEO of Dynamics Direct says, "Alterian and its partners provide Dynamics Direct with an immediate international distribution channel. Our customers will benefit from Alterian's data modelling, visualisation and analytical applications and will enjoy additional resources and infrastructure to better support and service them.” In addition, an on-premise licensing option will give MSPs a scalable, customisable and cost effective alternative to current e-mail ASP and CPM pricing models.
The expanded Alterian Marketing Suite is available to MSPs on a hosted or on-premise basis.