Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide

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 Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide

October 2010

Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide October 2010

Published October 2010 Econsultancy Econsultancy New York 4th Floor, The Corner 41 East 11th St., 11th Floor 91-93 Farringdon Road New York, NY 10003 London EC1M 3LN United States All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be United Kingdom reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, Telephone: electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording +1 212 699 3626 or any information storage and retrieval system, without http://econsultancy.com prior permission in writing from the publisher. [email protected]

Contents

1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1. About Econsultancy ...... 2

2. Executive Summary ...... 3

3. The Market ...... 4 3.1. Market value and growth ...... 4 3.1.1. Market consolidation ...... 5 3.1.2. Size of market compared to other online marketing channels ...... 6 3.2. Market trends ...... 8 3.2.1. Email becomes more strategic as market matures ...... 8 3.2.2. Social media provide fresh opportunities for growth ...... 10 3.2.3. Integration of multichannel data holds key to personalisation ...... 12 3.2.4. Increased demand for training and education ...... 13 3.2.5. More relevance and engagement essential for reducing inbox clutter ...... 13 3.3. Return on Investment – benefits of best-practice email marketing...... 16

4. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) ...... 17 4.1.1. Strengths ...... 17 4.1.2. Weaknesses ...... 18 4.1.3. Opportunities ...... 20 4.1.4. Threats ...... 23

5. Costs and Pricing Models ...... 24 5.1. Fully managed service ...... 26 5.2. ASP ...... 26 5.3. Off the shelf – in house ...... 26

6. Tips and Pitfalls: how to find the right ESP ...... 27 6.1. Introduction ...... 27 6.2. What type of model is most suitable for your company? ...... 27 6.3. What kind of ESP are you looking for? ...... 29 6.4. Do you fully understand your own role and potential

Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide October 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2010

internal barriers to effective delivery? ...... 31 6.5. What are some of the criteria for selecting an ESP? ...... 32

7. Market Positioning Charts ...... 34 7.1. Explanation for Chart 1 – Company Focus ...... 34 7.2. Explanation for Chart 2 – Type of Solution ...... 35

8. Supplier Positioning Summary ...... 36 8.1. Company Focus ...... 36 8.2. Type of solution ...... 37

9. Supplier Matrix ...... 38

10. Supplier Marketplace and Profiles ...... 39 10.1. Adestra ...... 39 10.2. Communicator Corp ...... 46 10.3. dbg ...... 55 10.4. dotMailer ...... 62 10.5. eCircle ...... 71 10.6. e-Dialog ...... 79 10.7. Emailcenter ...... 85 10.8. Emailvision ...... 91 10.9. emarsys ...... 96 10.10. Epsilon ...... 105 10.11. ExactTarget ...... 112 10.12. Experian CheetahMail ...... 122 10.13. Lyris ...... 131 10.14. MailPerformance ...... 137 10.15. Neolane ...... 145 10.16. Newsweaver ...... 151 10.17. Profusion ...... 157 10.18. Pure360 ...... 164 10.19. RedEye ...... 174 10.20. Responsys ...... 181 10.21. Shift Click ...... 187 10.22. Silverpop ...... 195 10.23. SmartFOCUS ...... 205 10.24. SpinnakerPro ...... 212 10.25. StrongMail ...... 219

Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide October 2010

1. Introduction

This guide assesses the UK marketplace for email services from the perspective of the buyer.

Section 10 contains profiles of 25 companies offering email marketing platforms and email- related services. Known as email service providers or ESPs, these companies offer an array of services ranging from basic broadcast of email to services such as campaign planning, optimisation and integration with web analytics data.

The increasing number of ESPs offering value-added services is a result of industry maturity and an increased appreciation, both within agencies and client-side, of the need to integrate email communication and messaging with broader business strategies.

Econsultancy buyer’s guides

Econsultancy‟s buyer‟s guides are the ideal starting place for anybody researching new suppliers in interactive market sectors. They contain in-depth vendor profiles; to help you quickly evaluate suppliers and service providers, as well as market analysis to help you put things into perspective. Vendors are selected for the report based on a combination of factors, not limited to but including:

 Analysis of capabilities (services / products)  Clients  Experience (qualifications / trade bodies / case studies / client lists)  Expertise (by sector / topic)  UK status (a UK office is preferred, occasional exceptions are made)  Ability to take on and fulfil new projects  Recommendations from trusted sources (or anecdotal evidence to the contrary)  Google visibility  Business model (a high % of turnover should be related to these services)  Company website Econsultancy does not explicitly recommend any of the suppliers featured in these guides, principally because it is impossible for us to work with all of them to form a first-hand opinion. But we do believe - based on an intensive and careful selection process - that the chosen vendors represent quality.

Buyer‟s Guides are updated on an annual basis, so the information contained within is recent and thus valid. Send any questions or comments to Linus Gregoriadis, Econsultancy‟s Research Director ([email protected]). We welcome feedback.

Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide October 2010 Page 1

1.1. About Econsultancy Econsultancy is a digital publishing and training group used by more than 200,000 internet professionals every month.

The company publishes practical and time-saving research to help marketers make better decisions about the digital environment, build business cases, find the best suppliers, look smart in meetings and accelerate their careers.

Econsultancy has offices in New York and London, and hosts more than 100 events every year in the US and UK. Many of the world's most famous brands use Econsultancy to educate and train their staff.

Some of Econsultancy‟s members include: Google, Yahoo, Dell, BBC, BT, Shell, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, Barclays, Deloitte, T-Mobile and Estée Lauder.

Join Econsultancy today to learn what‟s happening in digital marketing – and what works.

Call us to find out more on +44 (0)20 7269 1450 (London) or +1 212 699 3626 (New York). You can also contact us online.

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2. Executive Summary

Econsultancy: the UK market for email marketing platforms and services was worth £292 million in 2009 and will grow by an estimated 15% year-on-year to a value of £336 million by the end of 2010.

As an industry, email marketing continues to flourish because it is inherently more accountable and measurable than many other areas of marketing, providing a high return on investment at a relatively low cost. Marketers have become more strategic in their approach to email marketing, with the channel being used to foster long-term relationships with customers, rather than just for short-term quick wins. Email marketers are moving away from email as an acquisition tool, to focus on retention and increase customer lifetime value.

The rise of social media, in particular the increasing popularity of social networking, does not sound the death knell for email. The evidence shows that social media marketing and email activity complement each other. The ability to distribute and share content is built into email, and this supports social media activity. Another trend is the increased understanding of the need to integrate email with other types of data. Within a multichannel world, email is becoming a more strategic tool for building customer relationships.

As a consequence of companies employing increasingly sophisticated email strategies, there is an increased demand for skills and education in this area. The use of best practice in email marketing is fast becoming a “hygiene factor” for brands who value their customers.

Trends within this market include:  Email becomes more strategic as market matures  Social media provide fresh opportunities for growth  Integration of multichannel data holds key to personalisation  Increased demand for training and education  More relevance and engagement to reduce inbox clutter This buyer‟s guide contains profiles of the following ESPs: Adestra, Communicator Corp, dbg, dotMailer, eCircle, e-Dialog, Emailcenter, Emailvision, emarsys, Epsilon, ExactTarget, Experian, Lyris, MailPerformance, Neolane, Newsweaver, Profusion, Pure360, RedEye, Responsys, Shift Click, Silverpop, SmartFOCUS, SpinnakerPro and StrongMail. Other related Econsultancy reports:

Email Marketing Best Practice Guide http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-best-practice-guide

Econsultancy / Adestra Email Marketing Census 2010 http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-census

Achieving Digital Balance http://econsultancy.com/reports/achieving-digital-balance-best-practices-for-mastering-digital-strategy-and-budgets

Email Marketing Request for Proposal Template File http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-request-for-proposal-rfp

Email Marketing Business Case Template File http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-business-case

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3. The Market

3.1. Market value and growth

Market Value The UK market for email marketing platforms and services was worth £292 million in 2009 and will grow by an estimated 15% year-on-year to a value of £336 million by the end of 2010. Econsultancy

The email marketing sector has shown itself to be pretty robust in spite of the difficult economic climate. Although all marketing disciplines felt the impact of the recession in the form of reduced budgets and resources, email has been relatively shielded from the full impact of the economic crisis.

Marketers have become increasingly focused on channels that are cost-effective and which deliver tangible return on investment. The recession has had the effect of allowing marketers to appreciate the benefits of email more fully.

The market has matured, and the demonstrably high ROI means companies will continue to invest in email as the economy recovers. At the same time, the email marketing sector is maturing and is therefore no longer growing at the 20%+ annual growth rate witnessed a few years ago.

Value of UK Email Marketing Industry

Source: Econsultancy Email Marketing Platforms Buyer‟s Guides

According to the Econsultancy / Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2010, on average, survey respondents are spending 17% of their digital marketing budgets on email marketing. This compares to 14% in 2009, a significant increase.

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Looking at spending in real terms, the proportion of companies spending at least £10,000 a year on email marketing now stands at 51%, while 11% of companies surveyed are spending at least £100,000 a year on email marketing. The proportion of companies who say that email marketing delivers an ROI of 300% or more has increased from 61% to 63%, and there has also been an increase (+5%) in the proportion of companies who say their ROI is 500% or more.

Apart from basic broadcast of email, services relating to marketing offered by email service providers and agencies include: measurement and analytics, personalisation, segmentation, automated campaigns, campaign optimisation, email data provision, strategy and planning, design and copywriting, dynamic content solutions and behavioural response marketing.

Our valuation includes money spent on agency services (in addition to main email service providers), and the cost internal staff resources related specifically to email. 3.1.1. Market consolidation As the email marketing industry has reached maturity, the market has been flooded with a number of players. This has led to email becoming commoditised, and as a consequence, consolidation is expected. It is likely that the formation of partnerships will lead to a smaller number of key players in the market, with specialists for specific aspects of email marketing emerging.

Voice of the ESP – consolidation “I personally think there are probably another four or five years of really strong growth within this marketplace as the importance of the channel continues to rise. I suspect that during this time, we will see some differentiation as specialist areas of email communication evolve. For instance I would expect to start to see an increase in the number of specialist email agencies as well as technology platforms that focus on particular specialisms of email.” James Bunting, Director of Research & Strategy, Communicator Corp “Email marketing has become brutally commoditised, and smaller players will fall by the wayside or get acquired, as shrinking margins mean that they can no longer complete. The larger remaining service providers will be focusing on developing their capabilities as one-stop-shops. It is no longer enough to be a good ESP – clients will place their business with the one that can also do data, creative, analytics, and integration with mobile, web tracking, and social media. Revenue will increasingly be derived from value-added services and consultancy, rather than broadcasting itself. We will probably soon see the first instance of a digital agency acquiring a DM agency, rather than the reverse which has traditionally held true.” Guy Hanson, Director of Interactive Services, dbg

“The industry appears to be moving into a period of consolidation. It is rare to see new technology providers in the sector, although there are businesses springing up everywhere offering white label versions of existing technology providers. We are also seeing an increasing number of newer, service-based email marketing companies who use available technologies to deploy campaigns, but provide their clients with a managed and consultative service. “While technologies may not be consolidating rapidly within this sector, ESPs are busy aligning themselves with technologies from other marketing channels, from print and social media, for example. This demonstrates the value of email marketing as the „natural glue‟ that can bind many other channels together, not to mention its important role in truly integrated marketing strategies.” Tink Taylor, Managing Director, dotMailer “With use and understanding of data being a key focus, it‟s likely that that there will be acquisitions and consolidating of existing partnerships with similar organisations.” Nick Gold, Regional Manager Northern Europe, Emailvision “The provision of software to send email has become increasingly commoditised. It‟s no longer enough for suppliers in this industry to get the basics right: those are merely the hygiene factors. Instead, it will be the

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suppliers who can offer some genuine differentiation that will win out.

“For me, that means understanding customer journeys beyond just the email trail and having the means – and insights – to use that to deliver value back to those customers. That understanding does require great technology, but it also means being able to provide the strategic guidance (and, if required, tactical assistance) to bring value will separate the leaders from the following pack.

Michael Weston, VP Sales, Lyris “The email market is very fragmented and will continue to be for some time. Many US ESPs are moving away from local support in Europe.” Mark Patron, CEO, RedEye “The competitive landscape will consolidate as smaller participants join forces to get better economies of scale or the large acquire to get larger. The leading players will differentiate based on making the use of sophisticated functionality for analysis and targeting easier to use.”

Chris Underhill CEO, smartFOCUS

3.1.2. Size of market compared to other online marketing channels It is interesting to compare the size of this market with other online channels and sectors. For comparison, Econsultancy has previously1 estimated that:

 The UK paid search market grew by 12% in 2009 to a value of £2.71 billion, while the SEO market grew by 14% to a value of £376 million.  Affiliate marketing will drive £4.62 billion in online sales during 2010, a 12% increase on 2009 when the sector was responsible for £4.13 billion in e-commerce sales.  The PPC bid management technology market will grow by 14% during 2010.  The UK market for e-commerce technology will be worth in excess of £600 million in 2010.  The UK market for web analytics grew by an estimated 9% in 2009 to a value of £85 million.  The UK user experience and usability market grew by an estimated 5% in 2009 to a value of just under £200 million.

Growth of email marketing – voice of the ESP

“Companies in the retail sector continue to spend significantly on email services, but in fact any organisation with an e-commerce platform can be seen to be driving the growth in the industry. We are now starting to see more investment from the financial services sector as they move more of their customers online. Interestingly I feel that email is now starting to generate more traction in the B2B space, specifically from businesses that communicate with both consumers and businesses. I think this is being driven by a deeper understanding of the channel arising from their consumer-led communications.

“The bulk of the growth is coming from medium to large sized companies; however we are also seeing some small businesses, typically early adopters, enhancing the strategy that drives their communication plans.”

James Bunting, Communicator Corp “We see growth across all segments and verticals in the UK as marketers look to leverage the data they have to develop highly targeted interactive communications – across email, mobile and social media. We‟ve experienced rapid growth in both the enterprise and mid-market, as organisations in these segments have amassed tremendous amounts of data and are looking to integrate their systems and transform the data into highly

1 Source: Econsultancy buyer‟s guides http://econsultancy.com/reports/buyers-guides

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targeted, custom online marketing campaigns.” Nigel Arthur, Managing Director, ExactTarget UK “The biggest spenders for email are the online retail, travel and gaming sectors. The large blue chips have the budgets to increase their sophistication and get the very best that email can offer.” Tim Watson, Operations Director, smartFOCUS.

Voice of the client “Email is essential. It‟s the foremost means of engaging service users and supporters. It gives us instant access to the right people and with a click they can be completing a form or getting in touch with us.” Thomas Muirhead, Digital Manager at Breast Cancer Care

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3.2. Market trends

3.2.1. Email becomes more strategic as market matures The email marketing industry is a well-established channel in the digital marketing mix, and as the industry has matured, this has led to a wide range of different strategies being developed. This is good news for email marketers, since the lack of strategy has been a major barrier to effective email marketing in previous years. Email marketing continues to thrive and grow. Email is the most widely used communication tool for businesses across the UK, and given its demonstrable benefits, companies are continuing to dedicate resources to the channel. James Bunting, Director of Research and Strategy at Communicator Corp said:

“Businesses have become accustomed to making a certain margin from their email activities. Looking at the higher return on investment that well-executed email campaigns achieve versus other channels, businesses are rightly putting additional resources into this channel with a view to growing and protecting the revenue they have become accustomed to.” The recession has had its own part to play in this; it has resulted in the shift of budgets from offline to online. In addition, with resources under greater strain, marketers are investing in channels that are well-established and can demonstrate tangible ROI, as Nick Gold, Regional Manager Northern Europe of Emailvision explains:

“Marketers are under the same pressures as the rest of the economy – they have to make their budgets work harder. This means investing in marketing activity that is proven to be measurable and trackable, can produce a higher return on investment, and with the rise of social media, can work hand-in-hand to with other channels to get a greater „bang for your buck.” Another consequence of the recessionary climate is that rather than using email as a short-term acquisition tool, email marketers are recognising the need to build long-term customer relationships. Given that the cost of retaining a customer is significantly lower than the cost of acquiring a new one, it‟s no surprise to see that there has been a resulting shift from a focus on acquisition to retention during difficult economic times. This trend is likely to continue as the economy recovers.

Part of the focus on personalisation relates to the rise of social media. As consumers are sharing more information online, this provides opportunities for emails to be far more relevant and targeted, as Nigel Arthur, Managing Director, ExactTarget UK articulates:

“The UK email market continues to experience growth, as marketers are finding higher levels of customer engagement and return on investment from the channel compared to offline channels. Consumers are interacting with brands across all digital channels - email, mobile, social media and websites – creating unprecedented opportunity for marketers to provide unique targeted communications based on customers‟ preferences and interests.” The savviest organisations are not using email merely as an advertising tool, but rather as a means to engage with their customers. In that sense, email marketing communication has evolved into a tool to create meaningful dialogue with customers, as Michael Weston, VP of Lyris suggests:

“The recession of the last couple of years has compounded a trend that savvy marketers have understood for a long time: that online channels can no longer rely on growth from newbies only to expand their businesses. We have to get better at developing an ongoing relationship with (especially our most engaged) customers.

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“This means you need to combine the ability to listen to what those customers are saying back to you with the means of sending them messages. In other words, by engaging in conversations. It‟s abundantly clear that by honing in on what customers want to hear about, you‟ll improve the value of those relationships far beyond the investment required.”

As further evidence that companies are becoming more strategic in their approach, there has been a significant increase in testing all aspects of email marketing, as highlighted by the findings of the Econsultancy / RedEye Conversion Report 20102. The proportion of company respondents testing creative has almost doubled since 2009 – from 39% to 73%. Just under two- thirds of companies surveyed (63%) test offer and timing and more than half of respondents (51%) test the frequency of contact.

Specifically for your email marketing, which of the following do you test?

Response 2010: 168 Response 2009: 269 Source:Econsultancy / RedEye Conversion Report 2010 - http://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-report

Given that email marketing has been adopted by a wide range of different organisations, from small and medium-sized organisations to large multinationals, it is unsurprising that these groups of companies have different strategies and tactics for email. Although some smaller brands are still conducting a one-size-fits-all approach, many have evolved their email offering to include advanced tactics.

Email strategies evolving beyond the one-size-fits all approach

“With the maturing of the market, it has become apparent businesses are dividing themselves loosely into two camps. The smallest group are the businesses that see email marketing as an advertising channel conducting a one-size-fits-all approach to their email communications. Whilst undeniably still effective, businesses in this group don‟t feel the need to evolve their email activity and spending trends in this group are generally flat, as they do not feel the need to prioritise the development of their email activities.

2 Econsultancy / RedEye Conversion Report 2010 - http://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-report

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“The second group, which in my opinion is where the majority of businesses are now sitting, see email as a channel to build relationships with their customers and prospects. This group is evolving strategies to use email to maximise their relationship with their customers in order to differentiate themselves and grow revenue.

“These companies are investing heavily to develop marketing tactics, strategies and technical solutions to ensure email heavily supports the customer lifecycle and is integrated with online and offline activities.” James Bunting, Communicator Corp

3.2.2. Social media provide fresh opportunities for growth According to Nielsen, social networking is now the most popular activity online. Part of this relates to increased content distribution, and the sharing of different media, such as online videos, images and links. The rise of social media has both positive and negative implications for the email marketing world. While some say social media help to increase the growth of email, others say the rise of social channels signals the demise of email marketing. Email is a channel that internet users are familiar with, and its role is well established in consumer behaviour. Customers like using email because it is easy to use and they have been using the channel since the inception of the web. Email is often a key stepping-stone in the social media journey, with the channels complementing each other. Email facilitates the sharing of information and content, of which social media is a key part. It is also worth noting that all social networking sites require an email address upon registration, and for receiving updates. To some extent, social networking sites cannot function without some sort of email account.

As Simon Bowker, Manager Director, eCircle UK states, it is not about one discipline replacing another, but rather about how different channels support one another:

“The rise of social media has been phenomenal and consequently there has been no shortage of discussion about how this will affect email marketing. Unsurprisingly some are saying email will suffer as brands jump on the social media band wagon. “However, there is an overwhelming amount of research which suggests that the two can support each other and email marketing is still a highly effective tool. It‟s not about abandoning one method for another but about using the best element of each to deliver higher ROI.”

In addition, email marketing can be used as an effective seeding tool to get users onto social networking sites in the first place. The interaction with the customer can then take place on the social site itself. Voice of the ESP

“The explosive impact of social media on email marketing and its significance can‟t be ignored. We are delighted to see that email is far from dying in the midst of the social media revolution. And instead of cannibalisation, we are witnessing a solid partnership evolving between the two; email and social media working in harmony to fuel one another.

“This powerful engagement naturally opens up a huge opportunity for leading ESPs to consult at a strategic planning level to help email marketers to understand, engage, best leverage and exploit new social media applications and technologies to full effect.”

Henry Hyder-Smith, Managing Director, Adestra

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Guy Hanson, Director of Interactive Services at dbg, said: “Email is thriving because of the rise of social media, not being replaced by it. Email carries the call to social media action, and provides confirmation of the resulting transactions.” Conversely, the growth of additional communication channels, and the ability to send messages via social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, has caused some to suggest that social media will result in the “death of email”.

In July 2010, Ben & Jerry‟s UK announced that it was abandoning email marketing in the UK, to focus on their social media strategies. The ice-cream company sent out their last newsletter in July, and encouraged their customers to interact with the brand via Facebook and Twitter.

However, according to Ben and Jerry’s Global Marketing Manager, Katie O‟Brien, email marketing is performing well in the US, and works best as part of an integrated strategy:

“I feel passionate about email because of the way we grew the list. I don‟t go out and really advertise the list. It turns out to be a powerful tool because it's truly handraisers. We don‟t have big offers of „Sign up for our email and get free ice cream‟. It‟s people who truly want to hear about our company and what we‟re doing. “We get really strong open rates and click-through rates when we hit our chunk mailers (That‟s what we call our email: ChunkMail.) When we hit our chunk mailers, most of the time that‟s what sparks the conversation on Twitter, even if we haven‟t said anything on Twitter yet.” The good news for email marketers is that Ben & Jerry‟s UK tends to be the exception to the rule. According to the Email Marketing Census, more than a third of companies (37%) are using email to encourage the sharing of content on social networks, and just under a third of companies (31%) say they are planning to do this.

In addition, according to another Econsultancy report, How We Shop in 2010: Habits and Motivations of Consumers, email marketing is still the channel of choice for receiving correspondence and offers from companies. According to the research, 61% of consumers prefer receiving offers via email, so although customers are more receptive to social media sites, abandoning email marketing altogether is a risky strategy.

The findings of the research also indicate that email marketing is popular among consumers of all ages. Consumers under the age of 39 prefer receiving communication via email, although a significant percentage in the 18-38 age band prefer receiving sales information via social networking sites. According to Econsultancy's US Research Director, Stefan Tornquist: "Email continues to be the desired channel for many types of commercial communication. Social networking and its effect on the nature of brand is the hottest topic in digital marketing, and deservedly so. It‟s still worthwhile for marketers to remember that social network adoption is far from maturity." The consensus seems to be that the era of email is far from over. It is a channel that is popular with consumers and marketers alike. In addition, social and email complement each other by reinforcing key marketing messages.

Tink Taylor, Managing Director of dotMailer said:

“Despite those who keep predicting „the death of email‟, this channel, if used effectively by following best practice guidelines, continues to provide fantastic return on investment and engagement levels compared to other on and offline channels.”

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3.2.3. Integration of multichannel data holds key to personalisation As more companies are using email to build relationships with customers for retention marketing, it is unsurprising that the ability to integrate email with other types of data is becoming more important. Integration with CRM systems, web analytics software and social media data is useful for facilitating advanced segmentation and targeting techniques.

The ability to create a single view of the customer across multiple touch points enables email marketers to create highly personalised interactions with their customers, and will be a key area of growth going forward.

This trend stems from the email marketing industry maturing. And as a result, the channel is becoming an important component of an integrated marketing strategy, as James Bunting of Communicator Corp notes:

“Email is starting to be taken very seriously by businesses. It wasn‟t so long ago that email marketing used to be something that was done in a rush by the marketing team every Friday morning, so the company‟s newsletter could be dispatched by lunch time. Thankfully, this no longer happens!

“Email is now an important part of the marketing department‟s strategy and we are seeing many businesses looking to integrate it into all their marketing plans. It is now used by marketers to talk and listen to their customer, but more importantly it is being used to learn more about them.”

Given that more email marketers are adopting a long-term strategic approach, the demand for multichannel email platforms is increasing, as Nigel Arthur of ExactTarget explains:

“UK marketers are increasingly looking to create highly targeted interactive marketing campaigns by integrating their email marketing solution with their existing suite of data sources - CRM, analytics, social media, point of sale.

“Bringing these technologies together creates a single view of the customer, allowing marketers to create highly personalised brand interactions with customers via email, mobile, social media or custom landing pages.”

In order to be relevant, personalisation and dynamic content is of key importance, and a multichannel, integrated approach will go a long way to facilitate targeted and relevant emails, as Tim Watson, Operational Director of smartFOCUS stated:

“Marketers are starting to look at how email, CRM, e-commerce, web analytics and social media can be joined up, as we move into a multichannel digital world. This drives a need to look at integration and adoption of a longer term strategic view of the email platform choice.” Denise Cox, Email Communication Specialist at Newsweaver added: “Another big trend is the API [application programming interface] and the integration of email and other CRM or internal systems so the organisation can get a full view on all its customer communications and interaction. “A growing understanding of personalisation and dynamic content is important. Stage one was simply the use of email as a communication channel, Stage two is seeing organisations differentiating themselves from everyone else in the inbox by being strikingly relevant.”

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3.2.4. Increased demand for training and education Digital marketing as a whole chronically suffers from a skills shortage, and so there is a demand for education and training across the board. However, this problem is further amplified in email marketing because the sector has reached maturity. As email marketers are engaging in increasingly sophisticated email techniques, there is greater demand for relevant resources to manage the process.

In addition, ESPs will be expected to provide additional services, such as training courses, consulting and education to enable marketers to employ effective email marketing strategies. This not only reflects the maturity of the market, but also relates to marketers looking for increased value from email marketing.

Paul Anderson, Strategic Marketing Consultant at Emailvision said: “There has been increased demand for training and expert advice, to narrow the skills gap in marketing departments. More advanced tactics are also on the increase, such as transactional email – a previously untapped marketing channel. “Companies also want to know how they can integrate email with other channels and with other web activity (and analysis). We‟re finding companies are increasingly looking to automating more and more processes to improve efficiency and produce better results.” The demand for education also stems from the trend of integrating email with web analytics, CRM systems, and other additional sources of data. As marketers are becoming more knowledgeable about email marketing, organisations are increasingly looking to reap the benefits of more sophisticated email techniques. Bryan Black, Sales Director of smartFOCUS, added: “There is a clear trend for increasing value in email for the same spend, as the marketers are becoming more mature and knowledgeable. This is driving an expectation for more intelligent marketing rather than the old-fashioned blast approach.”

The results of the Econsultancy / Adestra 2010 Email Census indicate that email marketers still have a long way to go in terms of education and learning best practice. According to Henry Hyder- Smith, MD at Adestra: “It is concerning to see that 39% of companies polled admit they have no idea what their ROI is when it comes to measuring email campaign effectiveness. Clearly there is still much to be learned and gained by many businesses in this crucial area.”

In addition, since more companies are planning to employ a multichannel approach, investing in training is important in order to allow staff to manage email as part of a more holistic approach. 3.2.5. More relevance and engagement essential for reducing inbox clutter Email was once just a communication channel. However, with increasing levels of noise in the inbox, the challenge for marketers now is to stand out, be engaging and memorable. Gmail‟s recently introduced “Priority Inbox” is testament to this.

The new Gmail feature aims to deliver important emails to users so they are much more visible to consumers over and above the rest of their email. Priority Inbox provides new opportunities for email marketers, as they need to ensure their emails are visible and capture the attention of consumers. To some extent, the introduction of Priority Inbox embraces the trend of the end of mass-email, as marketers that employ the generic email-to-all strategy will eventually fall by the wayside.

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A key challenge for email marketers is reducing inbox clutter, which is why engaging email content is now crucial. A 2010 survey by GetResponse showed that over half of respondents (54%) say they are focusing on personalisation and targeting to reduce the effects on inbox clutter. Improving message titles and subject lines was thought to be of significant importance for 52% of the respondents surveyed.

What email activities are you implementing to reduce the effects on inbox clutter?

GetResponse Email Marketing Trends Survey 2010 http://www.getresponse.com/documents/core/reports/2010_Email_Marketing_Trends_Survey.pdf Relevance is becoming more significant due to the high number of emails typically sent and received by users, as James Bunting of Communicator Corp notes:

“Competition for the inbox has reached new levels, with research showing an average user dealing with over 100 emails a day. So making sure the messages you communicate are relevant has never been so important.

“Adding this to the fact that email is becoming mobile and email clients are rolling out intelligent automated inbox filtering tools, it is no longer possible to just be average. Simply doing what has always been done will result in email most certainly being sent into junk folders or email clients automatically prompting recipients to unsubscribe.

“2010 will mark the year when email marketers have to take recipient engagement very seriously.”

As consumers are flooded with marketing communication, it is now even more important to adhere to the rules of best practice in order to stand out. The industry needs to move further away from opt-out structures towards a more ethical approach, and permission-based email, in order to maintain credibility, as Guy Hanson of dbg notes:

“There has been a significant shift away from the use of email as an acquisition tool, and the spate of business closures in the email list owners sector bears testament to this. Part of the problem here has been a spate of aggregators, who have built massive third party lists, based on the flimsiest of permissioning structures, which have effectively saturated the market. As a consequence, response rates have declined, and some of the traditionally more ethical operators have folded as a result.

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“Companies are now focusing on email‟s value as a customer retention tool, and the customer journeys are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Triggers / automation based on transactions, web behaviour and social media activity are forming an increasingly large slice of total volume. One of the ESPs that I know from the EMC [Email Marketing Council] estimates that more than 50% of their total broadcast traffic is now triggered.”

One way for marketers to reduce inbox clutter is to focus on getting the basics of email marketing right. Although many companies are looking at advanced techniques, a minority of email marketers are still not implementing best practices, and this is causing response rates to drop. So, for many email marketers, the initial challenge is getting the basics right, as Simon Bowker of eCircle UK testifies:

“Some companies are still not using best practice when it comes to opt in, number of emails sent and unsubscribe options. This approach damages the credibility of all email marketing. Email databases tend to decay over time with new subscribers being most responsive and older sign ups dropping off. So the future of email marketing will be to look at how to ensure engagement is kept high over a long period of time.”

Delivery and open rates remain important metrics, but engagement is now being added to the mix as an important KPI. This relates to the trend of email being used to form long-term relationships with customers. Denise Cox at Newsweaver said:

“An extremely relevant trend relates to „engagement, engagement, engagement‟. While delivery should be a key objective, it really is all about how the recipient engages with the email. Using data and crafting emails that are timely, targeted and relevant should be at the top of the agenda.”

Paul Anderson of Emailvision added:

“At an operational level, organisations are still not measuring their ROI and experiencing [recipient] email fatigue, caused by organisations not targeting or sending relevant or personalised emails.”

A key challenge for email marketers arises from how internet service providers are now filtering emails. According to Mark Patron, CEO of RedEye:

“Deliverability and relevancy are of key important. ISPs are moving towards using consumer engagement to filter emails. So if a consumer does not regularly open your marketing emails they automatically go to junk. Hotmail is now taking this a stage further. ESPs need to help their clients measure and manage consumer engagement.”

Voice of the client

“We will need to be clever with the volume of emails we send to users and supporters of our services. We believe that in order to get good response, we need to make sure that right content is sent to the right people. Less is more, and as people subscribe to more online newsletters, we need to make sure ours stand out and are actually being opened by our recipients.

“We‟re also planning to do more user testing next year to assess which day of the week, what subject lines, images, links etc. work for our email recipients best.”

Thomas Muirhead, Breast Cancer Care

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3.3. Return on Investment – benefits of best-practice email marketing Effective email marketing can offer businesses advantages ranging from highly tangible revenue increases to softer benefits such as improved brand perceptions. An email marketing strategy based on best practice can help you …

 Drive sales and build revenue. – Effective email communication can help to maximise customer lifetime value. – Communicating the right information at the right time will help drive sales. – Email can help you acquire new customers (provided lists are used with care). – Create opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling. – Drive traffic to website (the right kind of traffic). – Drive offline sales and increase footfall in the physical store. – Generate conversions and repeat sales  Reduce costs. – Email marketing is both cost-efficient and fast. – Email marketing campaigns are relatively quick to produce. – The right messages at the right time will help you retain customers – retention is much cheaper than acquisition. – Email is much cheaper than traditional direct marketing.  Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. – Relevant and tailored information will score you points with consumers. – A happier customer is less likely to defect to a rival. – Build an emotional connection with your audience. – Email affords excellent opportunities to remind customers of the benefits of your proposition and the value they are getting. – Companies can exploit data (e.g. CRM and web analytics) to identify and meet needs of customer.  Improving customer intelligence. – Learn from customer feedback. – Email is a highly measurable channel. – Email campaigns can be personalised and highly targeted for individual customers or behaviours. Integration with web analytics software can help this process.  Boost brand awareness and credibility. – Effective integration of messaging and creative into broader marketing strategies is essential for successful businesses. – A holistic customer experience and brand experience will enhance perceptions of your company and improve recall. – Build relationships by engaging users in an efficient and entertaining way. – – There is an opportunity to exploit rich media to engage more effectively with customers, provided that this is done in a non-intrusive way.

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4. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

This section contains a „SWOT‟ analysis for Email Marketing sector. It also serves as a summary of some of the points made above. 4.1.1. Strengths  Email marketing is a well-established discipline that delivers tangible and demonstrable ROI.  The market has matured, and a majority of companies have adopted the channel. Marketers have established best practices and rules for engagement.  Email performs particularly well in a recession, as it is a highly cost-effective channel, which can be utilised by large organisations and small businesses alike. . The low barriers to entry are a key advantage of email marketing for smaller businesses or those with tight budgets. . Marketers are under pressure to make their budgets perform, and email is effective since it is highly measurable and trackable, and delivers high return on investment.  The time to build an email campaign is typically quicker than for other marketing disciplines.  Email also does well with consumers, as it is a channel they are familiar with and find easy to use. – In addition, email performs well across the spectrum of different ages and demographics. – Email can also perform as a useful feedback tool as customers now have more power over the type of information they receive. – Email offers marketers the ability to produce personalised and targeted content that is relevant for the intended recipient.  The majority of organisations now have a strategy in place for email marketing, as it is seen as a valuable component of the marketing mix by senior management. – Getting senior management buy-in is less of an issue for email marketing than for other marketing disciplines.  Email marketing is relatively easy to measure, making it highly accountable. This makes it easier to justify investment and increase budgets. – A consequence of the recession was further investment into marketing channels that deliver tangible ROI, including email marketing. . The increased investment in email is beneficial for the industry as a whole, particularly in terms of greater awareness about the channel‟s benefits. . As the economy recovers, greater investment in email is not likely to go away, and marketers will continue to invest.  A key strength of the industry is its ability to adapt to and evolve in response to changing market needs. – For example, integration with video, social media and mobile marketing are all areas which the industry is developing and innovating.

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 Social media is thriving, and the good news for email is that there is a good fit with social channels. Although many have claimed social media represents the „death of email‟, the evidence shows that the two channels complement each other. – Digital as a whole is moving towards a far more integrated approach; it‟s no longer about pitting one channel against another, but rather about how different marketing disciplines can work side-by-side. – A multichannel approach is essential for reaching customers across every touch-point. Voice of the client - Strengths

“Email allows us to provide relevant updates about our content, engaging service users and supporters alike with our activities but also our brand. It allows us to promote these activities to them, but also to remind them that we are active and that our work is valuable.

“Email marketing is ideal in situations when we need a quick response from our supporters, such as completing a survey or signing up for the last remaining places in events organised by us.” Thomas Muirhead, Breast Cancer Care

Voice of the ESP – Strengths “Having seen other industries struggle through growth periods I would have to say that a major strength of this industry is its ability to evolve and develop. As the requirement of clients to differentiate themselves from the completion has increased, the industry has responded. Platform toolsets have expanded to include the social media channel and development of tools to support client relationships during the different stages of their lifecycle. “I also believe that there are a lot of passionate people committed to making sure email marketing achieves its full potential – the work that the DMA‟s Email Marketing Council does to support email marketing is a prime example of this.” James Bunting, Communicator Corp “Rumours of the death of email seem a long way removed from the truth of what we‟re seeing in real life. Marketers across the board are more committed than ever to stepping up the sophistication of their programmes. “There‟s no doubt that this is driven by the rising cost of finding new customers (both media cost and cost of discounting to get the first order) balanced with the recognition of the value that their competitors are getting from putting sophisticated programmes in place. We‟re seeing this trend particularly strongly in transaction- based sectors (such as retail and travel) where the return on investment is particularly – and rapidly – visible.” Michael Weston, Lyris “Strengths are:  Short lead times.  Relatively low costs.  Easy to test  Measurable.” Guy Hanson, dbg “Email marketing can be tied into a wider, integrated campaign relatively easily – providing follow-up support to an event for example. It is a relatively low-cost form of communication but is still highly effective and usually has a clear actionable call to action (e.g. click here to buy/see/discuss). Technology is improving all the time which means it is becoming easier to personalise and target email, which ultimately improves ROI.” Simon Bowker, eCircle UK “The strength is the speed of email and the natural alignment to the fast growing and innovating online businesses.” Bryan Black, smartFOCUS “Greater sophistication in email (particularly around integration of core ecommerce data in creating event based triggers). Greater integration of email within multi channel programmes (e.g. online, e-mail, mobile).” Simone Barratt, Managing Director, e-Dialog

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4.1.2. Weaknesses  Although the low cost of email is perceived to be an advantage, the downside is that some marketers tend to think of email as a cheaper alternative to other marketing disciplines. – In some cases, marketers may withhold investment into email. However, for effective email campaigns, companies need to invest in good quality email technology. – Many organisations devote insufficient time to email strategy which means they get limited value.  A lack of strategy continues to hold back many email marketers from deriving the most value from email marketing. – However, there is greater understanding that email marketing communication needs to come from a centralised platform, rather than from individual local stores.  The market is saturated with providers; the vast numbers of ESPs can make it difficult for companies to select a particular vendor.  The lack of a unified internal structure can make it difficult for companies to get the most value out of email. – Organisations sometimes have many customer databases but a lack of integration between different departments stops them from making the best use of the data.  Most companies are still not incorporating behavioural targeting and advanced segmentation techniques, which may mean they are not getting the most value out of email marketing. – According to the 2010 Email Marketing Census, only 24% of marketers are currently using advanced segmentation, while 42% are planning this, and a third (34%) are not doing this at all. – Over half of respondents (51%) report that the lack of segmentation is a major barrier to effective email marketing.  The quality of the email database is still a major barrier to effective email marketing, as highlighted by the 2010 Email Census. – Just under two-thirds of respondents to the survey (61%) reported this to be a problem.  Some organisations are still hindered by a lack of specific skills. Although this is an ongoing problem across digital marketing as a whole, organisations need to address this by investing in training and education. – More universities are beginning to offer professional digital marketing diplomas and qualifications, which should help remedy the lack of skills.  Consumers are now bombarded with many promotional emails, which means email marketers now face greater competition for attention in the inbox. – The volume of both unsolicited emails and permission-based email received is growing daily, which exacerbates this problem. – In addition, consumers have a far greater range of channels available to them, so as well as competing with the vast amount of messages in the inbox, marketers also face competition from social media, mobile and other digital marketing channels. – Some have predicted that social media represents the death of email, although the evidence shows that, in fact, the channel complements email communications. . Email is effective when incorporated into multichannel campaigns and used in conjunction with other channels. It is also worth noting that all social media sites require an email address upon registration, so to some extent, social media cannot function without email.

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. There is also some evidence to suggest that users prefer social spaces for personal communication with family and friends, rather than for conversation with companies. They may prefer to receive marketing communications in their inbox.  Email is very trackable relative to other digital marketing channels, but there needs to be more research into user behaviour and how email influences the purchase decision. – Consequently, conversion may appear to be lower than it should. – For example, users may visit the site or offline store directly, rather than clicking on a link. The use of vouchers and codes or exclusive offers may be one way to track email through to the offline store.

Voice of the client “Over use of email marketing can irritate supporters. A balance needs to be found where you give most service users and supporters the information they actually want, without upsetting other users.” Thomas Muirhead, Breast Cancer Care

Voice of the ESP – Weaknesses

“I believe the desire to deliver perfect communications „today‟ is a weakness of the industry as it can lead to us looking at the negatives rather than the positives. The sector, myself included, has a tendency to want to be whiter than white. Pushing to deliver true one-to-one communications for the good of the recipient – and if this isn‟t achieved we beat ourselves up, talking about a drop in our open rates. Meanwhile the end recipient happily remains on the mailing list and engages with the campaign that is relevant to them in the future. This isn‟t the end of the world, just part of the journey we are on.

“Another weakness of the sector in the UK is that there is still very limited sector specific and UK-based research on the email marketing channel. There are huge numbers of UK organisations delivering world class email marketing campaigns, but with limited research it is difficult to benchmark and enhance this work.” James Bunting, Communicator Corp “Weaknesses include:  ISPs becoming more stringent  Saturation of market place  Other digital channels that want to eat email‟s cheese.” Guy Hanson, dbg “The greatest strength and weakness of email is its low cost. That means email offers the largest return on investment. However it also leads to a view to that because it‟s cheap we don‟t need to invest. For example, very few retailers do simple basket abandonment email.” Mark Patron, RedEye “It‟s becoming increasingly clear that email alone is not enough. Marketers must look to integrate their email marketing efforts with other data sources and channels to develop highly targeted interactions with consumers. Consumers have an expectation for a personal brand experience that extends beyond a generic mass email.

“Marketers must develop true personal experiences for customers by integrating data from Web analytics, CRM and social media into each email to create a distinctive customer experience in the inbox and online that provides content that actually serves the unique needs and interest of the consumer.”

Nigel Arthur, ExactTarget “Email is still the channel which delivers the strongest measurable ROI, and has the potential to be the most central part of personalised digital strategy. However, email has to find its place at the wider digital table, now that mobile and social are increasingly important „niche‟ areas next to the continued dominance of search and display as mainstream. Simone Barratt, e-Dialog

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4.1.3. Opportunities  Relative to other channels, email provides a vast amount of customer insight through meaningful metrics. There is an opportunity to supplement this insight through better personalisation and targeting.  Multichannel marketing is a lucrative opportunity, since email performs even more effectively when sources of insight from different channels are integrated and joined up.  Following on from this, social media and viral marketing are also an opportunity for email vendors. – Many suppliers are adding social media capabilities and viral insight tools onto their existing solution. – Email inherently has opportunities for viral marketing built in, since it allows for the sharing and distribution of engaging content.  The recession has allowed marketers to perceive the benefits of email marketing in terms of cost-effectiveness and ROI. – Since last year, marketers have diverted budgets towards email marketing, since it provides tangible, demonstrable ROI, and this behaviour is expected to continue, even as the economy begins to recover.  Senior managers are increasingly on board when it comes to email marketing, which is good news for the industry as a whole, as it means increased investment into the channel.  As the market has matured, the channel is increasingly used as a strategic tool for customer retention rather than acquisition, used to build and foster long-term relationships with customers. – There is greater recognition about implementing best practice, and in response to this, Econsultancy has published an Email Marketing Best Practice Guide3.  Advanced testing and optimisation techniques will allow marketers to improve their email copy and optimise the use of the channel. – Increasing sophistication in web analytics technology is also an opportunity as it will allow email marketing to become even more accountable. . The ability to accurately analyse customer behaviour will allow marketers to demonstrate the impact of email on the decision to purchase, thereby compensating for the conversion rates being artificially lower. – Accountability and ability to demonstrate tangible ROI is of paramount importance when budgets are constrained.  More businesses are beginning to invest in different types of email solutions and transactional emails, such as purchase confirmations, shipping notifications or delivery of goods and services. Voice of the ESP – Opportunities

“No other channel really offers the level of customer insight that email does. Along with the traditional metrics of opens and clicks, behavioural metrics from web analytics and data from other business systems are all being pulled together to give a single customer view.

“For the first time, this gives a marketer the ability to really communicate with customers at a very granular level. This level of dialogue has been proven to provide organisations an unrivalled return of investment and commercial growth.

3 http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/email-marketing-best-practice-guide

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“Facilitating the integration of different data streams and providing consultancy around how to use and understand the data to drive relationships will provide big growth opportunities over the next 18 months.”

James Bunting, Communicator Corp “A number of industry commentators have likened email marketing to being the „digital glue‟ that provides cohesion between the various online channels. Email marketing will continue to maintain a place at the head table by innovating:

 Improved personalisation – graphical personalisation will have a role to play here.  Greater leveraging of cross-channel opportunities – email and DM, email and SMS, etc.  Time to re-visit the use of embedded video within email.  Use of social media appending to enhance email targeting.” Guy Hanson, dbg “Integration with all other digital channels, and offline channels to create fully multichannel integration [is an opportunity].” Paul Anderson, Emailvision „The greatest opportunity exists at the intersection of email and other interactive marketing channels such as social media, mobile marketing and custom landing pages or websites. UK consumers are interacting with brands across all of these channels and marketers must understand that email, social media or any other channel can no longer exist in a silo. Brands are becoming a sum of the online conversation, and marketers have a significant opportunity to create and fuel the conversation by taking a holistic approach to all online customer interactions.” Nigel Arthur, ExactTarget “Working with organisations that want to implement email marketing throughout their entire organisation. This is a huge growth area as businesses begin to truly understand the value of email within the context of all their communication needs.

“Helping organisations move from contributing to email overload to sending emails that engage and make a positive contribution in the recipients‟ inbox [is an opportunity].”

Denise Cox, Newsweaver “Email becoming a mainstream marketing channel integrated within the marketing team and process of blue chip companies.” Chris Underhill CEO, smartFOCUS “The industry forecasts continued growth as traditional marketing budgets diminish in favour of more cost effective online channels. It is a truly revolutionary time for email marketing.” Henry Hyder-Smith, Adestra

Voice of the client “I think an interesting area is much more targeted notifications rather than marketing. A pull rather than push contact – like Groupon rather than adverts.” Thomas Muirhead, Breast Cancer Care

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4.1.4. Threats  Email is relatively cheap compared to other digital marketing disciplines, and this may have some negative implications in terms of sustaining best practice. Email is so easy to use, that it gets results even when used in a sub-optimal way. – This means that businesses may incorrectly perceive they are getting good results, when in fact they are not using email to its maximum potential, nor implementing best practice. – Email programmes that do not implement best practice are becoming less effective, because there is greater competition for attention in the inbox, and consumers are becoming more discriminating about the type of messages they would like to receive. – Another consequence of email‟s cost-effectiveness is that businesses may be reluctant to further invest in the channel  The lack of relevance of particular email campaigns is a significant threat, as it is the prime reason why consumers unsubscribe. – Most businesses are not yet investing in behavioural targeting, or advanced segmentation techniques, and more investment in personalisation is needed to prevent email fatigue. – Although a minority of businesses are investing in segmentation (24%) or behavioural targeting (18%), encouragingly, the number of companies investing in personalisation is on the up. More than half of respondents (52%) say they use personalisation compared to 38% in 2009. [Source: Econsultancy / Adestra Email Census 2010]  A lack of strategy continues to hold back some 48% of marketers, according to the Email Census. – The results of the annual census show that this problem is increasing, as 32% of email marketers responded similarly in 2008, and 44% in the 2009 survey. – This may be because marketers are now more aware that a strategic approach is needed to derive the most value from the channel.  Another related threat is inbox clutter. Because email is increasingly popular, consumers are continually flooded with marketing communications. Implementing best practice is therefore essential, if marketers want to stand out and be counted. – There is some evidence to suggest that poorly thought-out email marketing campaigns are affecting the success of the industry as a whole.  Permission is another key issue for consumers, as they want greater control over what messages they are receiving. In particular, this relates to spam, frequency, and making it easier to opt-out and unsubscribe from emails. – There are some marketers who continue to use techniques‟ such as list rental and email appending, and this is damaging for the long-term reputation of email marketing as a whole.  There is clearly a need for industry standards, and rules of best practice. The industry needs to take steps to address opt-in and opt-out issues, to prevent permission-based email being tarred with the same brush as spam. – Some experts suggest that “opt-in permission should be the only standard by which we live.”4 Marketers need to take a consumer-centric approach to emails.  The on-going economic crisis is an ongoing threat, as all budgets are constrained. However, this is less of an issue for email than for other marketing disciplines.

4 http://blog.exacttarget.com/blog/morgan-stewart/0/0/real-email-threat-3-lax-permission

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 Managing the volume and complexity of marketing data is also an ongoing challenge, particularly as the integration of different data sets is becoming more important in an increasingly multichannel world. Technology is needed to automate the process of capturing, processing and executing email campaigns.  Many companies are still working in silos, preventing email from performing optimally.  There is a lack of understanding about the importance of retention-based email versus acquisition. Many marketers are still focused on sending low-quality communication rather than building long-term customer value through highly tailored and personalised emails.  A lack of specific skills may also hold the sector back. Additional education and training is needed to readdress the gap in knowledge. Voice of the ESP – threats

“Continued poor use of data and the relatively low cost of email mean a lack of targeting is a frequent occurrence. As a consequence, ISPs are becoming more stringent on their treatment of incoming emails (the recent changes made by hotmail are a prime example of this).

“In addition email marketers are finally starting to wake up to the fact that the traditional deliverability metric (sent less bounces) is dead. There is far greater focus on what is getting delivered to the inbox, and ESPs need to be able to prove this to their clients. There is also a sea change taking place in terms of the way that ISPs are handling e-marketing traffic. These include:  Greater focus on domain reputation rather than IP address-specific reputation.  Less effort on identifying spam and more on identifying engaged consumers – those who generate regular open / click / buy traffic will effectively white-list themselves.” Guy Hanson, dbg “Email is still often seen as a tactical channel rather than a strategic one. It‟s unlikely that board level even have knowledge of email marketing programmes, [being more involved with] above-the-line channels. At an operational level, organisations are still not measuring their ROI and experiencing email fatigue, caused by organisations not targeting or sending relevant or personalised emails.” Paul Anderson, Emailvision “Currently, one of the most significant challenges for ESPs is to be able to integrate with multiple data and content sources to produce highly relevant emails, while maintaining the system performance and ease of use.” Aman Dotani, emarsys “One of the greatest challenges facing the email marketing channel today is that, in many organisations, the channel remains siloed from other interactive channels such as mobile and social media. Organisations must realise that consumers interact with brands across all online channels and have an expectation for a consistent experience across each. Consumers don‟t see the organisational lines that may exist between the management of Twitter, Facebook and email, and marketers must take action in the coming year to better serve customers as they look to interact with brands across these channels.”

Nigel Arthur, ExactTarget “There is a complacency surrounding email campaigns as they continue to provide a great ROI, but this is dropping. Whilst the medium is still performing companies are not looking hard enough to how they step up to the next level. The threat is that they will leave it too late and have damaged their customer relationships beyond repair by the time they wake up. A broken customer relationship is costly to fix. The challenge is to improve data management and content, which will drive increased insight and targeting as well as optimising campaigns through message testing.” Tim Watson, smartFOCUS “Risk of online data privacy regulations quashing the ability to target messages with increased relevance for individual consumers.

“Additionally, there is too great a focus being placed on low cost/high volume, thereby swamping creativity and intelligent targeting. Another key challenge relates to reduced opens and response rates caused by the growth of spam and the cynicism of audiences.” Simone Barratt, e-Dialog

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5. Costs and Pricing Models

There are a range of different pricing methods and models which vary according to vendor and customer requirements. Some of the vendors profiled in this guide give detailed information about their pricing. Others prefer to give costs on request.

Fees will often be on a “per email” basis, but they also come in the form of licensing fees and consultancy charges for extra services which may not be included in the core package.

Try to ensure that there are no hidden charges which you were not made aware of.

The costs and pricing will be dictated by the type of model used for the provision of email services. Broadly speaking, there are three different models to choose from.

1. Fully managed service – a contract with a company to develop and send your email campaigns for you which may include strategy, creative, build, data management and broadcast. 2. ASP (Application Service Provider) - contract with a company to use its web-based email application interface, where you have control of data, creative and broadcast timings. 3. In house (off-the-shelf software solution) – build, purchase or license software you install and maintain on your servers using your bandwidth, giving you total control of the system. According to the 2010 Email Marketing Industry Census, 6% of email marketers said they were using a fully managed service, 54% were using an ASP/hosted service and 20% were using an in- house system. Just under a fifth (18%) of companies are using a mixture of these methods.

The census also shows that almost a third of companies (30%) are spending less than £5,000 annually on email marketing. At the other end of the scale, a further 29% are spending at least £25,000 per year.

How much does your organisation spend on email marketing per year?

Respondents: 363 Source: Econsultancy / Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2010

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5.1. Fully managed service There are a number of benefits to fully outsourcing email marketing. It enables you to concentrate on strategy and is recommended if you have little knowledge of email marketing and have a number of campaigns to get out in a short space of time. It will also enable you to understand email marketing more fully and allow you to understand some of the pitfalls you may come across before you consider an internal solution.

Pricing varies depending on your requirements, but a price per email for delivery is common, starting from as little as 0.1 pence per email. The charge often depends on email volume and the length of the contract.

An advantage of the pay-as-you-go/cost-per-email option is that it allows clients to easily allocate individual costs back to specific campaigns.

It is common for providers to charge a set-up fee plus a CPM charge (cost per 1,000 emails), or a set-up fee plus a fixed monthly fee based on a maximum number of emails.

The CPM is likely to vary depending on the volume of emails you are sending (i.e. more emails = decreased CPM charge).

Additional charges, over and above set-up fees and CPM may include hosting, data validation, list cleansing, training, creative and strategy fees.

5.2. ASP The ASP (application service provider) model presents you with the tools necessary to deliver campaigns whilst removing the back-end integration and technicalities of delivery.

The application is usually delivered via a web browser, allowing you to avoid direct software, hardware and bandwidth costs. Upgrades are usually part of the monthly/annual fee as are some bespoke functionality additions. The charge for ASP solutions will normally involve a set- up fee and a monthly access fee then a charge for the number of emails sent in a given period.

5.3. Off the shelf – in house These solutions vary greatly in terms of cost and functionality, which is why it is so important to understand what your goals are.

As with other models, it is important to take into account factors over and above the cost of the software, such as the hardware and bandwidth required, and the impact on internal resources such as IT and marketing.

The cost per email is generally nothing (in terms of direct email costs), i.e. it doesn‟t cost you extra to send more emails after you have made the initial software licence purchase.

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6. Tips and Pitfalls: how to find the right ESP

6.1. Introduction In order to identify the right ESP, it is important to understand that different companies have different areas of focus. While some will offer you an excellent deal for delivering large volumes of email, others will have expertise in a certain area such as behavioural response marketing or newsletters (or both).

So, in order to get the right fit with your own organisation, the first step is to identify exactly what services, solutions and expertise you need. The detailed company profiles and market positioning charts contained in this guide will help you to find the right match.

This section contains some key considerations to keep in mind and some pitfalls to avoid. Our Email Marketing Request for Proposal Template File5 can also help you during your procurement process.

6.2. What type of model is most suitable for your company? One of the first steps as a buyer is to establish what type of model is most appropriate for your budget and the needs of your company.

As discussed in the previous section of this report, there are three main types of models. Fully- managed service, ASP and Off-the-shelf/In-house.

Your decision about which model you choose will be influenced by a number of factors, including integration and resources. (Cost is also a key factor and was covered in section 5 of this report).

In terms of integration, an in-house solution may be easier to integrate with data sources such as your CRM system.

To manage an email system internally, it is important to have skilled resources in-house to manage your email system.

The people you employ need to understand databases, content production and deliverability issues. A good software provider will give excellent support in all of these areas.

Here are some additional thoughts to help you establish which type of solution is most suitable.

An outsourced solution may be suitable if:

 You feel comfortable having someone else manage the majority of the process for you.  You don't want to invest in additional staff, software, hardware and bandwidth.  You don't mind paying fees on a campaign by campaign basis.  You want someone else to manage the technical side of the application, including upgrades, bug issues, and other maintenance.

5 http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-request-for-proposal-rfp

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 You don‟t have time to build relationships with ISPs which is very important for deliverability.  You want someone else to worry about authentication technologies (e.g. SenderID, Yahoo Domain keys or Goodmail) An ASP solution is a good choice for you if:

 You want someone else to manage the IT side of the application, including upgrades, bug issues, and other maintenance.  You don't want to invest in additional hardware or bandwidth.  You don't mind paying an ongoing fee.  You're comfortable with the added administration. An in-house solution may be suitable if:

 You have a strong internal IT team with time to learn and develop the application, handle internal support, upgrades, and other maintenance.  You want to keep your data in-house and can handle security issues.  You have or will invest in the necessary hardware and bandwidth to handle increasing volumes.  You have a team in place with good knowledge of email marketing and permission marketing.  You want to make a larger initial investment and minimise or eliminate ongoing fees.

The following table (taken from a white paper by Silverpop: “Selecting an Enterprise-Level Email Marketing Vendor”) summarises the advantages and disadvantages of different email solutions:

Voice of the ESP

“Organisations need to ensure that the ESP they work with understands the difference between „tell‟ marketing (one-way) versus „engagement‟ (two-way) marketing.”

Denise Cox, Newsweaver “Consider the ESP‟s ability to work with data because that will be where most of the value will be created.” Mark Patron, RedEye

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6.3. What kind of ESP are you looking for? Prior to selecting a vendor, it is important to have a clear understanding of the current email program and what the company hopes to achieve, including long-term goals and objectives.

It is crucial to give the potential email solutions provider as much information as possible, including details about the features that you are looking for within your organisation, and to ask questions. The more information you provide, the more detailed the ESP can be, and this gives them the ability to tailor the programme according to your specific needs.

Suppliers come in different shapes and forms and it is useful to have an idea of the supplier‟s background as an organisation. It is important to not only look at whether the vendor has the required features, but also at how well they are implemented within the email campaign.

Another aspect worth considering is terms of services specified by the ESP and whether they are appropriate for your specific organisation.

 Do you want a global ESP with experience in many markets and languages or would you prefer to work with a smaller company, which operates only in the UK?  Would you prefer a vendor which focuses purely on email services or are you happy with a supplier which offers email as part of a broader portfolio of services?  Are you seeking a vendor with expertise in a specific area, such as newsletter or rich media solutions?  Are you confident that the suppliers you are talking to have experience (and references/testimonials) which are relevant to your own unique business issues?  How will the ESP interact and co-operate with other agencies you use, both online and offline?  How confident are you about the ESP‟s data centre and is this sufficiently secure and backed up?  Does the ESP have expertise in a particular sector or do they work across different industries?

Voice of the ESP

“It may sound obvious, but it‟s important for the client to have a clear idea of exactly what you‟re looking for and what they want to achieve from the relationship. Many companies are often torn between looking for a specialist email service provider or going for a full service agency. So ask lots of questions to ensure you understand exactly what you are getting and how that provider will fulfil your brief. Make sure you allow enough time to see the pitch process through, right from developing your list of requirements to the final decision.”

Simon Bowker, eCircle UK “Look for a provider/partner that is right for your organisation. Ensuring that shiny packaging doesn‟t blur the issues you need to deal with. It‟s important that a partner understands your business, can give you the additional skills and expertise that you lack internally, can give you the face-to-face support you need on the ground and can provide you with the tools and strategic advice you need to grow your business.”

Paul Anderson, Emailvision “Work on your marketing strategy and then pick a provider that has the capabilities to help you deliver on your strategy. Your strategy will help you decide what external services you require and what solution capabilities you need. Only then can you find the ideal partner.”

Tim Watson, smartFOCUS

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The following table summarises some of the key questions to ask a potential supplier before selection:

Key questions to ask a potential supplier How quickly does the vendor upgrade its software and services in response to your needs and new industry requirements? How would you describe the quality of new upgrades and releases? Are transitions smooth with regards to lead-time and preparation? How has the vendor improved email marketing productivity? How did the vendor improve on or solve an existing dilemma or problem? Does the vendor offer any useful feature you did not know you needed? How does the vendor handle itself when something goes wrong? Are problems escalated appropriately? Did the vendor integrate your applications? How well did it work? Were the ongoing costs and support what you expected? Was the vendor willing to go the extra mile when you had unexpected needs? Was pricing in line with your initial quote and expectations? How is the vendor‘s uptime? SOURCE: ―Selecting an Enterprise-Level Email Marketing Vendor‖ , Silverpop Whitepaper

Voice of the ESP

“If I was choosing an ESP I would look for a couple of things; firstly do the people I meet care about me and my business and can I work with them?

“Secondly, I would look to see if they are asking the right questions, such as what are my business objectives, my metrics and goals. It is important that email is not just about opens and clicks, but is a channel to help you meet your business targets.

“Finally, what are their clients saying about the people and the support they receive?” James Bunting, Communicator Corp

“Despite the rapid growth, the market is still in the process of reaching a phase of intelligent email marketing. Not everyone out of the vast number of players in the market offer services for truly relevant, automated emails, based on the consumers‟ preferences, purchase history and behaviour.

“When selecting an email service provider companies should look for a supplier that discusses content strategy as well as data integration.” Aman Dotani, Managing Director, emarsys “In general, there is a failure to look beyond CPM‟s. Companies need to understand the relationship between the creatives and the technology deployers in order to make sure that mails actually „work‟ (in terms of technology and results).

“Companies must ensure that they use the unique aspects of email – the fact that brands know who has received, opened and clicked on a mail as well as those who have bought – no other channel gives you this richness of data at the level of an individual. This must inform programmes and drive relevance/frequency.”

Simone Barratt, e-Dialog

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6.4. Do you fully understand your own role and potential internal barriers to effective delivery? It is important to recognise that email campaigns will require effective input from your own organisation to be successful, as well as the expertise and competence of your chosen vendor. The extent to which internal input will be critical to the campaign‟s success will vary depending on whether or not you outsource your emailing requirements. Again, it is important to ask yourself the following questions.

 What features do you require, and what features will you need six months from now?  Whose buy-in do you need to make sure that email marketing is integrated within wider organisational marketing strategies as effectively as possible?  Do you have an understanding of internal branding guidelines and access to creative resources to make the campaign a success?  Who will be responsible for managing the project internally and making sure that deadlines are met?  Is it clear how success and ROI will be measured?  How will data be captured and do you have the organisational capability to exploit the insights made possible by sophisticated tracking techniques?  What internal resources are available and what knowledge of email marketing do these employees have?  Is there a requirement for the same or similar campaigns in other locations, European or worldwide?  Who is the project sponsor and who has ultimate sign-off?  What is the deadline for delivery and who controls that deadline? Also see our Email Marketing Business Case6 for more information on securing support and budget within your organisation.

Silverpop‟s white paper entitled: “Selecting an Enterprise-Level Email Marketing Vendor” contains more tips and pitfalls on selecting an appropriate vendor, as well as a guide to writing an RFP. Econsultancy‟s Email Marketing Request for Proposal Template File7 can also help during the buying process.

Voice of the ESP

“The one biggest question you need to ask is whether the service provider you choose will be right by your side, and leading you to better work – in another year… two years… three years time?

“If customer intelligence is at the heart of good email marketing, then you need to be investing in building the clearest possible understanding of your customers. And that means it will get increasingly difficult to port that intelligence over when changing suppliers in future.

“To quote „Red‟ Adair: „… if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try working with an amateur‟. In other words, the true cost of your email marketing partner is not what you pay them, but the value you lose by not choosing the best fit for your business.”

Michael Weston, Lyris

6 http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-business-case 7 http://econsultancy.com/reports/email-marketing-request-for-proposal-rfp

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6.5. What are some of the criteria for selecting an ESP? The majority of vendors featured in this guide will have most (if not all) of features examined below. This section looks at the main features to consider when selecting an ESP. 8

 Private IP Address – An IP address indicates the origin of the email. If the ESP shares an IP address with its other clients, this may result in spam complaints if too many emails are sent from the same IP. Signing up with an ESP that offers a private IP address prevents the sender from getting blacklisted and ensures higher deliverability rates.  Addition services, including consultancy, customer support, and training – It is important to select an ESP that can offer additional services, including advice and support. This will ensure the email campaign is optimised to get the most „bag for your buck‟. – Does the ESP have a 24/hour helpline? What are their customer support hours?  Infrastructure – It is important to consider the number of high-speed connections the ESP has in order to gage reliability of the service provided.  Reporting – Consider what types of reporting the ESP offers: do they provide details of KPIs such as open-rates, clickthrough rates, deliverability, and soft metrics such as engagement.  Compliance with CAN-SPAM regulations – It is important to understand what the ESP‟s policy is on controlling spam.  Delivery rates – Look for an ESP that has a history of high delivery rates.  Segmentation – Many EPS offer segmentation services but it is important to consider the number of criteria that they are able to segment by. The greater the parameter, the more targeted and relevant marketers will be able to make campaigns.  Auto-responders – This feature allows marketers to send automated messages tom people who have signed up for an email list. – Automation is also important for handing unsubscribe requests, spam complaints and inactive email addresses.  A/B Testing – A/B testing offers marketers the ability to test different versions of the same email and see what works best.  Free trial – See if the ESP offers a free trial. This will enable marketers to compare the performance of different ESPs.  Unlimited email lists and unlimited number of messages sent – It is worth finding out if the ESP has any limits on the numbers of lists that can be out together, and similarly, if they have a limited number of messages that can be sent out.

8http://www.streamsend.com/pdf/10_things_to_lookfor.pdf

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– It is important to find out about storage space. Some companies charge a monthly fee for the number of emails stored, while others have a monthly fee based on the number of emails expected to be sent over the month.

 Length of contract – It is important to consider the length of time of the contract, and how easy it is to change provider after signing an agreement. – Most ESPs should provide a trial before asking the client to sign a contract. Voice of the ESP

“Seek an email service provider that is right for you. Don‟t just look for software – find an ESP that provides best practice advice, data expertise, channel integration, comprehensive reporting, and one that can demonstrate a detailed understanding of your objectives.

“If you are only looking for a tool to ensure the tool is developing and evolving with trends.

“Ask some penetrating questions such as:

 What sender reputation metrics do they generate?  What are their inbox placement percentages?  How do they manage ISP relationships?  How do their campaign metrics measure up against industry benchmarks?” Guy Hanson, dbg “Like in any walk of life, if it‟s too good to be true, it probably is. Much like the person that tries to sell you cheap DVDs in your local pub, you know they are fake and that you won‟t get the quality you might expect from the real thing. We have seen many prospects coming back to us in the last year having initially elected to go for incredibly cheap options available elsewhere. Maintaining a workable margin while still providing the expected product and service level is difficult for some providers at the prices they are charging. Make sure you do not commit contract-wise, until you have tried them out and they have proved themselves. At the end of the day, you usually get what you pay for!” Tink Taylor, dotMailer

Voice of the client

“It‟s important to know what types of emails you‟re planning to send, how and who is creating them. It‟s essential for the software to give you a lot of flexibility so that you can personalise the look of the email easily. The email provider should also give you different testing options such as split testing, staggered delivery of the email. These should allow you to increase the effectiveness of your email marketing.

“When choosing an email service provider I would also make sure there is a good technical support, which I could access in case of emergency or any other enquiries.” Thomas Muirhead, Breast Cancer Care

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7. Market Positioning Charts

7.1. Explanation for Chart 1 – Company Focus

Chart 1 – Company Focus

Full service & support for Where whole client email we are program going

Where we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or Focus only Offer range of newsletters) on email products/services, product/services including email

The vertical axis charts to what degree the email service provider sees itself as providing a fully managed service to take care of all a client‟s email requirements as opposed to offering a specific email service in one particular area, for example newsletters.

The horizontal axis charts to what extent the ESP offers an email platform and services as part of a wider portfolio of services.

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7.2. Explanation for Chart 2 – Type of Solution

Chart 2 – Type of Solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality Where we are going

Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go Text and html email provision Ability to offer dynamic email solution

The vertical axis charts to what degree the ESP offers a “plug and play” solution as opposed to solutions which are typically tailored to incorporate functionality which meets the specific needs of clients.

The horizontal axis charts to what extent the supplier has the ability to offer a dynamic email solution.

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8. Supplier Positioning Summary

8.1. Company Focus

9 2 18 Full service & support 17 12 13 for whole client email 7 3 21 program 10 5 15 25 22 4 6 23 11 20 1 8 16 19 14 24

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters)

Focus only on email Offer range of products/services, including product/services email

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8.2. Type of solution

17 Tailored solution to 12 incorporate bespoke 2 15 functionality 8 10 17 18 20 9 19 21 6 23 5 1 4 25 24 3 11 16 7 2214

13 Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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9. Supplier Matrix

An at-a-glance overview of who‟s doing what …

Vendor matrix:

A fast guide to

services

Dialog

Adestra CommunicatorCorp dbg dotMailer eCircle e Emailcenter Emailvision emarsys Epsilon ExactTarget ExperianCheetahMail Lyris MailPerformance Neolane Newsweaver Profusion Pure360 RedEye Responsys ShiftClick Silverpop SmartFOCUS SpinnakerPro StrongMail Types of Solution offered Full service                          ASP                                              Dedicated server

Off-the-shelf          software Types of Services offered Strategy and                          campaign planning Design and                          copywriting List provision                               Legal advice Data management                          Data cleansing, de-                          dupe and validation Broadcast                          Segmentation                          Personalisation                          Dynamic content                          solutions Hosting for images                         and micro-sites Event triggered                         messaging Sequence                          messaging Web analytics                         Reporting                          Real-time reporting                          Inbox snapshot                          service                       Flash                       Video                      Audio

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10. Supplier Marketplace and Profiles

10.1. Adestra

Company Details Company Name Adestra Company Logo

URL www.adestra.com UK Head Office Address Holywell House Osney Mead Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 0AE Other office locations Westbourne Studios Studio 006 242 Acklam Road London W10 5JJ Contact Name Henry Hyder-Smith Contact Telephone + 44 1865 242425 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition We deliver results. And do this through the industry's best combination of email technology and marketing expertise. This means that email campaigns, using our services, are the most likely to be delivered, read and actioned by the recipients. Brief Company History Adestra was formed as a management buyout from a digital marketing agency in November (including number of years of 2004. The core management team have worked together for over 13 years and, in that time, business in UK) have brought 4 different email tools to market.

Number of UK Employees 40 Turnover for 2009 (or last April 2009 – March 2010: accounting period including £2.8m dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 13% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 £3.5m Projected year-on-year growth 26% for 2010

USP What sets you apart from Adestra is an industry leading email service provider (ESP).We combine the best email competitors? technology and marketing expertise to deliver results for our clients.

The Adestra difference can be summed up in two ways - our approach and our people. Underpinning this is our technology which is cutting edge, user-friendly and is relied upon by well over 3,500 marketers to support their email marketing programs.

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Company Details Company Name Adestra Clients Examples of UK Clients  BBC Worldwide  Haymarket  GMTV  Dennis Publishing  United Business Media  Incisive Financial Publishing  Informa Group Plc  London Business School  Cambridge University Press  Oxford University Press  Research Machines  I Want One of Those  TalkTalk Which verticals/sectors, if any, Adestra provide email marketing services to B2B and B2C clients in all verticals. However, a do you specialise in? significant number of our clients are marketing agencies, publishers, event organisers or retailers. Case Study UK client case study Are available on request by emailing [email protected]

Our case studies include:

 IWOOT: Sender score certification  RM: overhaul of designs to improve deliverability rates by 12%.  BBC Shop: abandoned basket campaigns that delivered an increase in ROI.  Incisive Media: replacing four email providers to support a centralised approach to email marketing. This has led to the sharing of best practice and common measurement. Campaign performance is now improving across the group.  Help the Aged: a complete strategic review of the email program to optimise every stage of the customer journey. It looked at the experience of a recipient after clicking on an email as they navigated through the site. It also included a complete review of the sign up process. Help the Aged have made significant improvements to their campaigns through implementing the recommendations.  Dennis Publishing: Launch of iGizmo online magazine. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of No ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Our Client Strategy Consultants work with you in two capacities. The first is providing a sounding board to provide advice, best practice and expertise when you need it. The second is project led consultancy based on your individual requirements. Design and copywriting Our production team will create email templates to optimise deliverability from concept to result analysis. List provision No - we have a network of partners that we recommend. Legal advice Adestra can advise on email marketing regulation and legislation; however we recommend consulting your existing legal advisors. Data management Yes

Each client has to pass a stringent data questionnaire before being allowed to use our system.

Adestra also has a number of partnerships with data bureaux.

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Company Details Company Name Adestra Third Party Data - We have worked with every reputable B2B and B2C database owner operating in the UK.

The DMA email marketing benchmark study shows that many companies experience deliverability issues when using third party data. Because of this we are very hands on in our approach to working with third party data.

Deliverability – we advise and work with our clients, to ensure their data collection and management processes lead to the very highest delivery rates and sending reputation.

Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes, Adestra also offer a managed broadcast service Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes – we would not recommend (against best practice) Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes, Own tool and Partner with Return Path showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS - Inbound and Outbound e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Integration Please provide details of level MessageFocus is integrated with several different platforms. This includes CRM, CMS, and of integration possible with WebAnalytics providers. The system is developed with ease of use and flexibility in mind and other technology, e.g. web this enables us to integrate with several different technologies including API and batch. analytics Which protocols are supported XMLRPC / HTTP / HTTPS / REST / FTP / SFTP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Advanced social media integration is to be released during 2010 integration with social media services, and measurement Product Details Product Name MessageFocus Product Features You can manage all aspects of your email marketing program.

Standard & On Demand  HTML Editor (WYSIWYG)  Source Editor

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Company Details Company Name Adestra  Template Editor(locked template with editable areas)  Spam Checker  Email client preview (Emulator)  Multi level Reporting (including Heat Map technology)  Custom Unsubscribe Page  Copy at launch  Link Labels

Web Integration

 Custom Sub-domains  Conversion Tracking (ROI measurement)  Web Analytics  XML Content pull

Data Integration  Import Manager  Export Manager  Audit Log Tool  Data Analysis  Contact Management API

Advanced Features  Data Filters  Recurring Campaigns  Campaign Approval System  Dedicated IP (s)

For the most up to date feature list or more information, please contact us [email protected] Technical Overview Web-based application with secure login (no software installation required) Tracking capabilities Full tracking and reporting, including delivered, opens, click-throughs, unsubscribes, bouncebacks, SPAM complaints, heat map, graphical reporting, top 10 most active customers, conversion tracking, form submissions and sender reputation monitoring Data capabilities Data Import / Export can be achieved with the following features:

 Import Manager  Export Manager  Manual CSV  Contact Management API  Webforms

Data can also be pulled from any web accessible XML file during launch

Clients can have unlimited number of databases and ―tables‖ access by permissions. Costs and pricing methods Pricing consists of a one-off account set up fee (which includes training) and monthly fees are (please be as specific as dependent on the volume of emails sent and other MessageFocus features enabled. possible) Consultancy fees are available on request. Training & Support How many UK support staff do Over 20 full time employees. Majority are experienced email marketers who have worked client you have? side. The team includes experts in deliverability, data, marketing strategy, marketing tactics, product support and technical managers. During what hours are your UK 9am and 6pm GMT for our UK based clients. We also offer support outside these hours. support lines manned?

What type of training Is Yes We also use webinar software allowing us to conduct training for users in different included? (e.g. telephone and locations.

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Company Details Company Name Adestra on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other Adestra offers a range of training sessions, from introductory to advanced, MessageFocus users types of support and training can gain a better understanding of the application. Each course is tailored to be useful, relevant (e.g. strategic workshops and and packed with quick wins. access to experts) Advanced training session include:  Best practice  Data and segmentation  HTML for email  Bespoke sessions (dependant on client needs)

Consultancy: Our consultants have the best brains in the industry. Our Client Strategy team has over 100 years of online marketing experience, available on tap for Adestra clients to help them with their own individual digital marketing plans.

They have carried out digital consultancy projects for many leading brand names such as ITV, Help the Aged, Oracle and more. Deliverability Please summarise your Our platform, MessageFocus, adheres to all standard authentication methods, with every email deliverability strategy sent being RFC compliant.

All new clients are questioned on their data collection and management practices as part of the Sales process ensuring that Adestra only takes on clients who have awareness of the importance of data to the deliverability challenge.

Any recipient complaints are acted upon by our Abuse team quickly and thoroughly, communicating with our clients and the complainants directly.

Alongside this, our Account Management teams have access to a thorough toolset to act as an early warning system for any clients who may be suffering from adverse deliverability. All the while we advise all of our clients with the highest standards of best practice above and beyond the requirements of law.

Our technical team monitor all output from MessageFocus, focusing on the sending IP's reputation with all major ISPs and with all reputation monitoring services, as well as custom internal solutions. Do you have a deliverability Yes As an Adestra client, you will have access to a bank of experts and technology to achieve assurance solution? the highest deliverability rate possible.

As standard, all your emails coded by Adestra sent through MessageFocus are optimised for deliverability. We partner with deliverability specialist Return Path and, by using their Mailbox Monitor and Campaign Preview tools, we can enable our clients to see their sender score reputation and view their campaigns in most major email clients. Adestra automatically seed all email sends to over 1000 records to Return Path‘s Mailbox Monitor to enable inbox delivery reporting.

Adestra are part of the Suretymail email accredited program, as well as part of the DKIM and SPF authentication schemes, amongst others.

White listing and certification programs are applied for, and enabled, on sending IPs that qualify – both for dedicated IP addresses and also, where appropriate on shared or ‗pooled‘ IP addresses.

Deliverability Audits These reports analyse a selection of your recent campaigns, diagnose any problems, suggest solutions and provide a business case framework to allow you to decide whether to commission a deliverability project.

Are you signed up with an Adestra are a SuretyMail and a Return Path partner. email certification or

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Company Details Company Name Adestra authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Adestra takes ‗best practice‘ to be very much an integral part of all operations. From Sales, through to Client Service, Account Management, Development and beyond.

Our data use policy exceeds the standards set in law, and all advice we give to our clients drives towards the very best standards possible. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Adestra produces numerous white papers every year on a wide range of subjects, to Publications/ complement our online output. Adestra also contributes to industry publications such as B2B Industry events Magazine, Catalogue and e-business.

We also speak at various industry events, including ECMOD, Adtech, TFM&A, Internet World, Publishing Expo, Sipa, to name a few... Forums/Memberships Adestra is a member of the DMA, Econsultancy, The IDM, PPA, SIPA, Catalogue Exchange... Additional, supporting information Other relevant information A new version of our email platform MessageFocus, including significant improvements to our interface will be launched in the upcoming year.

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Adestra – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email program we are Where going we are

now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke Where functionality we are going Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.2. Communicator Corp

Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp Company Logo

URL www.communicatorcorp.com UK Head Office Address Cygnet Way, Rainton Bridge Business Park, DH4 5QY Other office locations 85 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5AR Contact Name Chris Attewell Contact Telephone 0191 305 5100 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Communicator Corp is a leading global enterprise email management company, providing technology based solutions, strategy and expertise for email communications.

Our platform, Communicator®, is an enterprise email management platform for all one-to-one and one-to-many messaging.

Delivering proven cost savings and increased revenues from email marketing to transactional and service messaging.

Our clients include: Adidas GROUP, AEGON Group, Lloyds TSB ,REUTERS, Scottish and Southern Energy Group, The Co-operative Group and Travelex.

Further information is available on our website www.communicatorcorp.com Brief Company History Communicator® was first launched in the UK as a product in 1999. The Communicator (including number of years of Corporation Limited (Registration: 04657788) was incorporated on 5 February 2003. business in UK) Communicator Corp was recognised by the DTI being awarded an Innovation award for the design and development of leading on demand software platform. This award enabled the company to continue the cutting edge development of its core platforms and to further its position as a leader in the digital messaging industry.

The company has registered a trademark for its core product Communicator®.

Communicator® has continued to grow through continual development of our platform and innovation culture to ensure consistent ‗delivery beyond expectation‘. Number of UK Employees 40 Turnover for 2009 (or last Communicator Corp is a privately-held UK company. accounting period including dates) Details of the company‘s turnover can be shared with appropriate parties when required. 2009 year-on-year growth Our revenue grew by over 30% in 2009. (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Communicator Corp is a privately-held UK company.

Details of the company‘s turnover can be shared with appropriate parties when required. Projected year-on-year growth Revenue growth is projected to be 20% above 2009. for 2010

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp USP What sets you apart from Why we are different competitors? For us this is simple:  The ability to unlock data, through our unrivalled ability to integrate. This allows clients to import any data into Communicator® from any system and then feedback campaign data.  The ability to model client data in the Communicator® platform. Data is useless unless you can use it. Communicator® allows clients to send the right message to the right person at the right time for the right results.  The ability of our consultants to become a valued, trusted and integral part of our client‘s teams. It is this, that makes us truly different, as our proactive, result orientated team ensure client‘s email activities deliver what is required. We care about our clients and their business.

It is our aim throughout the business to deliver beyond our clients‘ expectations. Clients Examples of UK Clients We work with clients to deliver digital communications to over 130 counties and in excess of 30 languages.

Through our expert consultancy and innovative technology we have developed a strong client base that spans many sectors. We are proud of our longstanding relationships and our current clients include:

 AEGON GROUP  CPP Group plc  Future plc  M&M Direct  Mitchells and Butlers  Phones4u  Radisson  River Island  Scottish and Southern Energy Group  The Co-operative Group  Trinity Mirror plc

Which verticals/sectors, if any, We work across many sectors for both SMEs and blue-chip clients. From online retail and travel, do you specialise in? to business services, we have built up the knowledge and expertise to ensure we are a valued partner to all our all clients, regardless of their size or business objectives. Case Study UK client case study The Co-operative Group, part of Europe‘s largest consumer co-operative, has utilised the Communicator® enterprise email-management system since 2005 to manage their email marketing and communications.

For The Co-operative Group, email is seen as a key element in communicating the brand values and is at the heart of the company‘s customer service and relationship management strategies. The Communicator® platform manages the email activities involved in these processes.

Communicator® has consistently won widespread acclaim for its ability to integrate online customer data from all business processes and channels into a single enterprise-view. The enterprise level system‘s ―superior relational data-structure‖ integrates information from all customer touchpoints; enabling users to unlock the full value of that data. With Communicator®, The Cooperative Group is able to create relevant enterprise-wide email messages such as promotions or newsletters that are tailored to the specific needs of individual recipients. They can also perform thorough enterprise-level web analytics and behavioural data-modelling.

The Co-operative Group are now managing and controlling their customer email marketing and communication activities even more effectively. In addition, Communicator Corp acting in a consultative role will use the new version to enhance The Co-operative Group‘s data collection

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp strategy; continuously refining the quality of customer data held to ensure ever more relevant and targeted campaigns.

The Co-operative Group is committed to ensuring a strong customer communications strategy. As part of this customers and prospects enter very targeted and focused behavioural campaigns, with offers from the ‗Travel‘ division such as ―limited number of rooms available‖. This activity has boosted conversion numbers by up to 50% within the first 48 hours of an email arriving.

Communicator® also being utilised in the delivery of The Co-operative Travel‘s pre and post departure email program aimed at further boosting conversion rates through customer lifecycle messaging, including cross and up sell opportunities.

Mike Kindon, of The Co-operative Group, is certain that email marketing and communication plays a key role in service delivery quality, commenting, ―The Co-operative Travel has built a strong market reputation for its quality of service‖. Effective communication is a key element of this process and naturally many of our customers prefer email as their chosen method of keeping up to date with the offers and service options we provide.

―As we set the highest possible standards in all of our customer activities, we need to be able to maintain this level of service in the email communication we send. Naturally, therefore, we have invested in the technology and expertise that we feel can meet these demands. We work closely with Communicator Corp in this area and look forward to innovating ideas and campaigns that will add to our customer‟s travel experience.‖ Types of solution offered Full service Yes, we provide a full service or ‗on demand‘ technology and account management. ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No, our Communicator® platform is a web based solution. Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes, strategy and campaign consultancy are key ingredients of our service to all clients. planning Design and copywriting Yes, we have a design and copywriting team who are experts in email design and copywriting, understanding browser rendering and deliverability challenges. List provision Yes, we work with clients to build their appropriate lists through internal and 3rd party activity. Legal advice Yes, our Client Service team provide clients with advice on global legislation and best practice. Data management Yes, Communicator® manages and securely hosts client data. As well as data hosting and storing full integration and synchronisation is facilitated through web services or cloud hosted middleware.

The Communicator® platform features relational data tables, which allows for the mirroring of data structures in CRMs and CMSs. This facilitates modelling of historic data such as transaction history as well as reference information. Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes, these features are all included within the platform. We also provide additional data hygiene validation and analysis services. Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes, Communicator® can segment data, purchase history, behaviour (from previous campaigns), website analytics and transactional systems. Personalisation Yes, any data stored in the platform can be used to personalise text, images, URLs, subject lines and from names for any email communication. Dynamic content solutions Yes, dynamic Content is available as standard in the Communicator® platform. This provides the ability to add unlimited alternate Content to as many areas of the email as required. This enables specific areas of content within an email to be sent to specific recipients based on any preference information or data. Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp Event triggered messaging Yes, campaigns can be automatically triggered by data, online, offline or email activity. The platform facilitates single and multi-step automated campaigns to be created such as welcome and re-engagement programmes, to full customer lifecycle journeys. Sequence messaging Yes, full customer lifecycle campaigns can be easily developed through Communicator®. Web Analytics Yes, we are fully integrated with Google Analytics, Coremetrics, Webtrends, Nedstat and Omniture. In addition to this integration can be setup with any other website analytics provider. Reporting Yes, real-time reporting, for all email and business metrics across single and multiple campaigns. This is displayed in a series of tables, charts and data extracts. Real-time reporting Yes, the platform provides real-time reporting. Flash Yes Video Yes - both through download or streaming through Video Email partner. Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes, emails are rendered in real-time in 35 primary browsers within the platform including showing clients how email versions of Outlook including Outlook 2007, Blackberry client, Hotmail, AOL, Windows Mobile, content appears on major Yahoo and Lotus Notes. These can be viewed to ensure rendering correctly and to consider email clients and browsers) design (e.g. how it looks within webmail clients, preview panes, page fold, without images etc). Other messaging services, Yes, mobile message broadcasting (SMS), two-way SMS messaging, mobile voting, SMS e.g. SMS, contact centre competitions, SMS subscriptions, and Pocket 2 PC (text an email address to subscribe to email list from offline activity). Any other services We provide additional services including design services, full campaign management, technology consultancy, delivery assurance, training, data hygiene, acquisition tools and email strategy planning. Integration Please provide details of level The Communicator® platform can be integrated with any business system, for example CRMs, of integration possible with billing systems, website content management systems and website analytics. other technology, e.g. web analytics Data can be both imported and exported to and from Communicator® via an industry leading web service access, or a cloud hosted middleware solution. In addition to transferring data, email content, creative, segmentation and campaign creation is possible via integration. This enables clients to fully integrate and automate the entire email communications cycle with any business system.

Due to the fact Communicator® facilitates relational data it is possible to synchronise data and mirror the structure from an array of business systems. This allows for important customer data to be unlocked and utilised in campaigns and communication plans.

Off the shelf integration is available for major CRMs, such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as leading CMS, e-commerce and transactional systems.

Communicator® is fully integrated with Google Analytics, Coremetrics, Webtrends, Nedstat and Omniture. In addition, integration can be setup with any other website analytics provider. Which protocols are supported Supported protocol include SOAP and file based integration through FTPS. (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Client developers have full access to their data stored on the Communicator® platform. Data free access to your database transfer is achieved through our web service based API. for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Communicator® developers are able to work with client developers to achieve the required integration of data and systems. Please give details of any Social media integration is facilitated through Share to Social and ‗follow us‘ links. This makes it integration with social media possible to open up email marketing content to sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. services, and measurement Usage and engagement metrics are available. Product Details Product Name Communicator® Product Features Communicator® is an enterprise platform for marketing, transactional and lifecycle email communications.

The platform has a proven record of delivering all one-to-one and one-to-many messages for

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp organisations to generate revenue or reduce business costs.

In essence, the Communicator® platform brings you the most innovative features, delivery assurance, product robustness and reassurance available today with the capabilities and potential to realise the opportunities of tomorrow.

Communicator® delivers:  Rich user experience  Message creating & editing  Data capture and subscription management  Data and behavioural mining through filtering and segmentation  Data modelling  Future proof technology  Industry leading integration & automation  Deliverability  Enterprise analysis and report  Rich traditional or automated campaign creation

User experience  Fast and powerful digital communication platform.  Superior user experience enabled by a 'rich client' interface.  Drag and drop functionality to easily create data collection interfaces to organically grow your database.  Easy to use wizards to increase efficiency and ease of use  Ability to skip workflow steps when editing items reducing the time taken to complete a task.  Office style ribbon navigation and intuitive controls  Large screen real-estate providing users with superiors design experience  Search boxes on key screens allowing fast retrieval of items, improving efficiency of users.

Tools in the platform  Powerful email editor gives you control over your emails and brand messages.  Document and image libraries allow you to upload, store, manage and use the contents of your digital communications.  Advanced personalisation module allows you to pull together all data stored on your recipients and utilise it with any communication.  Message and data preview tools allow you to check your digital campaigns at any stage, event and dispatch.  Creation of automated and triggered email campaigns.  Ability to change links and images within a dispatched email.  Dynamic content.  Inbuilt help and consultancy giving you onscreen assistance where you need it most. This features subject line length warning and other best practice guidance to ensure your communications deliver the maximum results.

Data  Ability to handle 'real world' relational data - Mirroring your own data structure allowing the targeting of very specific campaigns across many elements of data.  Advanced filtering allows you to drill down through your data far quicker than ever before. Using a rich, graphical interface complex segmentation of data can be carried out in a matter of seconds.

Future proof  Fully scalable to cope with ever increasing demands – giving you the leading customer experience when using the platform.  Enhanced enterprise integration facilities to work in harmony with legacy systems - Allowing further automation of data transfer and campaign generation.  Granular security control giving you peace of mind on users only being able to access certain features of the platform. This also allows you to open up access across your

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp organisation and enable improved workflow between departments.  Agile development programme ensures the Communicator® platform maintains its industry defining position.  Industry leading robust infrastructure - To provide reassurance and peace of mind for securely storing valuable data. Deliverability  Comprehensive bounce management and response management module.  Unbeatable delivery through the industry defining Communicator® Intelligent Delivery System. This enables you to ensure your campaigns achieve the highest delivery possible.  Extensive message previews and spam checks.

Technical Overview Communicator® is a web based platform written in ASP.NET and C# utilising a SQL Server database.

The end users require no desktop install; all features are available through a browser. Communicator® is hosted at one of Telecity Group‘s Tier Three data centres and is built on a fully secure and redundant platform.

All network components including servers, switches, interconnects, firewalls and database nodes are mirrored utilising stacking, failover and clustering techniques. A full DR solution is in place to secure against potential data loss. Tracking capabilities Once campaigns are underway all results can be monitored in real time.

Communicator® provides clients with detailed statistics through an easy to use reporting interface, powered by a powerful Data warehouse.

At the top level reports include total open rates, unique open rates, click stream analysis and bounce analysis, conversions (purchases, downloads and form completions).Then the marketer is invited to drill down for detailed reports to cover all of the activity that has occurred on their campaign including detailed reports on who has and has not responded and interacted with emails.

The Communicator® platform, with website analytics also allows for tracking of the full customer lifecycle after email engagement. Data capabilities The Communicator® platform provides the facility for clients to replicate existing data sources within the platform itself. From a business that uploads a spreadsheet or CSV file to those that require relational data modelling functionality, the platform can easily address all needs.

Communicator® allows the user to handle 'real world' relational data – Mirroring an organisations own data structure allowing the targeting of very specific campaigns across many elements of data.

Through advanced filtering businesses can drill down through their data far quicker than ever before. Using a rich graphical interface complex segmentation of data can be carried out in a matter of seconds.

Database segmentation in Communicator® allows the creation of focused campaigns for highly defined target groups.

Criteria for a target group can be built around the contents of any database. Segments can be based on demographic, geographic, gender, lifestyle, recipient preferences, purchasing patterns, in fact any information held on recipients, or their previous email behaviour.

Segmentation criteria is saved for use again at a later date and when new data is added to the system Communicator® recognises the matching criteria and adds the profile to the previously saved target groups. Reports are then provided on how segments have been affected by the data that has been uploaded. Costs and pricing methods Pricing is available on request, subject to needs and requirements.

Call 0191 305 5100 or visit www.communicatorcorp.com for a request form.

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp Training & Support How many UK support staff do 7 dedicated support staff – in addition to the Account Management Team. you have? During what hours are your 8am – 6pm plus emergency 24 hour support. UK support lines manned? What type of training Is Yes – training sessions can be provided either onsite, online or over the telephone. Clients are included? invited to join monthly webinars for new product updates. Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other We provide a range of support and training services for our clients, including bespoke activities types of support and training to meet a particular client‘s need. Services include:

Consultancy Sessions - We offer a one-to-four day consultancy programme, designed to assist companies in assessing and maximising the effectiveness of their digital communications strategies and tactics.

This session identifies potential opportunities and requirements targeting additional areas of value.

Campaign Planning - We provide Campaign Planning Workshops that help users achieve the goals and objectives they have outlined for any campaign. These day-long sessions cover:

 Understanding your business and market sector  Question and Answer session to confirm the goals and objectives for the campaign  Examination of possible routes to success  Outlined steps of action and responsibilities  Following completion of the session, our team will produce a detailed report that describes a recommended campaign that is cohesive, coordinated and most importantly will enable you to achieve to your goals and objectives.

Design Course – We run specially prepared courses for HTML designers to learn the skills required to design result driven email campaigns and to understand the limitations and workings of the Primary Webmail and Email clients. Deliverability Please summarise your We passionately believe that delivery is all about relevancy, engagement and reputation. deliverability strategy We proactively manage the growing challenges for our clients through the blend of technology (e.g. IP address management, feedback loops, list hygiene and accreditations), reputation (e.g. reputation monitoring, white lists, reducing spam complaints, Goodmail accreditation), content and data (e.g. content checker, browser rendering, safe sender list, preference centres, warm up messages) and visibility (e.g. seed lists, automated delivery alerts, delivery by ISP).

As every client is unique, we work with them to best identify and develop a strategy that best suits their particular needs.

Whether a dedicated IP or our Intelligent Delivery System (IDS) solution, it is not just about delivering emails for a client but also about delivering the results their business needs.

To help our clients achieve the highest possible delivery rates our platform utilises our industry defining Intelligent Delivery System.

This unique system models and responds to ISP delivery behaviour which allow for the highest delivery rates possible in the quickest time. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Deliverability is defined by reputation and Communicator Corp has the combination of technology and professional expertise to maximise a client‘s return on investment.

Our Digital Marketing Consultants and Delivery Assurance team work hard to ensure all our clients reputation is the highest possible thus ensuring the highest delivery rates.

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Company Details Company Name Communicator Corp We can provide clients with visibility of delivery into inbox/bulk/missing and by domain through our Mailbox Monitor tool.

To help our clients achieve the highest possible delivery rates our platform utilises our industry defining Intelligent Delivery System.

This unique system models and responds to ISP delivery behaviour which allow for the highest delivery rates possible in the quickest time. Are you signed up with an Yes, we are one of Goodmail‘s founding European partners and work in close partnership with email certification or Return Path and the Sender Score Certified Program. authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Communicator Corp is committed to defining best practice across the industry.

We work with clients and industry bodies to provide advice and consultancy striving to make the maximum return on digital communications. We proactively work in partnerships with clients‘ to deliver this best practice through the expertise of our account management, professional services and support teams. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Communicator Corp‘s team of consultants and experts regularly speak at industry events and Publications/ produce a wide range of publications. Please visit www.communicatorcorp.com for more details. Industry events Forums/Memberships We are members of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) and Email Standards Project.

Our Director of Research and Strategy, James Bunting, is an elected member of the DMA Email Marketing Council and Communicator Corp is registered with the Data Protection Act. Additional, supporting information Other relevant information To see how we can help your business call +44 (0) 870 286 1520 or visit www.communicatorcorp.com

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Communicator Corp – Market Positioning Charts

Chart 1: Company Focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we arewe are now going

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke Where we are functionality we are going now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.3. dbg

Company Details Company Name dbg (formerly Database Group & Database Group Interactive) Company Logo

URL www.dbg.co.uk UK Head Office Address Colston Tower Colston Street Bristol BS1 4UH

Other office locations Finland House, 56 Haymarket London SW1Y 4RN

Regus CBX411 West Wing 382-390 Midsummer Blvrd Milton Keynes MK9 2RG

Contact Name Guy Hanson Contact Telephone 020 7811 0179 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition dbg is passionate about improving its customers‘ marketing and business performance through the intelligent use and application of data and technology. At the heart of our approach is outcomes; we focus on your core objectives so our solutions deliver results and value. Our services include: database and campaign management, email marketing, data services, and consultancy. But we‘re not just about solutions. We‘re a team of strategic and tactical thinkers who are on hand to provide insight, advice and support to drive intelligent ideas.

Brief Company History We've been around for the last 40 years in one form or another and some of our clients have (including number of years of been with us through it all. Although we've diversified and evolved, we've continued to have business in UK) marketing goals at the core of what we do. Then digital came along. So we introduced our email arm in 2001, Database Group Interactive.

More recently we've seen the introduction of even more marketing channels and data feeds. We've diversified and grown with our clients' needs to deliver a full range of marketing solutions. We now trade under the name dbg delivering a wide range and marketing and database solutions to the market.

(For milestones/dates please visit our website.) Number of UK Employees 70 Turnover for 2009 (or last £5.9 million accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 9.4% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 £6.5 million Projected year-on-year growth 10.1% for 2010

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Company Details Company Name dbg (formerly Database Group & Database Group Interactive) USP What sets you apart from We work with clients across the board on planning, preparation, production, in-depth analysis of competitors? campaigns and campaign performance, to maximise the return on investment from email. Our multi channel experience means that we can assist clients with integrating email marketing with the rest of the marketing strategy. Also our background in data means that we can help clients make informed, intelligent decisions in order to achieve maximum impact. With the rise of sender reputation as the primary decision criterion for whether marketing emails are accepted or rejected, the last point is a crucial one. Reputation metrics are underpinned by data quality, and the fact that the email programs of more than two thirds of dbg‘s first party list owners are Return Path certified is no coincidence.

Data also plays a crucial role when campaign success is measured as a function of ―recipient recognition‖ and ―message relevance.‖ dbg‘s specialised customer analysis and insight capabilities produce the levels of profiling and segmentation create targeting capabilities that make a material impact on campaign performance Clients Examples of UK Clients Renault UK, Pizza Express, ASK, Zizzi, RSPB, Travelbag, AJInteractive, PDV, Trading Floor, Experian. Which verticals/sectors, if any, Retail, Travel & Leisure, Automotive, FMCG, List Management, Financial Services, Local do you specialise in? Government, Education, Creative Agencies. Case Study UK client case study Moneyextra.com benefits from 18% open-rate and 200% click-rate increase Key Facts Client: Moneyextra.com Sector: Financial Challenge: High cost low performance Process: Pi Framework Result: 200% click-rate uplift

The Challenge Moneyextra.com had been sending out a member e-newsletter to promote hot topics that it was covering on its website. The broadcasts were being managed internally, consuming large numbers of man hours as data was moved between its CRM database and its broadcasting platform. Basic reporting was being provided in the form of MS-Excel spreadsheets. In addition, the broadcast results were not meeting Moneyextra‘s expectations. Delivery rates and open rates were not being tracked, while click-through rates, which were being tracked, were generating only 0.4% responses.

The Process dbg‘s starting point involved a data hygiene exercise. By screening Moneyextra‘s database against through dbg verify (data hygiene suite), the identification of known bounce-backs, misspellings, and junk entries meant that 10% of invalid addresses could be removed prior to broadcast. dbg then implemented a program of test broadcasts to identify how best to optimise key performance variables such as subject line, use of personalisation, variations in creative and weekday vs. weekend broadcasts. Once these learnings had been applied, the live broadcast was then sent using dbg expertise to ―warm-up‖ the new IP address by throttling the emails in accordance with known tolerance thresholds of the major ISPs.

The Results Over the course of the testing program, open rates were increased by 18%. In the live broadcast, average click-through activity of 1.2% was recorded, an uplift of 200% measured against Moneyextra‘s internal email broadcasts. Most impressive is the improvement in Moneyextra‘s sender reputation metrics. From an initial sender score of 65 (regarded by Return Path as indicating that ―sender has email program issues‖) to the following – a status enjoyed by less than 1% of commercial email broadcasters!

Client Feedback ―We were extremely impressed with the framework that dbg applied to improve our email broadcasting results. The fact that we are now working with clean data and actionable learnings is creating a significant uplift in our e-campaign metrics.‖

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Company Details Company Name dbg (formerly Database Group & Database Group Interactive) ―Our business model is closely aligned with the response rates that our email campaigns generate – an increase in response rates has a direct positive impact on our bottom line.‖

―dbg's expertise, their friendly consultative approach and overall level of professionalism means that they have been a pleasure to work with.‖ Jennifer Rose, Communications Director

Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of No ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes – campaign management represents one of dbg‘s core pillars, and is embodied by dbg‘s planning Cognition™ process – a process to identify its client‘s marketing objectives, and the levers that can be influenced to maximise their delivery. Design and copywriting Yes – our design team follow all best practice advice and our copywriters have many years marketing experience List provision Yes – we represent many of the UK‘s major email list owners, hosting and managing their data, as well as servicing their email fulfilment requirements. Legal advice Yes – dbg‘s Guy Hanson is a member of the DMA‘s email marketing council, and currently chairs the legal, data and best practice work group. Data management Yes – we have been helping clients manage their customer and prospect data for over 40 years. Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes – dbg ecos, our data cleansing tool, can cleanse, dedupe and suppress all contact data validation including email addresses. Broadcast Yes – a focus on inbox placement, rather than traditional delivery rates (sent less bounced) means that our clients‘ emails end up where it counts. Segmentation Yes – dbg‘s approach goes beyond simple AB split testing, and focuses on detailed multivariate scenarios, created and managed by dbg‘s experienced analysts. Personalisation Yes dbg is the only UK ESP to offer ePIC™, a revolutionary graphical personalization technology that provides personalization in the creative itself. ePIC™ has demonstrated uplifts in campaign responsiveness of 130% as a result of improved user recognition. Dynamic content solutions Yes – our dynamic content functionality is easy to use and is proven to dramatically increase response rates. Hosting for images and micro- Yes – dbg host all images by default and design and host microsites and landing pages. sites Event triggered messaging Yes – dbg ecos enables clients to automate emails based on data feeds, actions and non response. Sequence messaging Yes – in order to improve deliverability we advise clients on sequence messaging Web Analytics Yes – Google Analytics is the default web analytics built into the system but we are flexible dependant on clients‘ needs. Reporting Yes – ecos can produce a wide variety of reports, making performance tracking easy and accessible. Real-time reporting Yes – data within the system is updated in real-time and reports are current and accurate when pulled. Flash No Video Yes – although best practice dictates that video should…. Audio No ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes – dbg applies ―full seeding‖ to every customer broadcast. In this way, real life reports can be showing clients how email produced that explain how the broadcast has been treated (inbox, junk, blocked) by all content appears on major major ISPs. In this way, concrete learnings can be fed back into the email program to generate email clients and browsers) measurable improvements.

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Company Details Company Name dbg (formerly Database Group & Database Group Interactive) Other messaging services, e.g. SMS, Social media integration SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Verify™. To our knowledge, the only built-for-purpose email address hygiene tool on the market, specify) and a vital tool in dbg's deliverability armoury.

Real Time Marketing ( RTM™ ). A web-based campaign creation tool, aimed primarily at SME users, providing the ability to create and fulfil both online and offline campaigns using first or third party data, and purpose-designed or pre-defined creative. RTM™ is the technology that supports Royal Mail‘s ―Mailshots Online‖ service. Integration Please provide details of level API integration available and we integrate with data management warehouses and web of integration possible with analytics. As a data company we have experience in integrating multi data feeds from various other technology, e.g. web sources. analytics Which protocols are supported SOAP, HTTP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No due to data security procedures free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Our social media functionality allows email recipients to share an email message on their social integration with social media media networks. services, and measurement  Contacts can retweet a message, post the information to Facebook and post on other sites using ―Share this‖  Track and report the power of combining social media in your email communications by linking to customer sign ups or sales and data fed back into the database against individuals.

Product Details Product Name dbg ecos Product Features We deliver a full service digital offering including email marketing services, eCRM solutions, transactional data refurbishing, multichannel communications and integrated campaign solutions.

 Split testing  Social media capabilities  SMS functionality  Dynamic content  Controlled sending rates  Bounce and unsubscribe management  Deliverability management  Preview tool  Comparison reporting  Behavioural segmentation  Triggered/automated sends  Online support  Integrated mobile broadcasting Technical Overview Ecos is a web based email, SMS and social media delivery and management tool. ecos runs on Windows servers, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 databases and is developed using Microsoft .NET platform. Tracking capabilities Full tracking capabilities of all marketing metrics Data capabilities dbg represent many of the UK‘s major email list owners, hosting and managing their data, as well as servicing their email fulfilment requirements. We have a suite of tools which can help with data hygiene, profiling enhancement and segmentation. Our email platform integrates with database applications and can incorporate multiple data feeds. Costs and pricing methods Pricing on Application (please be as specific as dbg recognises that email broadcasting has become a highly commoditised service, and industry pricing has dropped markedly to reflect this. dbg‘s approach to e-marketing is a value led one,

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Company Details Company Name dbg (formerly Database Group & Database Group Interactive) possible) and we have little interest in winning business simply by being cheapest. The provision of a expert service requires detailed support from professional staff, and this commitment needs to be covered by our rate card.

We like to take an outcomes-based approach to working with our clients, identifying the KPIs that we can influence to effect improvements in the performance of their e-marketing programs. In this way, the financial commitment that they make to the relationship is positively rewarded by a corresponding increase in performance from their programs. Training & Support How many UK support staff do 12 you have? During what hours are your UK Standard SLA is 9am – 6pm, however option for clients to pay for out of hours support lines manned? What type of training Is Training can be tailored to clients‘ needs – telephone, online or in person. Our preference is included? (e.g. telephone and always to do face to face training. on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes – via the tool Please give details of other Clients have regular reviews with account managers to review their email marketing programs types of support and training and inform on best practice. (e.g. strategic workshops and We hold customer events where clients share best practice and have access to our email access to experts) experts. Deliverability Please summarise your At dbg deliverability management is our thing and we understand the challenges associated with deliverability strategy email broadcasting. We focus on ‗true‘ inbox deliverability and helping our clients improve their delivery metrics and avoid falling into spam traps.

Do you have a deliverability dbg is a Return Path partner, and offers its Delivery Monitory suite of tools, both on a bureau assurance solution? basis, and also as one of Return Path‘s authorised resellers. However, as a business we have a philosophy that it‘s not just about employing a good tool. It‘s also about having expertly trained staff with the ability to interpret the results, and then make recommendations to their clients on how to effect changes that lead to measurable improvement. Are you signed up with an dbg is the UK‘s leading ESP in terms of Return Path certification, with over 50% of first party email certification or customers certified. We are well placed to assist clients with the process as we have an in depth authentication service (e.g. knowledge of the strict requirements. The certification, which is the most widely recognised white Goodmail, Return Path)? listing globally, improves program performance by 20-40%. Other benefits include:

 Improved deliverability with major ISPs such as Hotmail and Yahoo  Reduced throttling restrictions  Automatic image display within HTML ( for participating ISPs ) Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy dbg prides itself on a unique approach of building best practice into our working relationships with clients. Bets practice comes as the norm and our account managers and production team will monitor account activity, flag any concerns or advise on ways to get more from your email marketing. We do this more formally at quarterly reviews with clients, through workshops, articles in our newsletters and the press and at industry events.

Our connection to the DMA email council means we can pass on best practice as soon as it is written and are often contributing or writing the papers. Do you have a full-time dbg‘s Guy Hanson is a well-known industry expert, and has contributed to numerous papers and data/spam/privacy presentations on this subject. Guy sits on the DMA‘s email marketing council, and currently representative? chairs the legal, data and best practice work group. In this capacity, Guy recently co-authored the acclaimed revision of the DMA‘s deliverability best practice document.

However, deliverability needs to permeate every level of the organisation, and Guy‘s knowledge is filtered down to every level of the organisation, so that dbg‘s client services and production staff are all highly knowledgeable in this area. White Papers/ We have a wide range of resources on our website but most recent publications include: Publications/  Co-author of DMA deliverability white paper 2010

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Company Details Company Name dbg (formerly Database Group & Database Group Interactive) Industry events  Email of the week review, Technology Week 27 July 2010  Junk folder dodging tactics, DM Weekly 9 July 2010  Engage or lose out, DM Weekly 21 June 2010  Jargon Buster, B2B marketing June 2010  Spoke at a recent DMA email workshop  Attending JUMP in October Forums/Memberships Econsultancy, DMA member.

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dbg – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where Where client email we are program we are going now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke we are functionality going

Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.4. dotMailer

Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd Company Logo

URL www.dotmailer.co.uk UK Head Office Address No 1 Croydon, 12-16 Addiscombe Road, Croydon, CR0 0XT Other office locations Manchester Office - Pall Mall Court, 61 – 67 King Street, Manchester, M2 4PD London Bridge Office – 4-8 Emmerson Street, London, SE1 9DU Contact Name Tink Taylor Contact Telephone 0845 337 9170 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition dotMailer makes powerful email marketing easy. Ease of use, powerful features and unrivalled client support ensure dotMailer clients get the most from their investment in email marketing programmes.

dotMailer is a UK-based, industry-leading Email Service Provider with over 10 years of experience. As part of the dotDigitalGroup PLC, dotMailer offers the full range of services provided by a digital marketing agency – under one roof.

The dotMailer permission-based email marketing system is designed by marketing people for marketing people and is the preferred solution of some of the UK‘s leading brands and agencies.

dotMailer allows users to create or edit high-impact HTML emails and manage all aspects of their email campaigns – without the need for technical IT skills – via a secure web interface.

dotMailer comes in 4 packages to suit every organisation‘s budget and needs; Lite, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, along with a fully white-labelled solution

dotMailer Enterprise offer users highly advanced features including triggered emails, a dynamic content builder, microsite and survey builder tools, data and behavioural segmentation tools, split testing and ROI reporting.

Brief Company History dotMailer was originally established as Ellipsis Media Ltd, back in 1999 to meet the growing (including number of years of needs for website design, build and content management. business in UK) The dotMailer email marketing platform was launched in 2001 and has built an industry-leading reputation for its email marketing solution.

In 2008, the company changed its name to dotMailer Ltd, and repositioned itself as a full service digital marketing agency, bringing together all the digital marketing services and product offers, under one unifying brand.

In February of 2009 dotMailer Ltd became the dotDigitalGroup PLC, quoted on the PLUS Market. The dotDigitalGroup PLC consists of 3 businesses, dotMailer, dotCommerce and dotAgency, together forming a powerful digital marketing agency with a strong emphasis on continual growth and investment. Number of UK Employees 80 Turnover for 2009 (or last £4.7m accounting period including dates)

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd 2009 year-on-year growth 91% (compared to 2008) USP What sets you apart from dotMailer is known for being uniquely user-friendly and easy to use, combining powerful, competitors? sophisticated features with an intuitive and easy to use interface.

dotMailer clients are supported by Account Managers, providing advice and guidance, whatever the client‘s level of email marketing experience may be.

dotMailer includes a unique Microsite Builder and an online Survey builder that can recreate existing webpage and email templates and the click of a mouse– saving marketers serious time and money.

Powerful but easy-to-use features help marketers produce their most effective email campaigns, including trigger emails, dynamic content, a data and behavioural segmentation query builder, automatic split testing, ROI tracking and inbox preview testing.

dotMailer allows for up to 500, customisable database fields. In addition, data sets created with dotMailer‘s powerful segmentation query builder are automatically updated and added to, as new contacts meet the criteria – so no need to re-run queries.

dotMailer can also be provided as a white labelled ‗Business in a Box‘ solution, offering an opportunity for resellers to earn and account manage significant revenues from email marketing. Clients Examples of UK Clients To name but a few...

Abbey, AVG, Centaur, DEFRA, Eden Project, Fairtrade, HQHair, Jimmy Choo, Kodak, Microsoft, Mary Kay, Nationwide, RankGroup PLC, Sanderson Young, Sophos, Storm Models, Tarmac, WaterAid, Which verticals/sectors, if any, dotMailer‘s clients can be found across all sectors including B2B, B2C and Not For Profit. We do you specialise in? have particular experience and expertise in the following markets:  Charities ¬-for-profit  Technology & telecoms  Sports & leisure  Travel & Transport  Finance  Recruitment  Ecommerce  Property Case Study UK client case study Wood Mackenzie Research and Consulting Case Study

First 5 email campaigns with dotMailer generate a total of £87,000 in revenue!

The background

Wood Mackenzie is a leading global research company, providing research, analysis and consulting to some of the world‘s largest businesses.

International teams at Wood Mackenzie specialise in the energy, mining and metals industries, where the stakes are high and intelligence is critical.

The marketing challenge

Wood Mackenzie‘s services are high end, high ticket offerings, with complex and lengthy sales pipelines.

Their marketing challenge is to use targeted email marketing to support, build and develop a close and trusted relationship with key influencers and decision makers in the energy and metals industries. Marketing Manager Louise Barnes takes up the story: ―In 2007 we acquired two new research and consulting businesses, each with their own legacy

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd databases that I needed to dedupe, merge and migrate with our existing database. In the previous companies, email campaigns were sent using an internal system with very limited tracking and reporting. The campaigns generated little response and no measurable business.

I‟d used dotMailer in my previous company and I knew Wood Mackenzie needed the levels of deep reporting, analysis and segmentation that dotMailer provides to reach out to this new audience.‖

The solution Working closely with their dotMailer Account Manager, Louise set up her marketing team on the dotMailer platform and used dotMailer‘s automatic deduping feature to merge the 2 databases to create one clean, deduped set of opted-in contacts – around 11,000 in total.

The team then began sending e-newsletters with dotMailer, providing valuable industry news articles and inviting click throughs to the company website for more information.

The results After just five email sends with dotMailer, the results Louise had measured were outstanding. In total, the first five newsletters alone had generated enquiries that converted to £87,000 worth of revenue and created a pipeline worth a further £92,000. ROI went sky high! Content was targeted for each group, segmented by both time zone and region to create pinpoint relevancy. Next, the team began focussing on segmenting their email database into ‗Supporters‘ (contacts who had opened four or more email campaigns) and the remainder, dubbed ‗Awareness‘. The results again were outstanding, with the ‗Supporters‘ campaigns delivering an 86% open rate. This level of engagement provides the Wood Mackenzie team with a priceless opportunity to use email to nurture their relationship with key groups and build up-sell opportunities for their Client Management team to progress.

The next steps The success that Louise‘s team has experienced with dotMailer has proved a benchmark for the business, and dotMailer is now being rolled out across all six marketing teams within the company.

The business has recently upgraded to a dotMailer Corporate account and invested in branded ‗sent from‘ addresses, advanced dotMailer training and new email template designs from the dotMailer design team. Louise concludes the story:

―We‟ve shown just how powerful email marketing can be for meeting our marketing objectives – from outstanding lead generation and ROI, to targeted, 1-2-1 relationship building. We are already building on our successes, segmenting and tailoring our messages further, using the basis of our „contact source‟ data to develop new relationships. From the success we‟ve already seen, dotMailer is set to become a vital channel as one of the techniques Wood Mackenzie uses to communicate with its clients, prospects and markets.‖ Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes – Our Consultancy Services Team is headed by Skip Fidura planning Design and copywriting Yes – Our experienced email design team consistently design emails that render and engage List provision No – we will assist and advise clients when buying data Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes – including RSS and External Dynamic Content from external HTML Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes – auto response emails, series trigger campaigns, custom event triggered campaigns, behavioural event triggers Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes – dotMailer allows you to measure ROI and web page tracking as well as providing Google Analytics-friendly links to enable you to track click throughs as they navigate your website. Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Not recommended for a successful delivery of email campaigns. dotMailer recommend linking to rich media to ensure best practice for email deliverability. dotMailer can offer rich media content within an email through our partnership with Goodmail. Video Not recommended for a successful delivery of email campaigns. dotMailer recommend linking to rich media to ensure best practice for email deliverability. dotMailer can offer rich media content within an email through our partnership with Goodmail. Audio Not recommended for a successful delivery of email campaigns. dotMailer recommend linking to rich media to ensure best practice for email deliverability. dotMailer can offer rich media content within an email through our partnership with Goodmail. ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes – the dotMailer Inbox Preview feature enables users to preview email campaigns in a showing clients how email variety of email clients prior to sending. content appears on major email clients and browsers) The Inbox Preview tests the email in over 50 email clients, including AOL, Gmail, Lotus Notes, Hotmail, Outlook 2007, and on Blackberry and mobile devices. It also allows users to preview the email with images switched on or off, and perform a content assessment of the email. Other messaging services, SMS e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please  Email template design specify)  Managed service  Microsite Design  Landing Page Design  Website Packages Enterprise content managed site design and build ecommerce design and build  Viral marketing initiatives – concept and development  On-site lead tracking  Viral website design and development  Website design and development  Digital strategy and consultancy  SEO  Site traffic analysis Integration Please provide details of level The dotMailer personalisation system enables clients to structure a URL in such a way to of integration possible with seamlessly integrate with other web analytics technologies, including Google Analytics. It also other technology, e.g. web offers an extensive SOAP based Application Program Interface (API) allowing full integration analytics with any back end database and leading CRM system. dotMailer additionally has pre-built integration with Wordpress, Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Which protocols are supported SOAP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Yes – clients with our Professional and Enterprise accounts have access to data through the free access to your database dotMailer Application Programming Interface (API) for the purposes of integration of data and systems?

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd Please give details of any dotMailer was first on the marketplace with one click posting of email campaigns to social media integration with social media feeds. dotMailer users can now encourage their recipients to post the email to their feed across services, and measurement 32 social networks and counting! Product Details Product Name dotMailer Product Features dotMailer offers marketers a comprehensive range of features for creating, managing, sending and tracking email marketing campaigns. These include:

Data Management  Unlimited database contacts  Automatic bounce handling  Custom adjustable hard and soft bounce management thresholds  Export soft and hard bounces and unsubscribes by date range, campaign or total amount.  Data de-deduped on upload and mapped  Advanced, one-click ‗online sign up form‘ creation  Amend contact details on-screen, or re-import to refresh the data  Suppression list management –bulk import all unsubscribes  Unlimited mailing lists/address books  Customisable data fields  API connectors  Data integrity scoring  Domain suppression  Segmentation query builder – data, geographic and behavioural segmentations  One click integration with Salesforce CRM  Integration with Microsoft Dynamics

Campaign Creation  WYSIWYG visual editor to easily create HTML multipart emails  Library of over 100 free, professionally designed templates  ‗Lockable‘ templates for limited editing  Built-in spam checkers so emails can be checked before send  One-click personalisation  Refer a friend link  Add to social networks link – both B2B and B2C networks  Dynamic content and external Ultra Dynamic Content  Image resizing tool  Document upload and link tool  Auto save and return to previous saved version  HTML code validation  Link checker  Survey builder with automatic, real-time data appending  Microsite Builder

Testing  Free, unlimited test sends  Inbox preview  Automatic phishing links alerter  Multiple subject line split testing  Email Content Split Testing

Sending  Multipart delivery  Schedule campaigns to be sent in the future  Auto-response emails  Triggered email campaigns, including sequential and behavioural  Event triggered emails  Send from yourcompanydomain.com

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd  Outbox with campaign pause button  Generic, account-wide auto responder for all email replies

Reporting  Full online real time reporting, including links clicked, delivered and open rate by time and date, replies, forwards and bounce backs  Social network bookmark views  Drill down to individual contact level  Overlay Hotspot report  Print out ‗boardroom-ready‘ reports  Easily export the reporting stats to hand over to your sales team  Generate ‗Hot Prospects‘ reports to target your lists further  Time stamped reports to allow you to respond to your recipients at the optimum time  Schedule email update reports  Automatic list generation from reports, for follow-up campaigns  Onsite tracking to allow you to follow the recipients path through your website  ROI tool to measure the true success of each campaign  Compare your campaigns side by side  Report by top 10 domains  One-click Google Analytics tracking code tool  Contact history reporting Report on and filter your campaign statistics by list segment, dynamic content segments or any data criteria you hold in your database

Technical Overview dotMailer is a web based system with secure login, including individual user IP validation. All software is located on our own secure dotMailer servers. All data is backed up and our infrastructure split over several locations. Tracking capabilities dotMailer tracks the progress and outcome of every single email that is sent and generates real- time reports on both the overall ‗picture‘ of a campaign and the detailed behaviour of every single recipient.

dotMailer‘s level of drill-down analysis sets this technology apart from most other email marketing or email broadcasting solutions. Using dotMailer you can identify  Each individual who has been sent an email  Each individual who has opened it, how many times and when  Each individual who has forwarded it, how many time and when  Each individual who has clicked on one or more link, what those links were, and when they clicked  Inactive users  The links in your email that are most or least popular (again broken down by individual)  Lists of hot prospects by number of times email opened and clicked  The number of times your email has been both posted an opened on social networking sites  The pages visited and path that individual visitors have taken after they‘ve clicked through to your own website  Return on investment values – either numeric or sting values, these can be values or products in completed or abandoned shopping baskets, product names, or number of downloads for example  Undelivered emails (‗bounce backs‘) along with the specific reason, again by individual divided into Hard and Soft bounces  Individual replies to your emails  Individuals who have requested to unsubscribe from your mailing list

dotMailer also offers a flexible reporting functionality, enabling reports to be presented as overall figures, graphical charts and detailed exportable lists. Data can easily be filtered to focus on particular segments, for example to identify the top 100 ‗interested parties‘ in order to pass to a telesales team. All reports can be exported into offline software in any format, making it easy to transfer them to any CRM database or include in presentations. Data capabilities Unlimited data storage and unlimited number of address books for segmentation. dotMailer includes an easy to use segmentation query tool to build targeted lists based on data, geography

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd and behaviour. Costs and pricing methods dotMailer offers an extremely flexible pricing policy, designed to meet the diverse needs of its (please be as specific as customer base which spans SMEs, the not-for-profit sector, large enterprises and marketing and possible) digital agencies:

We have a one off licence fee. Costs are then based on monthly usage on a  Pay ‗per email sent ‗or  Value plan – flat monthly fee

Billing is clearly broken down by campaign (and by account for corporate licence users and White Labelled resellers)

dotMailer offers a choice of four packages with differing levels of features.

We offer a variety of optional extras such as email template design, online form build functionality, custom from domains, microsite design and build and email marketing strategy and consultancy. Training & Support How many UK support staff do Four dedicated Support Team members, with additional support from Account Executives, you have? Account Directors and the backline Technical Team, totalling over 20 staff. During what hours are your UK 9am – 6pm Monday to Friday support lines manned? What type of training Is Yes – we provide a walkthrough of the system free of charge and also run weekly webinar included? (e.g. telephone and demonstrations of dotMailer. on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes – We offer a comprehensive set of user guides, FAQ system and client forum. Please give details of other dotMailer user training is available in the form of tailored training and shared training types of support and training (e.g. strategic workshops and Training access to experts) We can provide a programme of bespoke training, tailored to your specific requirements, from beginners through to advanced, either at your or our offices.

Shared Training Workshops For clients who may only need one or two people training, we offer shared training sessions where seats are sold on a per seat basis. A maximum of 6 delegates ensures one to one interaction whilst being taken through the dotMailer platform. 2 different workshops are available. Deliverability Please summarise your As an ESP we are white listed with all of the major ISPs ensuring maximum deliverability and deliverability strategy have a deliverability team who monitor and assist clients to improve their delivery and recipient engagement.

We have fully integrated feedback loops with the ISPs to allow anyone who marks the email as Junk to be unsubscribed from your mailing list automatically, as well as automatically handling soft and hard bounces. We enforce best practice unsubscribe processes to facilitate the best delivery rates possible and use our Data Watchdog to quarantine ‗suspect‘ data upon upload. We throttle our sending rate to increase deliverability working with ISP‘s to ensure your emails get into the inbox.

All of our IP addresses are authenticated with the latest Domain Key, SPF and Sender ID records.

We use several methods to monitor our reputation on a daily basis. Starting with Return Path‘s Reputation Monitor which gives us coverage over several hundred domains on all of the IP addresses we use. This tool also enables of receive any grey/black list warnings. In addition to this, we also use Iron Port‘s Senderbase and MSN‘s SNDS service. Prior to sending we design and optimise email templates for deliverability and offer Inbox Preview.

In 2010 we launched an innovative and extremely powerful piece of technology to protect the email sender reputation of all dotMailer users. It's called the dotMailer Data Watchdog. No email

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Company Details Company Name dotMailer Ltd address makes it into dotMailer without being checked by the Data Watchdog first.

This predictive system is entirely unique to dotMailer. Using a complex set of algorithms, checks and intelligent analysis tools, our virtual police force scans every row of data before it can be uploaded by any user into dotMailer. Since April 2009 the Watchdog has made over 5,400,000,000,000,000 (that's 5.4 quadrillion) checks - and counting! Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes, we‘re accredited with both Return Path and Goodmail. email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy  dotMailer removes unsubscribes, hard bounces and abuse complainers automatically and clearly reports on this.  dotMailer includes a Global Suppression File enabling users to choose to clean their own lists against a master file of hard bounces and abuse complainers.  All clients are encouraged to follow the DMA‘s best practise guidelines: http://www.dma.org.uk/BPG  Emails must be explicit about where they are from and what the subject matter is.  Each email must include a clear and well placed 'unsubscribe from this address book' link.  All email marketing must be permission-based, either collected using a Client‘s own methods or from purchased reputable opt-in lists.  All emails should state how the recipient's address was obtained. E.g. "you are receiving this email because…"  Emails must contain company information  Best practise on email design and template build  Emails should always include some other form of non-electronic contact details in emails  Senders should keep a log of how and when you obtained the email addresses that you use, giving protection if you are accused of spamming Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Business Development Director Tink Taylor is an elected member of the DMA‘s (Direct Publications/ Marketing Association) Email Marketing Council (EMC) and the IAB‘s (Internet Advertising Industry events Bureau) E-communications Council. As part of this work dotMailer is constantly involved in the production of Whitepapers, publications and industry events.

In February 2008, dotMailer released their first email marketing benchmark report entitled ‗Hitting the Mark‘ (http://www.dotmailer.co.uk/hittingthemark/) which gave best practice advice based on a benchmark report looking at the email marketing of 46 of the UK‘s top retailers. This report is now part of a series of digital marketing benchmarking reports and a 20010/11 Hitting the Mark benchmark report is now available.

dotMailer have a series of half day free seminars, Inside Knowledge, which is an afternoon of email and online marketing best practice. More information can be found at www.dotmailer.co.uk Forums/Memberships dotMailer is a member of the DMA (Direct Marketing Association). Tink Taylor (Business Development Director) is a member of the DMA‘s EMC (Email Marketing Council) and the IAB‘s (Internet Advertising Bureau) E-communications Council.

Skip Fidura (Digital Director) is Vice-Chairman of the UK DMA Email Marketing Council and was listed by Revolution Magazine as one of the 50 most influential people in new media. dotMailer also has its own client forum, dotZone which can be found at http://dotzone.dotmailer.co.uk dotMailer, and the dotDigital Group are regular bloggers at www.dotdigitalblog.com The dotDigital Group is Microsoft Gold Partner Certified.

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dotMailer – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email we are program now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.5. eCircle

Company Details Company Name eCircle Company Logo

URL www.ecircle.com UK Head Office Address eCircle 14 St John‘s Square London EC1M 4NL UK Other office locations eCircle GmbH Nymphenburger Str. 86 80636 München eCircle

10, rue du Fg Poissonnière 75010 Paris eCircle S.r.l.

Viale Lunigiana, 46 20125 Milano eCircle

Paseo de la Habana 9-11 28036 Madrid eCircle

Zen Building Newtonlaan 115 3584 BH Utrecht Contact Name Jody Gibbs Contact Telephone 020 7618 4200 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Not disclose Brief Company History eCircle was established in 1999 in Germany, and entered the markets in the UK, Italy and (including number of years of France in 2000. It has recently opened offices in Spain and the Netherlands. Today eCircle is business in UK) one of the largest full-solution providers for email marketing and stands for innovative and effective online marketing for customer acquisition and retention. Today's key figures: secure mailings of 8 billion emails per quarter (Status: Q3, Year 2010), send-out capacity of over 10m emails per hour with over 1000 systems across the world. Number of UK Employees 67 Turnover for 2009 (or last £6.9 million (UK turnover) accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 18.9% (UK year-on-year growth)

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Company Details Company Name eCircle (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 £9 million (UK turnover) Projected year-on-year growth 30.4% (UK year-on-year growth) for 2010

USP What sets you apart from  Top tier ESP with worldwide reach competitors?  Over 1000 global clients  Enterprise-led solution  Unique mix of marketing expertise and cutting edge technology  Multi-award winning organisation  Exceptional staff to client ratio of 4:1  More than 10% of FTSE 100 use eC-messenger Clients Examples of UK Clients Asda, Argos, Abel and Cole, British Museum, BP, Center Parcs, Cineworld, HBOS, Halfords, Haymarket, Johnson & Johnson, Marie Curie Cancer Care, MTV, MBNA, Moonpig, OTTO, Pharmacy2U, Samsung, Science Museum, SOLETRADER, Standard Life, The Football Association, TM Lewin, Virgin Limited Edition Which verticals/sectors, if any, eCircle works with clients across all industries. do you specialise in? Retail, finance and travel are among eCircle's most successful industries. Over the years eCircle has developed vertical technology solutions as well as email marketing programs for specific industries. For example, eCircle has developed an eC-messenger feature which addresses the financial sector and insurance companies specifically along with a unique e-commerce function particularly relevant for the retail sector. Case Study UK client case study Center Parcs trigger message campaign encourages guests to pre-book activities online Center Parcs have increasingly moved their pre-holiday marketing efforts online, not only to make the booking process easier for their guests and staff, but also to ensure that holiday- makers avoid missing out on activities or events which may be full on arrival if not booked in advance.

To achieve these goals Center Parcs set up a series of triggered emails sent to their guests over specified period providing information on different offers and activities specific to the resort and holiday the guest has booked. As the holiday draws nearer, content changes to promote different activities.

A flexible online booking process The activity bookings email campaign was designed to improve personalisation and segmentation, ensuring that only highly targeted content is delivered to each individual holiday- maker. Working closely with creative agency Golley Slater and email provider eCircle, Center Parcs wanted to increase loyalty and generate stronger relationships with their guests. All Center Parcs guests are sent a welcome email 15 weeks before the holiday is due to begin. This is sent to all guests welcoming them to their specific Center Parcs location from 4 possibilities (Elvedon, Sherwood, Longleat and Whinfell). The email is personalised with a map specific to that location.

A series of 6 trigger messages are then sent to the customer in the run up to the holiday which include the following: Arrival date; booking reference; suggestions of activities to pre-book; links to any bookings made (with flexibility to change bookings if necessary); a link to view tailored itinerary online; weeks left until the holiday begins; holiday checklist reminder and suggestions of how to make the stay even easier (pre-ordering food to be in the accommodation on arrival, for example).After the holiday is over, each guest is sent a ‗Welcome Home‘ email which includes feedback options and an encouragement to book again with an accompanying incentive. Jeremy Colston, CRM Manager, Center Parcs: ―The solutions and functionality available to us on the eC-messenger platform have played an integral part in improving our customer satisfaction and responsiveness, from personalised content through to lifecycle triggers.‖

A revamped campaign leading to increased performance and results Center Parcs‘ activity booking campaign was given a major facelift to make it more appealing and consistent with the brand image. Prior to the revamp, a generic email was sent to any guest arriving at any of the four resorts but following this upgrade, the campaign is now more targeted,

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Company Details Company Name eCircle personalised and segmented. It also allows for Center Parcs‘ in-house spa, Aqua Sana, which is run as a separate organisation, to send an ‗upsell‘ email encouraging relevant family members to book spa sessions in conjunction with other pre-booked activities.

The campaign has seen consistently high open and click rates and significant revenue thanks to the more sophisticated targeting and personalisation with around 80% of activities pre-booked on the web. In addition, the revenues generated from pre-booked activities have dramatically increased, onsite staff time has reduced and consequently productivity has increased with happier guests! Types of solution offered Full service If a client wishes to outsource its complete email marketing program, eCircle specialises in being a full service agency and we currently handle numerous clients‘ complete email programme from the first integration and programming of subscription boxes to message layout and recipients selection up to report generation and strategic consultations. ASP eCircle offers eC-messenger ASP instead of a software licence, so that customers can benefit from the powerful server cluster of eCircle. This makes sense for email marketing software in particular, where a high peak performance is needed to send out a newsletter (recipients should get it very quickly) and the servers are idle for the rest of the time. eC-messenger is a top of the range system which is extremely easy to use for marketers at every level. Dedicated Server (As part of Possible, extra charge ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign eCircle has produced innovative and successful digital marketing campaigns for international planning companies and brands for over 10 years. Experience of demanding projects and the result of delivering hundreds of campaigns, means that our employees have a unique knowledge that hasn‘t resulted from ‗text book theory‗. Design and copywriting eCircle offers its clients the design and programming of newsletter templates and complete email campaigns. List provision As one of Europe‘s largest owners of permission email addresses eCircle has access to more than 95 million opt-in email addresses. Legal advice Within eCircle‘s consulting activities legal advice is offered to clients. Data management Yes application-based and creation of SCV (Single Customer View) Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Via eC-messenger you are capable of sending out over 10m emails per hour. Over 2 billion emails are sent per month with over 1000 live client systems across the world. Segmentation Our segmentation capabilities are endless. Via the highly developed eC-messenger selector tool, we can look at a set of raw data and manage the completed segmentation process for you. Personalisation As well as all of the usual personalisation techniques (newsletters can be personalised to the individual recipient, by using attributes from the recipient profile, from the newsletter itself or special one-time values which are only used for one newsletter, e.g. voucher codes), eC- messenger can personalise images.

If you want to send out individualised attachments (like invoices etc.), eC-messenger can merge attachments into your message for each individual recipient. Attachments can also be inserted according to specified conditions (e.g. only recipients with more than 5000 points will get a special voucher attached). Dynamic content solutions Dynamic content can be included via placeholders in real time during the send out. For example male users could get a different key visual than female recipients. Hosting for images and micro- Images and dynamic content can be hosted on eCircle servers for better performance. sites Alternatively images can be sent online or hosted on the client‗s servers. Event triggered messaging eC-messenger‘s event engine is a key feature, offering the functionality to set automatic actions to occur based on user behaviour, making sure that a constant dialogue is maintained. The event engine performs specific actions like, for example, sending a birthday mail to ―everyone who has a birthday today‖, sending a reminder mail to unconfirmed subscribers, bounce deregistration from a newsletter group, all based on user actions e.g. subscribe, open message, click link. There are numerous combinations of user triggers and resulting actions that can be set

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Company Details Company Name eCircle to occur, enabling you to always keep in close contact with your most important asset; your customers and readers.

In short, eC-messenger can ensure that every action can be triggered and has carried out some very sophisticated trigger message campaigns. Sequence messaging See above Web Analytics eCircle has partnerships with all major web analytics providers such as Coremetrics, Omniture, and WebTrends. Reporting Delivery, Openings, clicks, conversions, ROI, subscriptions, un-subscriptions, time distribution. Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, eCircle‘s technology is able to handle email, fax and SMS broadcasting from one single interface e.g. SMS, contact centre and one single customer database. (please specify) Any other services (please specify) Integration Please provide details of level eCircle‘s email marketing technology can be fully integrated with almost any other technology of integration possible with such as website analytics, content management systems or data warehouses. Integration other technology, e.g. web partners include: Omniture, WebTrends, Coremetrics, Bazaarvoice, Nedstat, and Salesforce. analytics Our interface can be integrated with any file-based data system Which protocols are supported SOAP, (S)FTP, HTTP(S), REST and XML are all supported. (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any With eC-messenger‘s Social Media Fusion tool clients have the ability to include social media integration with social media links within emails. services, and measurement eCircle partner with social media experts Comufy, to provide a fully-integrated solution which allows clients to send segmented and personalised messages to their customers across Social Media platforms, e.g. Facebook or Twitter. Product Details Product Name eC-messenger Product Features eCircle's eC-messenger is one of the most complete email marketing applications offering the complete breadth of email marketing features from easy to use email broadcasting to highly complex and automated email campaigns. eC-messenger is a multi-channel platform capable of delivering email, mobile and fax messages.

The basic functionalities include:  easy import and export facilities  comprehensive bounce management by 5 bounce categories  profile enrichment by the recipients to comply with the EU regulations  digitally signed messages based on S/MIME standard

The advanced functionalities include:  sophisticated selection of target groups to target a message directly to the right recipients  event engine performing specific actions like for example send a birthday mail to all

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Company Details Company Name eCircle ―everyone who has a birthday today‖, send a reminder mail to unconfirmed subscribers.  split send out: test different versions of a message with altered subjects, images or small text changes. eC-messenger analyses which version performed best and automatically sends this message to your recipients.  task overview: shows which system processes are running and how long they will take  a content management system: enter your content in blocks – at the speed you prefer  individualised previews: verify before sending how the mail will look in different mail clients (including images, personalisation, etc.)  digital signature: this function will clearly distinguish a clients' solicited customer email communication from phishing emails. The signature, sent with the email will quickly reveal the details of the sender in one simple click, identifying if the email is genuine or not.  e-commerce function: Reports on the revenue generated by an individual email address, allowing marketing teams to easily determine the strength of their database. Technical Overview eC-messenger is a complete Java application and is utilising top of the range open source components like Apache Tomcat and Postfix to leverage existing knowledge in the IT world. eC-messenger operates as a distributed cluster: Several ―worker‖ machines are clustered around a central (redundant) database and are using the same (equally redundant) message queue.

The advantages of this architecture are that each worker machine is completely hot-swappable during operation – even new worker machines can be added to the cluster while it is running as the central components do not need to know how many workers exist. All critical machines (web server, DNS server, message queue server, switches) are redundant, most with automatic failover, i.e. another machine takes over immediately when another machine fails. Tracking capabilities eC-messenger offers you a broad range of tracking facilities – working towards optimising the responses to your newsletters, significantly improving the ROI of your email marketing activities. The reports can be saved into Excel spreadsheets, which allow further convenient statistical analysis.

Tracking the complete lifecycle: Track the delivery of the message, opening, clicking on links, forwarding the message to friends, which enables users to measure viral effects, and resulting activity on specific websites (shop integration).

Aggregated statistics: Observe opening, -link, -click and forwarding statistics aggregated over several messages from one or more newsletters.

Event tracking & ROI: Control the achievement of your newsletter, e.g. for a shopping site you can even add the revenue realised by each recipient and see immediately the ROI of your newsletter. eC- messenger supports event tracking with and without cookies.

Visual reporting: See the actual newsletter layout with inserted tracking results right next to the clicked links – making it easy to find out the attractive parts of the message.

Advanced reporting: Get sophisticated information about your recipients' activities like the "average number of messages opened by a member" or the "average order value per member" in the chosen time period. Data capabilities eC-messenger is able to handle all common forms of data formats (e.g. XML, CSV, text) via different interfaces like SOAP, FTP and XML. eC-messenger is able to personalise messages across all data fields within the database. Costs and pricing methods Prices available upon request. Pricing depends on list size and frequency and is based on an (please be as specific as initial setup fee, costs for data transfer and a monthly service charge. possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do 25 you have?

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Company Details Company Name eCircle During what hours are your UK 9.00 am to 6pm with emergency out of ours service available. support lines manned? Global support via partner available 24/7. What type of training Is Yes included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other eCircle organises at least two Email Marketing Conferences each year where we invite industry types of support and training experts and online marketers from well-known UK companies to present their successful email (e.g. strategic workshops and marketing strategies. Thus, attendees can benefit from exclusive best practice case studies and access to experts) benchmark presentations from eCircle experts and top industry guests.

With eCircle‘s recent redesign of its technology, eC-messenger 5.0 a set of Webinars were introduced to allow prospects and clients a better understanding of the user interface and various functions. Deliverability Please summarise your eCircle has established a four-pillar-concept to ensure a strong deliverability strategy and the deliverability strategy maximum deliverability of its customers' emails:

Email Marketing Software: Automated address control and comprehensive bounce management systems minimise deliverability risks and blacklist management to prevents spam complaints

ISP relations & industry standards: eCircle is a member of the Certified Senders' Alliance (CSA), a Europe-wide white list for professional email senders. As certified bulk mail sender at ISPs and freemail providers the eC-messenger‗s mail server IPs are white listed. In addition, eCircle is the first European charter member of Return Path‗s new ISP relations programme, the Sender Score Receiver Alliance guarantee our clients access to important ISPs across Europe. At an international level eCircle gets involved with all deliverability and anti-spam initiatives (e.g. MAAWG).

Proactive control: eCircle monitors test accounts and constantly checks all relevant public blacklists. eCircle also utilises the Sender Score Receiver Alliance from Return Path and therefore can determine if there is a major ISP or freemail provider blocking or filtering emails.

Individual analysis: for companies who are wishing to improve their emails in terms of anti-spam measures. The content and classification of client‘s emails will be verified with all the major ISPs. Do you have a deliverability Yes, eCircle has a deliverability assurance solution, which includes the following: assurance solution?  A dedicated deliverability team with deliverability policies, procedures and tools in place  Support for email authentication standards  Long-term maintenance of relationships with all the major ISPs (Member of the MAAWG and further associations)  Monitoring of ISP policy and changes in technology  Available dedicated IP addresses for individual customers  Automated real-time inbox delivery monitoring at major ISPs  ISP complaint feedback monitoring and notifications  Customer specific delivery analysis (list building and sending practices, ability to monitor, diagnose and advise on individual customer issues) Are you signed up with an Yes, Return Path email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy eCircle representatives are among the thought leaders of the email marketing industry in Europe. For example, we are among the founding members of the Certified Senders Alliance, a worldwide unique project for centralised whitelisting and certification of email senders and eCircle‘s UK Managing Director, Simon Bowker sits on the DMA Email Marketing Council. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative?

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Company Details Company Name eCircle White Papers/ Whitepapers: ‗DMA Deliverability Whitepaper‘, ‗Segmentation Simplified: A Survival Guide to Publications/ Shortening the Sales Cycle‘, ‗Six Steps to Sending Success: The Definitive Guide to Email Industry events Design‘, ‗Recession Marketing and the Power of Email‗, ‗Find your Ideal Email Marketing Partner‗, ‗Maximise the Deliverability of your Emails‗, ‗Increase the Performance of your Campaigns with Geo-Targeting‘ and ‗How to Design the Perfect Newsletter‘

Publications: eCircle have had a number of articles and case studies published in industry publications both on and offline including Revolution, Marketing Week, Marketing Direct, Brand Republic, Travel Weekly, Figaro Digital, Database Marketing, Mad.co.uk, Netimperative and UTalkmarketing. Industry events: We speak and exhibit at several industry events including: TFM&A, Adtech, Internet World, Data Marketing Show, Econsultancy Supplier Showcase, Netimperative Seminars, CIM Digital Conference, Figaro Digital Email Seminar, and Catalyst Consumer Driven E-Commerce Conference. We organise 2+ Email Conferences each year in the UK for over 200 delegates. Forums/Memberships Certified Senders' Alliance (CSA); DMA, ESOMAR, BVDW, DDV, IAB, SNCD, EMMA-NL. Simon Bowker, the UK Managing Director also sits on the DMA Email Marketing Council as a co-opted member from the Best Practice, Data & Legal Hub.

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eCircle – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we arewe are nowgoing

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke WhereWhere functionality we arewe are nowgoing

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.6. e-Dialog

Company Details Company Name e-Dialog Company Logo

URL http://www.e-dialog.com UK Head Office Address 247 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 7AX Other office locations Singapore, New York, Boston, Seattle Contact Name Peter Duffy/Susannah Manheim Contact Telephone 0203 219 6220/6221 Contact email [email protected], [email protected] Company Proposition e-Dialog empowers marketers to meaningfully connect with customers by engaging in relevant conversations through e-mail, social networks, mobile devices, e-commerce and at the point of sale. e-Dialog‘s technology and services give marketers direct access to timely customer insight that drives targeted and opportunity-rich consumer dialogues. With e-Dialog, marketers quickly transform conversations into conversions and evolve customer relationships from the newly acquired to the highly engaged.

Consistently recognized by top analyst firms for both outstanding service and first-class technology, e-Dialog is a global provider to some of the world‘s most recognized brands, including AirTran Airways, Avis Budget Group, Boots, British Airways, CVS/pharmacy, Nintendo, the NFL, PETCO, Reuters, the Royal Bank of Scotland group of companies, and The TJX Companies. e-Dialog is a wholly owned subsidiary of GSI Commerce Inc. (NASDAQ: GSIC). For more information, visit www.e-dialog.com.

Brief Company History e-Dialog was established in Boston in 1997 and has had operations in London since 2006. It is a (including number of years of wholly owned subsidiary of GSI Commerce Inc (Nasdaq: GSIC). Our HQ is in Burlington, business in UK) Boston, USA with local offices in London, Singapore, New York and Seattle. Number of UK Employees 140 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not available for publication but we are happy to discuss with prospects that contact us directly. accounting period including e-Dialog is part of GSI Commerce Inc which posted a turnover of over $1billion in 2009. dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not available for publication but we are happy to discuss with prospects that contact us directly (compared to 2008) e-Dialog is part of GSI Commerce Inc which posted a turnover of over $1billion in 2009. Projected turnover 2010 Not available for publication but we are happy to discuss with prospects that contact us directly. e-Dialog is part of GSI Commerce Inc which posted a turnover of over $1billion in 2009. Projected year-on-year growth Not available for publication but we are happy to discuss with prospects that contact us directly. for 2010 e-Dialog is part of GSI Commerce Inc which posted a turnover of over $1billion in 2009.

Clients Examples of UK Clients British Airways, Boots, Skype, Philips, Sony Playstation, Confused.com, Royal Bank of Scotland, HP, Dell, Thomas Cook, Virgin Media, RCI, News International and FT.com

Which verticals/sectors, if any, Retail, Financial Services, Publishing, Media & Entertainment, Technology, Travel & do you specialise in? Leisure

Case Study UK client case study Fiona Creedon, Customer Marketing Manager at Confused.com says, “We were very impressed by the emphasis that e-Dialog placed on insight and strategy. We weren‟t looking for a simple e- mail delivery supplier, we wanted to work with a company that could look closely and get the most out of our existing data as well as help us set up the culture and processes we needed internally to ensure that we were getting the most out of our e-mail programmes on a long-term basis”.

“As well as the scope of their counsel, we were impressed by the fact that their technology was not only robust but easy to use – we needed a tool set that could be used by marketers, not IT

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Company Details Company Name e-Dialog technicians. e-Dialog‟s tools have allowed us to take our raw data, convert it into dynamic customer information and see it all from a single, easy to understand view. Compared to a process that would have previously taken hours of technical work, we are now able to select specific audiences for each campaign at the click of a mouse.”

Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Types of services offered Strategy and campaign e-Dialog is proud to offer its clients strategic and consulting services. We consider this to be planning one of our key industry differentiators and one of the reasons top European businesses choose us as their e-mail service provider.

e-Dialog employees have extensive experience in the e-mail channel specifically driven by an understanding of direct marketing principles. We have strategised, developed, deployed, measured and analysed thousands of campaigns for dozens of leading direct marketing organisations. Our service model is structured as a typical agency with account teams focused on delivering value to our clients.

Yes The client services team will include designers and copywriters if required. Design and copywriting List provision e-Dialog does not own any data to sell. Hence, our list sales solutions and recommendations are not confined or influenced by a particular list vendor but rather we work with the most appropriate data vendor for any given circumstance.

Our goal is to co-ordinate the best possible solution and seamless integration of data for each of our client‗s individual needs.

Legal advice e-Dialog does not provide formal legal counsel. However, our Managing Director sits on the DMA‗s Email Marketing Council‗s Legislation and Best Practice Hub – ensuring e-Dialog is kept fully informed of the latest legislative developments.

In addition, our Director of Privacy and ISP Relations is responsible for keeping clients aware of all legislative issues related to e-mail marketing. He is available to speak with clients and their respective legal council on all such topics.

Data management Yes

Data management is one of the most critical aspects of effective email marketing. e-Dialog‗s team of data management experts is available to manage any level of complexity of data preparation for client‗s email campaigns, from basic unsubscribe lists to advanced segmentation scheme execution. We have extensive experience in working with clients with complex data structures requiring a high degree of integration.

Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes We‗ve never been challenged with a campaign that we couldn‗t handle. Our e-mail delivery software is architected for scalability to provide timely message delivery regardless of the mail quantity. Currently e-Dialog mails in 35 languages across more than 230 countries.

Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes

Our proprietary custom publishing technology takes discrete content assets and compiles them into unique one-to-one messages. Content assets may be in the format of text, html, hyperlinks, or rich media such as streaming audio and video. Our embedded rules engine leverages all available profile data on recipients to drive the most appropriate content into tailored messages for each person. The result can be hundreds of thousands of unique messages delivered within any single campaign across multiple markets and in multiple languages.

Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes, see Dynamic Content Solutions

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Company Details Company Name e-Dialog sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, Dynamic Print, Transaction Messaging, RSS, SMS, MMS. e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify)

Any other services (please  Creative Services – creative analysis and refresh, e-mail concepting specify)  Testing Strategies  Custom Applications  Custom Reporting  Guideline Development  Bar Coding & Couponing Applications  Survey Builder  Content Management  Workflow Management  Data Services  RSS, SMS, MMS, offline print  Transactional messaging  Sequenced/Triggered messaging  Preference capture applications  Call centre integration applications  Analytics services  Benchmarking research  Plus a range of other services.

Integration Please provide details of level Our applications can either work on a standalone basis, or integrate with client‗s ERP, CRM, of integration possible with CMS, web analytics, ad serving, and affiliate marketing applications. Further details are available on request. other technology, e.g. web analytics Do you allow client developers Client developers can access our APIs for integration needs, but most integration work is performed by our professional services teams. free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Product Details Product Name Precision Central

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Company Details Company Name e-Dialog Product Features With our Precision Central Suite of Web-based applications, e-Dialog puts you in complete control of your e-mail marketing campaigns and programs. Our products make it easy for you to perform critical data segmentation and analysis, select target audiences, and create sophisticated, highly relevant e-mail campaigns. It is everything you need to succeed at relevant e-mail marketing.

In fact, our relevance-enabling technologies enable a who's who of world-class marketers to consistently improve their e-mail productivity and campaign performance. Find out what e- Dialog can do for you.

 Insight Builder™ Noted by industry analysts as the best analytic tool in the marketplace. Make better decisions faster with unparalleled access to customer data.

 Campaign Builder™ Build individual significance into every e-mail campaign with our comprehensive campaign management solution. Designed to help marketers of all abilities deliver highly relevant e-mail.

 Insight Trigger™ Around-the-clock management of your most complex customer interactions. Automate e-mail messages that are critical to the customer lifecycle.

 eReports™ On-demand reporting that supports in-depth campaign performance analysis. Go beyond clickthroughs and opens when analyzing campaign results.

 Data Director™ Convenient import and export tool for data management. Perform trouble-free transfers of customer data to and from your e-Dialog applications.

 News Publisher™ Better collaboration between editorial and marketing departments. Develop e-mail newsletters closer to the action - in the newsroom.

 Poll Builder™ Do-it-yourself polls and surveys designed to educate and entertain. Engage your customers with easily embedded interactive polls and surveys.

 Quick Test™ Quick Test is a new, relevance-enabling feature of Campaign Builder allowing our clients to easily test different versions of a message. With Quick Test, different test versions of a cell are mailed to a sample of the total audience.

Technical Overview All of the above have a web-based client interface, requiring IE4.5 or above. No installation is required. Further information regarding our world-class technical infrastructure can be shared directly where appropriate.

Tracking capabilities Data capabilities Our Oracle-based infrastructure provides a flexible, secure and reliable environment for client data. We host & synchronise data in formats and schemas that map to our clients needs so the integration process is typically very straightforward for the client.

e-Dialog has firsthand experience establishing data exchange processes with virtually every database/CRM system on the market. Of course every system is configured to meet the needs of the individual client so the implementations vary.

As an extra measure of commitment to technology we are collocated within a world class Internet Data Centre that provides a secure, safe environment that is conducive to high availability systems. This environment not only provides physical security but utilises state of the art fire suppression systems and environmental monitors. Costs and pricing methods Each statement of Work is created especially for each client and the pricing models are (please be as specific as structured to suit. Activities and mailing costs are based on a standard tariff. Fees are based on possible) hourly rates which vary depending on the skill set of the individual team member, and standard CPM rates which vary according to mailing volumes.

Training & Support How many UK support staff do We have 140 UK Client Support Staff you have? During what hours are your UK 24/7

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Company Details Company Name e-Dialog support lines manned? What type of training Is On site product training and telephone training is provided if required included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Please give details of other We can support client requirements in a wide variety of areas including strategy, creative, types of support and training analytics, technology and data management. (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts)

Deliverability Please summarise your deliverability strategy (up to 200 words) Do you have a deliverability Our Privacy and ISP Relations department, led by our Director of Privacy/ISP Relations, is assurance solution? made up of three full time employees and is further supported by the Engineering, Response Management, and Professional Services groups. The purpose of this department is to advocate for our clients proactively and reactively as laws, regulations and technologies that impact this medium change.

We participate at the highest levels in leading industry associations. We regularly publish white papers on the relevant and important changes in the industry. Further, we have direct relationships with all of the top European & international ISPs, block list, reputation and accreditation services. We participate in all available ISP feedback loops and white list programs. Finally, we will actively monitor the health of those ISPs to ensure that you achieve maximum deliverability to your customers and prospects.

In return for the work we do (within the industry and for our clients) we are recognized and certified by the following organisations: Bonded Sender, The Direct Marketing Association (UK & US), Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, TRUSTe, Habeas, and the US Department of Commerce.

Are you signed up with an Goodmail enabled email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Do you have a full-time Our Privacy and ISP Relations department, led by our Director of Privacy/ISP Relations, is made data/spam/privacy up of three full time employees and is further supported by the Engineering, Response representative? Management, and Professional Services groups. White Papers/ June 2010: Global Perspectives: A Study of Consumer Attitudes to Digital Marketing Publications/ December 2009: Manifesto for e-mail Marketers: Consumers Demand Relevance Industry events March 2009: Are you Relevance Ready? Identifying and Applying the Raw Materials of E-mail Relevance Forums/Memberships IAB, DMA Additional, supporting information Other relevant information For us, a good fit is a client with complex data challenges, who is focused on e-mail as a database-driven direct-response channel and who values a partner who can bring a strategic focus to this evolving medium.

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e-Dialog – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we are we are going now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where Wherewe are we aregoing now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.7. Emailcenter

Company Details Company Name Emailcenter UK Limited Company Logo

URL http://www.emailcenteruk.com/ UK Head Office Address Kingthorn Park, Bradden Road, Greens Norton, Towcester, Northants, NN12 8BS Other office locations NA Contact Name Nigel Williams, MD Sean Duffy, Principal Email Marketing Consultant Contact Telephone 01327 350921 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Emailcenter focus entirely on providing the expertise and technology needed to create and deliver retention based email marketing campaigns. Our expertise enables us to stay at the forefront of email marketing - whether using the latest personalisation techniques or avoiding junk mail filters, our customers outperform the market. Brief Company History Current MD Nigel Williams saw the potential of email marketing as a retention marketing and (including number of years of CRM tool, he subsequently formed Emailcenter in 1999. Emailcenter develop Maxemail the business in UK) technology solution for creating, delivering, managing and tracking email marketing campaigns in-house.

From the outset the idea of Maxemail has been to empower the marketing department to take control of its email marketing without having to rely on IT. This has produced a range of solutions that are simple to use without sacrificing the capabilities for utilising advanced email marketing techniques. Number of UK Employees 18 Turnover for 2009 (or last Available on request accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Available on request (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Available on request Projected year-on-year growth Available on request for 2010

USP What sets you apart from Emailcenter will always be seen defining highly successful email programmes for our clients competitors? using the latest techniques. Emailcenter is an innovator, not a market follower, which is seen with our work over the last year that includes:  Using web analytics data on each individual customer to create a one to one lifecycle email programme for a travel company, leading to an increase in 256% on bookings  Developing a 100% foolproof means of bypassing MS Outlook junk filters  Implementing automated email alerts programmes for clients with over 100,000 content variants Clients do not come to Emailcenter to implement run of the mill email marketing campaigns - clients who come to Emailcenter do so because of our unique ability to create an innovative and tailored email marketing programme for them that beats what their competition are doing. Clients Examples of UK Clients Visit Britain, Vodafone, toptable.com, Café Direct, NS&I, talkSPORT, Saga, IG Index Which verticals/sectors, if any, Emailcenter operate across all market sectors although the vast majority of our client base is

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Company Details Company Name Emailcenter UK Limited do you specialise in? within Travel, Retail, Media and B2B verticals. Case Study UK client case study The Client : toptable.com toptable.com are Europe‘s largest restaurant booking site, seating 3M diners a year at over 20,000 restaurants, across 14 countries. Diners can choose from numerous Michelin-Starred restaurants, celebrity chefs, local bistros and high street chains.

The challenge: A significant proportion of toptable customer‘s either never establish a habit or lose the habit of using the site to make restaurant bookings. This leaves a huge untapped base of potential customers. To counter this, within their email newsletter, toptable ran a number of free meal promotions at regular intervals. However this proved costly as loyal customers also took advantage of these offers and the email recipients who had already defected from toptable were less receptive to the promotions anyway. toptable needed to reach these customers before they defected to ensure they established the habit of making bookings.

The solution: Emailcenter set-up a number of emails that are automatically triggered at points throughout the customer lifecycle, where it is appropriate to send an email. These include when a customer joins the site, after a failed booking or a period of time where there have been no bookings. Each message is automatically generated and specific to the customers point in their lifecycle, including a series of educational welcome messages, booking guarantee messages for failed bookings or a free meal promotion for those who have not made a booking in the last 6 weeks. In addition, many customers have the perception that toptable is a London only site which reduces their potential usage to a few bookings a year, when non London residents decide to visit the city. To address this issue each email now includes 3 offers from the customers own home town or county.

Results: These lifecycle emails resulted in an immediate uplift in winning back the defected customers. Booking rates for once defected diners jumped by 1600% compared to the newsletter, while a 400% increase in the amount of this defected segment turning into loyal regular bookers occurred, after a winback message was sent. Booking rates for new customers receiving the educational welcome emails increased by 10% within the first 3 months of using toptable. Costs were also reduced as free meals promotions to the entire database were reduced from a frequency of every 4-6 weeks to every several months, as defection fell.

http://www.emailcenteruk.com/toptable Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision No Legal advice No – Only informal advice. Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes

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Company Details Company Name Emailcenter UK Limited Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes

Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS broadcasts available e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Deliverability tools to test your email messages against all of the main spam filters at major specify) webmail and ISP‘s such as Hotmail, BT, Yahoo, AOL etc Integration Please provide details of level The Maxemail API enables clients to easily integrate with other platforms and systems including: of integration possible with  CRM databases other technology, e.g. web  Content Management Systems analytics  Web Analytics tools Readymade plugins are available for many CRM systems including Salesforce & Sage CRM, while other pre-built integration templates exist for FTP or web form integration. Our Behavioural Email service can work with 3rd party analytics tools or Emailcenter can supply the appropriate tracking solution. Which protocols are supported  JSON (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)?  SOAP  HTTP  REST Do you allow client developers Developers are given access to the API which allows some restricted access to tables. free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any  Auto insert social bookmarks into your email message integration with social media  Viral campaigns services, and measurement Product Details Product Name

Product Features  Tracking and reporting of opens, click-thoughs, bounces, unsubscribes, virals and purchases  List management – auto de-duping, suppression lists, unsubscribe management, bounce exclusions and much more  HTML editing tools for non-technical users to update content  Full personalisation including dynamic content that merges relevant articles or offers into an

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Company Details Company Name Emailcenter UK Limited email based upon the recipients profile.  Inbox seeding enables you to see where your email will land at major ISPs such as Hotmail, AOL etc to make sure it will not be classified as junk  Spam content checker  Inbox preview shows what your email will look like in each major email provider including Hotmail and Outlook 2007  A/B split testing to test subject lines, creative and other elements  Full approval rights and sign-off process  Multi-user login access rights  API access for simple integration Technical Overview Maxemail is a web-based solution although it is also available as an installed solution in some circumstances. Tracking capabilities Maxemail tracks all of the standard metrics such as bounces, opens, click-throughs, conversions / revenue/purchases and unsubscribes.

These are displayed in a variety of statistical, data and graphical reports including:

 Real time overview of campaign statistics  Funnel reports  Data export tool to extract reports such as who clicked on links and any other actions  Tracking of sales & conversions resulting from the email campaign  Heatmap reports showing an overlay of click-throughs and purchases on top of your email creative  Engagement Reports – what the open/click rate of each individual subscriber is, over the period of emails you wish to report on  Viral tracking of ―Email a friend‖  Comparison reports between campaigns  Reports per domain showing bounce, open and click-through rate per ISP  Deliverability reports showing the status of your email at each ISP before and at the end of the send (I.E. Inbox, Junk or Missing at the likes of Hotmail, AOL etc)

One of the advantages of the Maxemail reporting is the custom reporting tool that enables users to create fully bespoke data reports.

Emailcenter also offer a behavioural email service. This allows you to track what your customers are doing on the site and target emails to them on the back of it. See: http://bit.ly/bHWGdz

Data capabilities Maxemail automates many of the data management processes including:

 Automatic de-duplication of lists  Identification of invalid addresses  Data appending  Automatic bounce exclusion  Multiple unsubscribe options  Segmentation tool  Suppression lists for excluding certain groups  Surveys and data capture forms Costs and pricing methods There are numerous options: (please be as specific as possible) Maxemail onDemand (Self-service web based solution) : Pricing is based upon:  Set-up & Training  Cost per email sent

Customers can choose to pay monthly or buy a credit pack of emails.

Maxemail inHouse (The installed solution): Pricing is based upon a licence made up of numerous variables including database size and functionality required with an annual support fee.

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Company Details Company Name Emailcenter UK Limited

Maxemail Managed (Fully managed email campaigns): There is a management fee per campaign plus a cost per email sent.

For a personalised quote please speak with our sales team on 01327 350921. Training & Support How many UK support staff do 7 you have? During what hours are your UK 8.30am – 6:30pm with out of hours support available on request support lines manned? What type of training Is Telephone included? (e.g. telephone and On-site on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other Each account is assigned an account manager who is responsible for providing advice and types of support and training guidance including regular ―Health-checks‖. The account manager is also on hand to help (e.g. strategic workshops and implement advanced email marketing techniques including dynamic content, A/B split test access to experts) programmes, viral campaigns and automated emailing.

Users are also free to attend our regular webinars on all aspects of Maxemail and email marketing techniques. Deliverability Please summarise your Yes Our deliverability solution offers inbox monitoring at major ISPs such as Hotmail, Yahoo, deliverability strategy BT, AOL, Tiscali and Gmail, Spam scoring against major corporate filters and an Inbox Preview option that shows how your message will be displayed at the likes of Hotmail and Outlook 2007.

Unlike our competitors Emailcenter started developing our own deliverability tools back in 2005 rather than reselling US solutions. This enables our monitoring tools to focus more on UK ISP‘s rather than US. In addition it also means we are in complete control if further ISPs are requested for monitoring by clients. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Return Path – we have 11 customers Senderscore Certified at the time of writing email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Our account management team ensure that customers are aware of best practice in relation to their email marketing and assist where possible in improving the email marketing. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Our most recent white papers are: Publications/ Industry events Consumer views on email marketing http://www.emailcenteruk.com/email-marketing-knowledge/consumer-views-email-marketing- 2010-t.html

Maximising the value of your email database http://www.emailcenteruk.com/calculator/ Forums/Memberships Emailcenter are members of The Institute of Direct Marketing (The IDM) Additional, supporting information Other relevant information Emailcenter is an award winning Email Marketing Service Provider with the IDM and commendations from Revolution and NMA. This was for our work with toptable.com. Read the case study here: http://www.emailcenteruk.com/toptable

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Emailcenter – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email we are program now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.8. Emailvision

Company Details Company Name Emailvision UK Ltd Company Logo

URL www.emailvision.co.uk UK Head Office Address Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9LT Other office locations France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, USA, Brazil, Portugal, China Contact Name Nick Gold, Regional Manager Northern Europe Contact Telephone +44 207 554 4500 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Email marketing software-as-a-service Brief Company History Founded in May 1999 in Paris by Nick Heys, CEO, Emailvision has grown to become a market (including number of years of and technology leader in on-demand software for email marketing. Emailvision has been in the business in UK) UK since 2000 and now has offices in the major global markets and a staff of over 350. Number of UK Employees 70 (over 350 globally) Turnover for 2009 (or last Jan – Dec 2009 accounting period including €29.3m dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 35% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 €50m Projected year-on-year growth First half 2010= 46% for 2010

USP What sets you apart from High performance robust technology, most globally extensive service & support competitors? team, European Leadership. Emailvision is the world‘s fastest growing email marketing services provider, with latest results showing 47% growth.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Sainsburys, UEFA, Orange, Schuh, Centaur media, Rank Interactive, Filofax, National Magazine Company, The AA, Nationwide, uSwitch, Opodo, Channel 4, Playfish, Habitat, Paul Smith, Tie Rack, Dior, Agent Provocateur, Lombok, Disney, The Body Shop, Filofax Which verticals/sectors, if any, We work across all vertical markets, but have particular expertise in eCommerce, retail, do you specialise in? publishing, travel, gaming, insurance, finance Case Study UK client case study http://www.emailvision.co.uk/resources-email-marketing/success-stories

Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes – Clients can capitalise on the breadth and depth of email marketing knowledge via our planning Strategic Marketing Consultancy division. Our services range from ad-hoc projects designed to gain greater insight into a particular area such as strategies to build an opt-in email database,

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Company Details Company Name Emailvision UK Ltd how to make your emails more relevant, calculating email subscriber lifetime value, integrating email with social/mobile/offline/online; through to developing an overall email marketing strategy for an organization.

In addition Emailvision‘s account management team can help with all-day-to-day campaign planning activity. Design and copywriting Emailvision work with third parties to provide this List provision No Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash No Video No Audio No ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS, RSS e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Multivariate testing, transactional email platform, iPhone application, Emailvision training specify) Academy, social media integration Integration Please provide details of level Web analytics > Omniture, Coremetrics, Google, Nedstat, Xiti, Webtrends , of integration possible with other technology, e.g. web CRM > Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics analytics Which protocols are supported HTTP, XML, APIs, SQL (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Yes, through API‘s free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Campaign Commander™ includes an easy to use "share-with-my-social-network" feature integration with social media allowing clients to share and track email promotions, offers and newsletters with your social services, and measurement network directly to subscribers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, Delicious, Netvibes, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo BuzzUp, Viadeo, Hyves, Mister, Wong, Netlog, Orkut, @Mail.ru Product Details Product Name Campaign Commander™

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Company Details Company Name Emailvision UK Ltd Product Features  Intuitive software service for maximum productivity  Proactive support, training and professional services  Highest email deliverability rates in the industry  Easy integration with your in-house CRM, database and analytics solutions  Powerful automation and optimisation tools to increase campaign response  Robust and secure technical infrastructure  Real-time reports and dashboards  The global market & technology leader since 1999  Integrated SMS and RSS marketing capabilities  Competitive subscription rates tailored to your budget and list size Technical Overview Campaign Commander™ is an on-demand software as a service (SaaS) available anytime via any internet browser. Offered as an all inclusive web based subscription service, there is no infrastructure to implement, no software licences or hardware to buy, and no specialised technical staff to hire and train.

The Campaign Commander™ software service is a web native on-demand solution built on the industry standard Java J2EE, Linux and Oracle architecture mix. Emailvision offers a robust and secure technical infrastructure, with the highest level of capacity for its customers. It was designed to support significant and increasing loads. We currently offer capacity to handle over 20 Billion email messages per year. Client of Emailvision benefit from automatic and free upgrades to our software on a quarterly basis, following continual R&D investments made to ensure our clients benefit from more marketing automation, performance and productivity features.

The Campaign Commander™ application is accessible via a secure login. A number of secure login validation procedures (including access rights and profile management) guarantee the security of access to client data. The Emailvision technology is hosted in high security data centres and all data centres comply with the most stringent security and redundancy standards including: Access Protection, Validation, Intrusion detection, Content control and Anti-virus software.

Tracking capabilities Campaign Commander™ allows real-time tracking technology to report campaign open rates, click through rates, unsubscribe rates, bounce rates, conversion rates, sales and profitability. Customer profiles are updated with tracking information so customer data can be built up for analytics, segmentation and targeting.

Campaign Commander™ also ensures the automated management of hard bounces, un- subscribers and complaints.

Data capabilities Manual or automated data import & export Data management and maintenance List hygiene Data synchronisation

Costs and pricing methods Available upon request (please be as specific as possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do 60 you have? During what hours are your UK 8am – 11pm support lines manned? What type of training Is Emailvision offer a range of on-site training sessions as part of the Emailvision Academy. included? (e.g. telephone and Telephone training can also be offered if required. on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes – quarterly webinars and online FAQ sessions on new features & functionality Please give details of other types of support and training The Emailvision Training Academy provides a broad range of world class courses aimed at (e.g. strategic workshops and marketers of all types. With both technical and strategic marketing courses available the access to experts) Emailvision Training Academy can develop the skills of your entire marketing team. The trainers at Emailvision Training Academy have a wealth of experience in creating, organising and delivering training. Our trainers work with Campaign Commander™ on a daily basis to maintain and develop their product knowledge. Emailvision work with a multitude of clients in a variety of

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Company Details Company Name Emailvision UK Ltd sectors which aids our trainers to constantly develop and further their email marketing knowledge. We are able to pass this onto our clients in the form of training courses and by working closely with them to develop new strategies and skills. Emailvision also offer clients a quarterly best practice seminar.

We also work closely with leading academics in the field of business and email management for example our close working relationship with John Sadowsky of Grenoble University – a world leading exponent of storytelling in marketing.

Deliverability Please summarise your Emailvision provide a dedicated deliverability team to help clients deal with the growing issues deliverability strategy of deliverability through a sophisticated mix of technology and services. The team integrate and automate ever changing spam filter rules in Campaign Commander™ to ensure clients accounts are configured for optimal deliverability including:

Custom account configuration Dedicated IP address set up White listing Sender ID Framework (SIDF) configuration

Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes – Goodmail, Return Path email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy We adhere to best practice, through our membership with the DMA.

Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Whitepapers >http://www.emailvision.co.uk/resources-email-marketing/white-papers-reports Publications/ Publications >Dummies Guide to Retention Email Marketing Industry events Industry events >http://www.emailvision.co.uk/news-email-marketing/events Forums/Memberships DMA, shop.org, MAAWG, AFDEL, Econsultancy, EBG, ACSEL, SNCD, DDV, trust-e, IMRG Additional, supporting information Other relevant information Press releases: http://www.emailvision.co.uk/news-email-marketing/press Blog: http://www.emailvision.co.uk/blog Facebook group EmailvisionTV: http://www.emailvision.co.uk/news-email-marketing/emailvision-tv Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/emailvisionuk

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Emailvision – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & Where support for whole we are client email program going Where we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where we are going

Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.9. emarsys

Company Details Company Name emarsys Company Logo

URL www.emarsys.com UK Head Office Address 100 Euston street London NW1 2HQ Other office locations emarsys eMarketing Systems AG Märzstrasse 1 1150 Vienna Maximilianstrasse 4b 82319 Starnberg Stralauer Platz 34 D-10243 Berlin c/o Nemuk AG Kanzleistrasse 53 8004 Zurich Contact Name Andrew Fullerton Contact Telephone 02073880888 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Through a 360° approach of combining best-of-breed email marketing features and automation with strategic consulting and a large professional services portfolio, emarsys' goal is to help its clients achieve higher email ROI.

More than 600 companies and agencies – both European and international – are among our satisfied customers and send a combined volume of more than 12 billion emails every year using our SaaS email platform.

Brief Company History Emarsys was founded in January 2000 as a solution by marketers and for marketers, offering (including number of years of market-leading technology that is at the same time simple to integrate and use. Today, 10 years business in UK) into its European operations, emarsys is a market leader in Austria, has opened offices in Germany, Switzerland (with more European and Asian locations scheduled to open next year). Emarsys UK office opened in April 2009 and is growing rapidly each month, already numbering 26 employees and over 80 clients. Number of UK Employees 26 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 65 percent organic growth (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed Projected year-on-year growth 75 percent organic growth for 2010

USP What sets you apart from The only real email CMS emarsys is the only ESP to offer a CMS that provides proper competitors? message rendering and is compliant with all major ISP requirements. This enables us to automate truly Dynamic Content and achieve best in class Behavioural Targeting.

Market-leading Deliverability platform emarsys is the only ESP to own and operate its own Deliverability platform – Delivery Watch, allowing us to achieve industry best inbox Deliverability

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Company Details Company Name emarsys of over 99 percent accepted SenderScore rate.

Unique broadcasting capabilities: We can send up to 7 million emails per hour, per account, with the speed of upload of 10 million records within 4 minutes.

Individual systems for different client needs: emarsys provides two separate state-of-the-art platforms created and tailored specifically for enterprises with different size databases and needs: from self-service all-in-one email marketing suite to best-of-breed broadcasting platform which connects seamlessly with the clients‘ existing applications.

Social Media Integration on a new level: emarsys bring Social Media Integration to a new level. Our technology allows recipients to be selective in either sharing the entire email or just specific content areas and enables clients to recognise and reward brand advocates through extensive tracking and analysis.

Full flexibility emarsys give clients full flexibility: depending on their specific requirements, they can choose to avail of fully-managed service from our account management team, opt for collaborative service or go completely self-service.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Alpharooms, Mainline Menswear, Prezzybox, Cloggs, Past Times, SCI, Global Reach Partners, The Holiday Place, Air Southwest Which verticals/sectors, if any, Retail, Travel, Media & Publishing, Technology, Finance do you specialise in? Case Study UK client case study

Customer Profile

Alpharooms.com is one of the UK's leading websites for discount worldwide travel. It offers some of the best deals available on the internet for discount hotels and flights. Currently celebrating 11 years of successful trading, the company continues to grow, with over 100 employees and a portfolio of over 70,000 hotels and apartments worldwide. Alpharooms also operate websites in Ireland, Germany, France and Spain.

Challenges

 Transactional Messages

Using email as one of the main customer communication tools, alpharooms were in need of a reliable partner to provide complex transactional messages which would be in line with the comprehensive product and service range: from flight only and flight +hotel offers, to car rentals and travel insurance services.

 Marketing Messages

To increase the relevancy of their marketing messages, alpharooms wanted to send out their weekly travel offers tied to relevant UK airports. They thus needed of a solution that would help them send individualised messages in high volumes without jeopardising the email quality and spending extra time and resources on coding HTML.

 Up-sell

Alpharooms were looking to use their transactional messages which generally enjoy high open

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Company Details Company Name emarsys rates to generate more bookings through cross- and up-selling.

Solution

To address the client challenges, emarsys built two content management systems for alpharooms - one tailored specifically for transactional and one for marketing email messages.

For transactional messages, the bespoke emarsys CMS enabled the alpharooms and emarsys account teams to easily build 38 different types of email messages in four languages. In 30 days turnaround time alpharooms had reliable and relevant transactional messages running, delivered to the recipients‘ mailboxes. In addition, the emarsys Transactional Module also provided them with the opportunity to incorporate cross- and up-selling messages and interactive customer surveys for increased customer engagement and better loyalty.

For marketing messages, emarsys helped alpharooms to significantly improve their regular emails by altering the client sign-up form in order to gain in-depth customer insight and by utilising the CMS to enable alpharooms to send highly personalised offers, precisely targeted based on the customer demographic and previous purchase behaviour, as well as on the open and click-through behaviour across the year.

Finally, to ensure alpharooms marketing and transactional messages always hit the customer inbox; emarsys assigned a dedicated team of deliverability consultants for ongoing monitoring of campaign performance.

Results

 Improved deliverability rate of 99.75 percent and 99.6 percent across transactional and marketing messages accordingly. Virtually 100 percent inbox delivery  Cross- / up-selling message click rate of 30-35 percent with the resulted increase in sales by 9 percent  15 percent response rate achieved for post-travel surveys – 53 percent of users providing user-generated content  Resulted ROI - 32% increase

―Emarsys helped us improve relevancy of our marketing messages and increase response rates through better targeting. They allowed us to completely take our minds off email setup, dispatch and deliverability and free up time to focus on business development. It will be safe to say that the 32 percent increase in the email marketing ROI that we have seen in the last year is largely due to the emarsys technology and support.‖

Daniel Morley Marketing Director

Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes (with dedicated Account Manager) Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes, emarsys team work with each client individually to assess their business needs and advise planning on the best marketing strategy and tactics. With constant focus on the key goal - maximising the client‘s ROI while minimising the involved workload- we carefully study the results of previous client campaigns and email marketing activities to develop propositions and solutions based on best email practice and client specificities. Design and copywriting Yes, as part of our dedicated professional services department emarsys is pleased to offer design and copywriting services upon request

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Company Details Company Name emarsys List provision Emarsys itself does not own any data, however on request we work with accredited list suppliers, carefully selecting the appropriate provider depending on the circumstances. In addition, we always work with clients to determine how to achieve list growth using internal touch points first, prior to purchasing external services. Legal advice Emarsys does not offer any formal legal advice services. However, as a member of the Direct Marketing Association, emarsys is always up-to-date with the latest developments in email marketing-related legislation and provides clients with comprehensive information prior to and throughout campaigns. This includes information on privacy legislation, ISP relations, Data Protection Act issues and other. Data management Yes, emarsys offer a wide range of data management services, from comprehensive data audit to data cleansing and trimming and data segmentation Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Emarsys is leading in email broadcasting with our state-of -the art, specially designed email broadcasting platform. Our software is designed to mail any quantities, from smaller lists to highly individualised multi-million email campaigns we do for eBay. We send over a billion emails every month, in 37 languages, worldwide. Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes emarsys innovative template-based CMS enables rules-based personalisation of email content, from reply-to and subject to email body and links based on user behavioural and demographic data Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes Images are hosted in emarsys CMS. micro-sites and landing pages can be built using the sites simple creation tool in no time or prior HTML knowledge, all integrated with the emarsys CMS Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Emarsys reports and analysis tools go beyond the industry norm in providing insights into how to optimise your email marketing activities.  Live reports provides immediate access to all campaign results (open rates, bounces, clickthrough, unsubscribe, conversion rates, etc.)  Profile-based comparison of campaign results  Post-click conversion and ROI tracking  Trends analysis comparing any number of campaigns over any period of time  Visual click-through report  Drill-down analysis from graphical reports  Reports on development of list growth activities  Ecommerce tracking

Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes As part of the emarsys comprehensive Deliverability services we offer Inbox Rendering showing clients how email Preview for all major email and mobile clients. Other Deliverability measures include: Spam Filter content appears on major Testing, email Subject Checker, monitoring and solutions such as Delivery Watch – a leading email clients and browsers) web-based, self-service solution for email deliverability testing. Other messaging services, e.g. SMS, RSS, Transactional Messages SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please  Social Media Integration, with the ability to choose whether to share the whole email or just specify) selected content areas.  Interactive Web Forms for lead capturing, event sign-ups and surveys, easily created in no time and with no prior HTML knowledge required  Content Management  Event-triggered and life-cycle campaigns

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Company Details Company Name emarsys  Behavioural Targeting and Segmentation  Split-run campaign testing  A/B testing for ecommerce  Subscriber data synchronisation across multiple sources  Content Automation  Reply Management  API As well as:  Research and Consulting  Creative services upon request

Integration Please provide details of level Emarsys technology can be integrated with clients‘ ERP, CRM, CMS. We are integrated with of integration possible with analytics providers such as Omniture, Nedstat, Google Analytics, ecommerce applications other technology, e.g. web analytics Which protocols are supported HTTPS, REST, PHP, Java Script, XML (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any emarsys integrates with all major social media platforms (see next section for detail) and integration with social media provides extensive tracking capabilities to measure: services, and measurement Forwards  How many people clicked one of the ‗share this content‘ icons  Who these people were (a customer might want to offer rewards, for example, to people who forward campaigns which then generate revenue)  Which networks were used  Breakdown per content level (entire email or individual content element)

Opens  How many people opened the forwarded content  Who forwarded them the content

Clicks  How many people clicked links in the online version that they opened  Who forwarded them the original content  Which network they came from  How many people subscribed because of this Product Details Product Name emarsys Email Marketing Suite Product Features  Market-leading Email CMS  The emarsys leading email content management system enables marketers to create professional, highly personalised email campaigns without any HTML knowledge.  Web Forms and Surveys  The emarsys Web Forms generator enables marketers to create branded and hosted web forms in no time without HTML or programming knowledge.  Guaranteed Deliverability emarsys owns and operates its own Deliverability platform used by clients like CNN and Salesforce. See the Deliverability section for further detail  Content Automation The emarsys Content Automation enables you to automatically create your email messages importing content from external sources and insert it into the email message via XML/RSS or HTTP links. The content, inserted into the message at a predefined time before the scheduled launched, is personalised for individual recipients and any available links are made trackable.

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Company Details Company Name emarsys  Data Synchronisation The emarsys Data Synchronisation enables you to have your subscriber data automatically synchronised between your internal data storage systems and the emarsys application‘s own subscriber database.  Comprehensive Reporting Our Reports and Analysis tools go beyond the industry norm in providing valuable insights into how to optimise your email marketing activities. See the Tracking section for detail.  Transactional Messages the emarsys Transactional Messaging Module enables you to setup personalised email messages launched through website or database transactions. The feature includes all necessary parameters needed to personalise and individualise content of each message. You can enhance the email by easily adding cross- or up-selling or any additional information.  Social Media Integration The emarsys Social Media feature allows recipients to share their email content on social networks of their choice, exposing your brand and marketing message to millions of users on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg and many other. The unique feature of the emarsys Social Media functionality is that it allows recipients to choose whether to share the whole email or just selected content areas. Technical Overview We base our email marketing application on proven, reliable and industry-leading technology:

 100% J2EE application  PowerMTA SMTP engine by Port25  Dell servers running Debian GNU/Linux

Our highest priority is making sure your data is safe with us:

 128-bit SSL data encryption by VeriSign  User authentication  Firewall-secured networks  Physical and system access control  Intrusion detection system  External security audits  Redundancy of all system components  2 distributed, secure, state-of-the-art hosting centres  Daily backups with off-site storage  24/7 system availability and performance monitoring  Tested business continuity plan in case of disasters Tracking capabilities On top of the standard reports and clicks, opens, conversions, bounces and unsubscribes, emarsys Email Marketing Suite allows you to compare campaign results between target group profiles or see exactly where your recipients have clicked in the email itself in the visual report. In addition, it enables in-depth trends comparison analysis of any number of campaigns over any period of time and allows tracking of development of user registrations.

Emarsys Email Marketing Suite also enables ecommerce and Abandoned Shopping Carts tracking for ROI measurement and retargeting. All results are displayed in a visual click-through report, in real time. Data capabilities Emarsys platforms enable clients to store all their data from multiple sources, including response, transactional, customer demographics data. It is synchronised with data from various external databases, and the synchronisation process is automated. The data is easily accessible for analysis and tracking and segmentation purposes. Product Name emarsys Broadcast Product Features Emarsys Broadcast is a unique, state-of-the art email broadcasting system that seamlessly integrates with the existing client environment. The global and sole email platform used by eBay, it is able to achieve speed of send of up to 7 million per hour, per account and speed of upload of 10 million records within 4 minutes. Some of the unique system features include:  API  The most comprehensive and flexible user rights management system  Automated split run testing which allows sending the final version automatically after testing, based on the best ecommerce results

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Company Details Company Name emarsys  Regional time zone messages

Costs and pricing methods Emarsys offers a flexible pricing model that can be customised to fit the needs of any company (please be as specific as and really is all inclusive - support, unlimited KB for mail sending, own domain/sub domain and possible) many others. Training & Support How many UK support staff do 10 you have? During what hours are your UK Full support team is available all day during business working hours, 5 days a week. Special support lines manned? services include 24/7 support What type of training Is A wide range of training options is offered - from email marketing education to hands-on included? (e.g. telephone and workshops on working with our applications. Both telephone and on-site training is offered. on-site product training) Sessions are held either on the customer's premises or at one of our office locations.

Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other emarsys clients can choose from the following training options, depending on their specific types of support and training needs: (e.g. strategic workshops and  Email marketing strategy workshops access to experts)  Email marketing best practice training  phone and web-based training  training on site  on-demand one-on-one workshops

Deliverability Please summarise your Emarsys takes pride in being able to achieve industry best Deliverability rate with over 99 deliverability strategy percent accepted SenderScore rate. To enable that, we have taken the task of Deliverability to a new level by developing a dedicated Deliverability Platform-Delivery Watch - and supplementing it with a range of dedicated Deliverability services.

emarsys special Deliverability solutions include:

Delivery Watch: Used as a natural extension of our Email Marketing Suite Deliverability feature or as a stand-alone product for clients who are not using other emarsys technology, Delivery Watch is a leading web-based, self-service solution for email Deliverability optimisation. Delivery Watch offers a suite of monitoring and diagnostic tools:

ISP Delivery Tracking Delivery Watch checks the inbox arrival of your email campaigns against major ISPs and Webmail providers in user-defined geographical regions.

Spam Filter Testing Delivery Watch determines the ‗spamminess‘ your emails with today's most widely used corporate and consumer spam filter software and services.

Blacklist Monitor If your mail server IP addresses are on public blacklists, Blacklist Monitor will ferret out the relevant information and provide you with removal options.

Server Configuration Identifies mail server configuration elements that could result in blocked emails.

Sender Authentication Determines whether your emails comply with key sender authentication standards.

Analytics Delivery Watch provides you with a set of standard reports that help you pinpoint opportunities for increasing future email deliverability. All reports are based on the results of your own activities as well as the real-time benchmarked results of all other Delivery Watch users

In addition, emarsys offers a range of Deliverability-specific services including:

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Company Details Company Name emarsys  Direct ISP Relations and White listing  Proper Mail Server Configuration  Client Setup and Best Practice Advice  Ongoing Monitoring  Automated ISP-centric launch throttling

Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Goodmail, Return Path, Trusted Dialog email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Emarsys is committed to always adhering to and advocating best practices in email marketing. With our extensive experience in international operations, we stay on top of the latest industry trends and developments which we consistently communicate to our clients and partners. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Emarsys is author of multiple whitepapers each year and regularly attends industry tradeshows, Publications/ roundtables and conferences. Please visit emarsys website www.emarsys.com for a list of Industry events upcoming events and to find our publications Forums/Memberships DMA, Econsultancy Additional, supporting information Other relevant information Our rapidly growing UK operations build upon more than 10 years of experience in the European market where emarsys clients include such companies as eBay, Canon, Honda, Vodafone, Siemens, Playboy, Escada, Burton, Zurich Insurance, Austria Tourism and many more.

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emarsys – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where Where client email we are we are program going now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke Where we are functionality we are going now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.10. Epsilon

Company Details Company Name Epsilon International Company Logo

URL www.epsilon.com/uk UK Head Office Address Teddington House, 67 Broad Street, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 8QZ Other office locations Paris, Düsseldorf, Dublin, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Toronto, Dallas, Washington DC, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Guangzhou, Sydney, Melbourne Contact Name Richard Wright – Marketing Director Contact Telephone 0208 943 8024 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition ROI Driven Digital & Email Solutions on a Global Scale - Underpinned by our leading technology, we deliver scalable, measurable solutions that enhance your marketing strategies at either a local or global level. This approach has positioned us as the largest sender of permission-based email in the world. Brief Company History With a history dating back to 1969 Epsilon acquired Bigfoot Interactive in 2005 and DoubleClick (including number of years of Email Solutions in 2006, to create Epsilon and Epsilon International, the largest global Email business in UK) Service Provider. Number of UK Employees 47 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not available for Epsilon International. Epsilon International‘s parent company, Alliance Data accounting period including Systems publish their annual reports online at: dates) http://www.alliancedata.com/pages/investorrelations/annualreport.aspx 2009 year-on-year growth See above (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not available Projected year-on-year growth Not available for 2010

USP What sets you apart from Knowledge & Insight – our experienced teams deliver best practice & offer practical advice for competitors? more profitable digital communication

Scalability & Flexibility – proven technical platforms and a creative approach that can deliver on a local or global scale

Deliverability & ISP relations – a specialist team of deliverability experts and analysts that maintain strong ISP relations around the world

Financial Stability – owned by Alliance Data Services who have a track record of sustained growth & profitability

Integrated Technology – best of breed platforms and a powerful API that seamlessly integrates with your technology Clients Examples of UK Clients Tesco, M&S, Reed Business Information, The Economist, British Heart Foundation, The National Trust, NSPCC, Acceleration, Ogilvy One, Loyalty Management Group (Nectar), Hasbro, Man Investments, Chartered Insurance Institute, AOL Broadband, BeatThatQuote.com, Nestle, Thomson Reuters, Crayon Examples of global clients: P&G, Disney, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Marriott, National Geographic,

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Company Details Company Name Epsilon International Dell Which verticals/sectors, if any, Retail, Travel, Finance, Entertainment, Charities, Publishing, FMCG, Telecoms, Online gaming, do you specialise in? Agencies, Electronics Case Study UK client case study Tesco Phone Shop improve email targeting through preference centre

Background & solutions The Tesco Phone Shop, part of the UK‘s largest retailer, recently re-launched their brand online. Offering a wide range of telecommunication services to UK customers, including broadband, mobile phones, Digital TV & accessories, they enjoy a loyal customer base. As part of the re- launch, they embarked upon a strategic project to raise the profile of the Tesco Phone Shop brand, as well as make it easier for their customers to engage with their products and services online.

Through consultation with the Tesco Phone Shop team, Epsilon was able to establish that their specific requirements could be met best with the introduction of preference centre and double opt in process for customers. The Tesco Phone Shop preference centre allows the client to segment new subscribers by preference types by breaking down the offers into key interest areas. Examples include:  Exclusive Tesco Phone Shop Offers  iPhone on Tesco Mobile deals  Pay Monthly Deals  Pay as you go mobile phones and accessories  Broadband and home phone  Free gifts, Clubcard promotions and other competitions  Mobile downloads: games, ringtones, screensavers

By allowing customers to select the topics they want to receive information on, Tesco Phone Shop is able to develop more targeted and relevant email campaigns based on customer preferences. Research suggests that when customers choose the material they wish to receive, they are more likely to engage with the brand. As a result, this typically leads to more satisfied and interested customers over a longer period of time. The Tesco Phone Shop preference centre was successfully scoped, developed, implemented and project managed by Epsilon.

Through the introduction of a double opt in policy - whereby subscribers are asked to re-confirm their registration after opting into an email stream - email list hygiene was improved leading to improved email deliverability and a more engaged customer base.

Results Since the introduction of the solution in early November 2009, Tesco Phone Shop has dramatically enhanced their email reporting metrics:  Open rates have increased by 26.5%  Click through rates have increased by 339%  Hard bounces have reduced by 44.98%

Customers now receive a more bespoke offering from the Tesco Phone Shop‘s email campaign and this has greatly strengthened the Tesco Phone Shop strategy. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes, working with leading industry partners

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Company Details Company Name Epsilon International Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes Automation possible within system or custom scripting for more detailed data management validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Automated as necessary Sequence messaging Yes Automated as necessary Web Analytics Integrated with leading analytics packages and partners, including deepest level of integration available with Omniture‘s ‗Site Catalyst‘ tool Reporting Yes Including post click-through analysis giving visibility info transactions and actual purchases generated from a campaign. Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes Return Path is fully integrated into the toolset and provided to clients as standard showing clients how email functionality at no additional cost content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS services available through partner Netsize e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Data analytics and campaign planning. Custom benchmarking and reporting services specify) Integration Please provide details of level Integration is available through our open API using XML. We integrate with various Web of integration possible with analytics packages (e.g. Omniture) and SMS (e.g. Netsize) and Survey packages (e.g. other technology, e.g. web SensorPro) analytics Which protocols are supported SOAP and HTTP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Yes, through the comprehensive DM ConnectAPI toolkit free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any SWYSN, Social email subscriptions, custom Facebook application development, social media integration with social media data enrichment solutions. services, and measurement Referrer and referee counts Product Details Product Name Two distinct email marketing platforms: DREAMmail (formerly known as DoubleClick DARTmail) and DREAM. Choice of solution is based on detailed assessment of the client‗s requirements. Product Features  Email Delivery, tracking and reporting  Speed throttling- DREAMmail up to 3 million emails per client, per hour / DREAM up to 8 million emails per client, per hour  Dynamic personalisation, targeting and filtering on Recency, Frequency, Behaviour and Spend  Triggered messaging  Real time messaging for transactional message emails  Automatic handling of unsubscribes and bouncebacks

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Company Details Company Name Epsilon International  Inbound capability  Data hygiene & de-duplication  Multipart messaging (auto sensing)  Message forward tracking  Subscription forms  Full tracking and reporting including domain and inbox deliverability, open and click through rates  Post click analysis for transactions, purchases, registrations and online applications  Data Management  Project Management Office -working with the industry standard PRINCE2 methodology ensures that Account Managers have the knowledge and skills to manage programmes from start to finish.

The product is an ASP with an open API available. Self or full service solutions available Technical Overview SQL Server based database, Web interface, open API (Full system architecture available on request) Tracking capabilities Full tracking and reporting available including opens, click-throughs, bouncebacks, unsubscribes, visual and graphical reporting, most active customer reporting, response curve, post click-through (purchase and transaction reporting using Spotlight tags), export reporting Data capabilities Data can be imported via secure FTP, over the interface (up to 10MB at a time), via the API or via Web forms. Data import and export can be automated as required. Costs and pricing methods Pricing consists of an initial set up and training fee, then ongoing monthly fees dependant on (please be as specific as volume of emails deployed and account management requirements. possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do Over 40 London based employees in direct client support. Application Support team of 9. Native you have? speakers in French, German and Spanish. During what hours are your UK 9am to 6pm UK Time. 24 hour, English speaking, support is available through our global support support lines manned? teams What type of training Is Telephone, web conferencing (WebEx), onsite standard and onsite advanced courses included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other Quarterly Benchmarking reports comparing client results to industry benchmark averages types of support and training quarter on quarter. (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts)  Product Webinars upon product upgrades and updates  Analytics training and workshops  Online resource centre and help provided on line through user interface  Named Account Director for strategic guidance  Creative reviews and best practice support

Deliverability Please summarise your Epsilon International‗s Email Delivery Management teams continuously develop and maintain deliverability strategy ‗face to face‗ relationships with key contacts within all of the major ISPs – at a local-level within each region. The team includes native speakers in English, French, German and Spanish.

Our European ISP team is headed by James Pomeroy. James and his team are solely tasked with managing our ISP relations in the EMEA region and ensuring Epsilon conform to and abide by all deliverability best practices and legislation.

Epsilon also employs a number of procedures and technical solutions to maintain and build upon our reputation with the ISP‗s and to improve on our current average inbox delivery rate of 95%:

 Proactive daily checks and analysis against pre-set thresholds across all customers ensure the highest standards of deliverability are maintained.  Support of authentication solutions such as SPF from AOL, sender ID from Microsoft,

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Company Details Company Name Epsilon International Domain Keys from Yahoo! but also Bonded Sender (known for increasing deliverability up to 21%)  IronPort hardware: This mail transfer agent is highly reputed for its robustness, security and reliability  Accurate processing of bounce codes  Feedback loops set up with ISPs: They ensure that unsubscribe requests sent to ISPs (generally filed as complaints) are almost instantly processed and reported back  Spam Filter Monitor service: Unlike most pre-deployment checking systems, Spam Filter Monitor checks not only the content but also the routing of a message as it leaves Epsilon‗s servers  Blacklist alerts: All IP addresses operated by Epsilon International are automatically checked 24 hours a day 7 days a week against more than 200 black lists  Spam Trap Suppression  ISP Seeding: All campaigns deployed from Epsilon‗s platforms are automatically seeded at leading ISP‗s. Only Epsilon International offers its customers the ability to check the delivery of campaigns in the inbox by logging into the user interface  Registration to ISP white list when available  Privacy & Delivery Optimization Consulting  Education: Proprietary Research, Legislative Updates  Delivery Best Practices - In October 2003, Epsilon Interactive International in co-ordination with the Association of Interactive Marketing (AIM) released the industry's first Best Practices document covering email delivery. Do you have a deliverability Yes, known as DREAMmail Delivery Assurance, in partnership with Returnpath assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Goodmail, Return Path email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Epsilon adheres to all data related legislation and directives in local regions. We are committed to developing and using proven email marketing privacy and permission best practices to ensure our clients‗success. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ See http://www.epsilon.com/emea/Resource%20Centre/p75-l1 Publications/ Industry events Events attended include: Digital Cream, eMarketing Forum, MD Expo, Online Expo, Online Marketing Show, Econsultancy‘s Online Marketing Masterclass, Econsultancy‘s Email Marketing Suppliers Showcase, ecommerce Expo, DMEXCO, VAD, Figaro Digital Health Check, Deutschen Handelswerbekongress, DMX Austria, CeBIT, Mailingtage, Econsultancy‘s Jump

Forums/Memberships  Member of the DMA - Direct Marketing Association - UK, USA, China (incl. Hong Kong), Australia, Asia (incl. Singapore)  Marketing Technology & Internet Council member  Founding member of the Interactive Marketing Advisory Board (DMA IMAB) and executive, educational and council committee member  Chairman of the DMA IMAB's Council for Responsible Email (CRE) - Lead author of the industry's first email delivery best practices document (issued by the CRE)  Founding organiser and the only ESP on the event Steering Committee (including Microsoft, Symantec & The DMA) of the AOTA (Authentication and Online Trust Alliance)  Member of the Syndicat National de la Communication Directe (SNCD)

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Company Details Company Name Epsilon International  Member of the Electronic Business Group (EBG)  Member of Der Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW)  Member of the Deutscher Direktmarketing Verband (DDV)  Member of the EU Safe Harbor Privacy Seal Program  Member of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)  Member of the Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC) - Receiver Relations Committee - Technology Committee - Legislative Committee  Member of the Certified Senders Alliance  TRUSTe partner

Additional, supporting information Other relevant information Epsilon acquired DoubleClick Email Solutions worldwide in early April 2006. DREAMmail is the new brand name for DARTmail, previously the ASP solution offered by DoubleClick Email Solutions.

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Epsilon – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we are we are now going

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke we are functionality Where going we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.11. ExactTarget

Company Details Company Name ExactTarget Company Logo

URL http://www.exacttarget.co.uk UK Head Office Address Eisley House 24-30 Great Tichfield Street London W1W 8BE United Kingdom Other office locations Indianapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Australia Contact Name Nigel Arthur, MD Contact Telephone + 44 7540 789093 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email and interactive marketing solutions. The company‘s software as a service technology provides organisations a single platform to connect with customers via email, SMS text messaging, social media and landing pages. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget‘s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others.

ExactTarget‘s software powers permission-based multi-channel communications for thousands of organisations around the world including Expedia.com, Aurora Fashions, Papa John‘s, Value Retail, Ministry of Sound, Visit London, World Society for Protection of Animals and Gulf Air. Brief Company History  Founded in December 2000 (including number of years of  Over 7,000 organisations worldwide using our software business in UK)  Privately held organisation  Acquired Twitter business platform, CoTweet, in March 2010 Number of UK Employees 40 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not disclosed (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed Projected year-on-year growth Not disclosed for 2010

USP What sets you apart from ExactTarget differentiates itself from other email service providers through our unmatched competitors? infrastructure, powerful platform, true software plus services approach and our unwavering commitment to subscriber permission.

ExactTarget‘s infrastructure and architecture offers high availability, massive scale, and world- class security. We have the capabilities to consolidate all email/interactive tasks to a single platform. This includes customisable roles and permissions, flexible business units and a robust architecture to handle both ―real time‖ and ―batch‖ emails.

ExactTarget is guaranteed to meet email volumes, data capacities and redundancy requirements. We have made significant financial investments in our infrastructure, and the result is that we can manage all your business processes simultaneously and greatly minimise the risk of interruption.

The ExactTarget Services Team provides the deep expertise and passionate support necessary

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget to ensure your email campaigns produce exceptional results. We can manage entire email marketing programs or provide training designed to optimise both value and results.

At ExactTarget, we believe it is the duty of every Email Service Provider to help marketers deliver permission-based email and digital one-to-one communications to their customers, prospects, and partners. We work diligently to develop products that provide consumers control over the manner and frequency by which companies communicate with them.

ExactTarget‘s competitive differentiation has also been recognised by industry analysts, most notably Forrester Research naming ExactTarget a ―leader‖ in email marketing and awarding the company a perfect 5 of 5 in the Customer Category of ―The Forrester Wave: Email Marketing Service Providers Q4 2009‖ (December 2009) report Clients Examples of UK Clients Aurora Fashions, Value Retail, World Society for Protection of Animals and Gulf Air, Icelandair, Manchester City Football Which verticals/sectors, if any, ExactTarget is one of the world‘s largest and most reliable email service providers. With do you specialise in? thousands of organisations around the globe using our sophisticated platform, we continue to compete for and win new business from organisations in all verticals, but particularly the following:  Retail: From Live Content to Mobile Opt-in, ExactTarget is constantly innovating to meet the needs of the world‘s top retailers like Aurora Fashions and Best Buy.  Travel: From its highly-scalable transactional email engine to advanced data integration capabilities, ExactTarget meets the complex needs of travel giants like Expedia, Priceline, and hotels.com  Media: Content Syndication, and SMS functionality serve the needs of media companies like Gannett, The McClatchy Company, and CareerBuilder.com  Technology: API/automation capabilities, unified content management, and Embedded messaging platform have been adopted by technology leaders like Microsoft, Intuit, and Linksys Case Study UK client case study As the national airline carrier of Iceland, Icelandair connects Iceland with the U.S. and Canada, and offers connecting flights to 17 other European destinations. The airline consistently looks for a better way to connect with its global customers. Icelandair teamed up with ExactTarget and Cotweet to deliver a personalised multi-channel marketing strategy.

Since summer 2009, Icelandair has built customer loyalty through a series of personalised email campaigns. Working with ExactTarget, Icelandair created an online marketing strategy, including an email marketing programme that consists of six targeted email campaigns. The campaigns range from newsletters and frequent flyer updates to pre-flight information messages and post- flight surveys.

Powered by ExactTarget‘s interactive marketing software, Icelandair automatically sends its suite of email communications to clients in 10 countries throughout Europe and North America. ExactTarget‘s international sending technology allows the airline to send its messages in the appropriate format for each country and displays the content in a host of languages including German, Dutch, English, Icelandic, French, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

As a result of Icelandair‘s targeted email programme, the airline has seen an increase in sales and a boost in customer satisfaction. In the future, the airline‘s social media strategy will also be integrated into its email efforts. Using ExactTarget‘s Social Forward technology, Icelandair will enable customers to share email content with up to 50 social network sites including Twitter and Facebook.

In response to a volcanic eruption in April 2010, Icelandair took action through social media to inform its customers in a relevant and timely fashion. The airline launched a communications campaign via CoTweet, a business unit of ExactTarget.

CoTweet helped the airline organise large amounts of communication following the volcanic eruption. The Twitter platform enables Icelandair to report relevant travel information and monitor any tweets that reference the airline. With CoTweet, Icelandair was able to quickly respond to questions and comments by assigning tweets to specific employees. By using the #ashtag and #ashcloud hashtags, Icelandair achieved greater distribution.

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget

The airlines quick response resulted in over 2,000 clicks on the links that they distributed, approximately half from users on Twitter and the remainder from users using registered applications, such as CoTweet or affiliated websites. Additionally, Icelandair‘s tweet volume was nearly tripled in the immediate aftermath of the eruption. #ashtag then became a trending topic after Icelandair started using it on its tweets, resulting in even greater distribution of tweets and links. In just several days, the ‗Volcano News‘ page on the Icelandair website had more than 1,200 views from people in more than 20 different countries.

During a time of crisis, Icelandair kept its customers and others who follow the airline on Twitter up to date. By having a well-defined strategy and adopting CoTweet, Icelandair ensured that the airline‘s reputation wasn‘t tarnished by the fallout from the Volcanic ash cloud. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign ExactTarget‘s strategic services help clients define and develop interactive marketing planning communication strategies and construct actionable marketing plans to deliver measurable business results. Strategic offerings involve a multi-disciplinary team including marketing consultants, deliverability experts, and architects who have many years of experience managing email programs for large enterprises.

Offerings follow ExactTarget‘s proprietary four phase services methodology and typically involves a competitive analysis, deep-dive review of client data, identification of key audience segments, and analysis of marketing goals.

Results are translated into an actionable one-to-one marketing strategy and operating programmes/campaigns. Productised or custom-scoped offerings are available and can suit the needs of complex corporations with multiple brands, business units, and goals. Design and copywriting ExactTarget‘s comprehensive creative services focus on perform-driven email design. The design team members average many years of email experience, have a deep understating of the email environment, and subscriber viewing behaviour stages and rendering best practices to drive designs.

The design optimisation process includes programme and goal identification, brand synergy, strategic visual organisation (wire-framing), subscriber engagement techniques, response maximisation, and quality assurance testing.

The offering often includes a range of custom-scoped collaborative engagements to meet the client‘s unique needs (e.g. design best practices consulting, General Custom Templates, Programme-Specific Emails, Full Email Programme Redesign)All clients also have access to an on-demand Design Resource Centre with ―how to‖ training tools and best practices documents via 3sixty. List provision No Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Non-technical users can define and execute simple and sophisticated user-interface-driven queries in seconds and power users can directly access the segmentation engine through a SQ- compatible interface.

Both approaches can segment millions of records per second, and individual users commonly access hundreds of millions of records in a single query. All pre-defined, user-defined, and other behavioural segment data stored in the system (i.e. point of sale, web behaviour, product

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget information) is available for query.

Segmented data and query definitions can stand alone, be automatically executed as part of an ongoing programme or campaign, and be saved for future reuse or modification. Many pre- defined segments are available and exposed through the user interface.

Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Dynamic Content can be incorporated into emails (e.g. marketing, transactional, e-statement), landing pages, and SMS message. For email, Dynamic Content can be applied to the body content, subject, ad from lines, and complex rules can be managed through ExactTarget‘s user interface. If clients establish hundreds of rules, a marketer-friendly scripting language helps them manage how each rule is applied to an email. ExactTarget‘s Dynamic Content capabilities routinely replace competitive implementations that create dozens of individual emails by using a single dynamic email to accomplish advanced personalisation. Live Content is a solution that populates Dynamic Content at time of open, not send. Reuse of Dynamic Content is also possible through a permission-based sharing model. Hosting for images and micro-ExactTarget provides a full content library shared between email, SMS, and landing pages. sites Many customers interface with existing content sources like content management systems, retail merchandising systems, or other content sources. Time-sensitive content or offers can be expired and alternate content displayed automatically; this can be enforced at the time of email send or open.

Organisations with multiple business units, geographies, or brands can share content across their organisation based on unique sharing rules (US Patent #6,769,002 System and Methods for Multi-Level Electronic Mail Communication Programmes).Content can be saved, organised, and store using a flexible folder structure and mapped to virtually any structure or nomenclature. Content assets can be tagged and named so users can quickly and easily find and retrieve desired content. Users can also create content on-the-fly, such as subscriber-specific barcodes or on-line promotional codes. Event triggered messaging The ExactTarget application provides highly flexible campaign automation capabilities that streamline virtually any business process and support any technical infrastructure. All ExactTarget system activities can be defined and automated within the UI using multi-step campaigns (e.g. file transfers, imports, queries, segmentations, sending, exports).

Campaigns can be driven by date, schedule, event, or web services API calls. Technical users can also leverage the APIs to carry out automation programmes, such as real-time triggered messages based on purchase or online registration.

Pre-defined integrations with Omniture, Coremetrics, and WebTrends provide templates for remarketing scenarios that leverage shopping cart abandonment, new/repeat purchase data, and product browsing information.

Through its Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM integration, ExactTarget also offers seven pre-defined B2B and B2C templates for lead nurturing, webinar registrations, and other common automation scenarios. Sequence messaging ExactTarget‘s Automated Interaction Management lets you automate data aggregation and multi-channel digital messaging processes through a single platform. Achieve cross-channel consistency and a 360-degree view of your communication strategy...without losing precious time on once-manual processes. With ExactTarget Automated Interaction Management, you can:  Manage marketer-initiated messages and triggered messages from a single console.  Aggregate relational data across your organisation.  Manage all digital communications- including email, SMS, Voice, and Landing Pages-from one platform.  Automate complex sequenced programmes, including data imports, subscriber group refreshes, email sends, etc. Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget Video Yes Audio Yes

―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Inbox Preview: Visualise and interact with fully rendered email messages in over 20 popular showing clients how email web, desktop, and mobile email clients, directly from the UI (e.g. Outlook, Gmail, iPhone) content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, Yes – SMS, RSS, Landing Pages, Social Media e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please ExactTarget provides a full suite of programme management services. ET@ team members are specify) full-time onsite client resources with many years of email experience. They collaborate with clients who have ongoing operational needs and guide sophisticated one-to-one programmes. Each ET@ team includes programme directors, programme leads, and deployment consultants who align cross-functional teams to meet evolving needs.

ExactTarget also offers instructor-led training services and advanced support solutions. Training offerings are bundled (edition-based) or modular (feature-based) and highly-configurable. The Client Success Centre offers complimentary technical support to all customers and paid Premium/Platinum support services that include direct access to level 2 and 3 software engineers and named, dedicated support managers. Integration

Please provide details of level Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget‘s technology integrates with more of integration possible with sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including other technology, e.g. web Salesforce.com, Oracle CRM, SAP CRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. With our APIs analytics customers have the ability to integrate with any CRM applications they choose.

In addition to the numerous CRM systems, ExactTarget is integrated with many additional Web Analytics systems such as Omniture, Google Analytics, Longbow, Coremetrics, and Webtrends. ExactTarget has a productised integration with several Omniture products. Below is a summary of the various ones including Genesis and the new Test & Target product.

ExactTarget Integration Omniture Component Website Tagging SiteCatalyst Enhanced Reporting Genesis Behavioral Remarketing Genesis Advanced Content Genesis Live Content for Omniture Test & Target

Omniture Genesis automates the integration of digital marketing tools into a central location. Applications, data, and processes become more effective by being integrated into an analytics- empowered digital marketing ecosystem. Integrating ExactTarget with Omniture Genesis™ enables automation of marketing activities to facilitate even more relevant customer communications. Efficiencies gained by using the integration allow even more time for programme analysis and refinement. ExactTarget emails contain links to your website that are tracked via Omniture Genesis. ExactTarget reporting data can be automatically configured to export to Genesis on a regular basis to consolidate important metrics.

In addition to the Omniture product suite, ExactTarget is integrated with BazaarVoice. ExactTarget for BazaarVoice lets marketers harness the power of social commerce to effectively engage customers, provide relevant content messaging, streamline marketing efforts, and ultimately increase ROI.

ExactTarget‘s application is integrated with a host of additional partners. Content Management products like Autonomy and Percussion Software, Recommendations products like Certona and Aggregate Knowledge, and Social Media integrations with products like ShareThis are all

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget supported along with many more.

ExactTarget‘s vast Partner Network is designed with the idea of ―Shared Success‖ in order to ensure our client‘s email marketing and interactive marketing success.

Which protocols are The ExactTarget platform contains the most complete and comprehensive API in the Email supported (e.g. Service Provider (ESP) industry developed with full adherence to industry standards such as SOAP/HTTP)? J2EE, .NET, XML, JSR168, WSRP, SOAP and COM. The open API allows developers to access the functionality in the ExactTarget‘s platform. Over 4,000 API methods and properties span the full spectrum of ESP functionality, allowing developers to customise applications or integrate with other applications that comprise the enterprises application portfolio. The ExactTarget platform‘s API is so broad, complete, and extensive that some of our clients build entire applications or execute entire email programs via the API.

Do you allow client Yes developers free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any ExactTarget‘s Social Media platform takes innovation to new heights, providing marketers with integration with social media the social media tools they need to grow audiences and expand marketing initiatives beyond services, and measurement traditional communications. Our social media platform houses everything from CoTweet enterprise software to a Twitter Integration to a complete category of sharing capabilities known as Social Forward.

CoTweet operates as a business unit of ExactTarget, and the platform is how business does Twitter. CoTweet allows multiple people to communicate through corporate Twitter accounts and stay in sync while doing so. No dropped balls, no stepping on each other's toes.

With CoTweet, you can:

 Engage people throughout your company — Share the job of being on duty. Tap the collective wisdom of people across functional areas like marketing, PR and customer service. Assign tasks and track follow-ups.  Focus on the conversations that matter — Know when you need to jump in. Track your exchanges through simple case management. Schedule updates to make company announcements.  Keep your brand human — Automatically include signatures in your updates to identify who's talking and keep conversations personal.

Think of it as social CRM — with an emphasis on the "social".

In addition to our CoTweet platform, ExactTarget Social Forward makes it easy for subscribers to engage with and share email marketing messages through a new suite of sharing capabilities. By giving customers the power to share messages, marketers can extend the reach of messages, drive deeper engagement with customers and their online communities, and build subscriber lists.

Our integration with ShareThis makes it easy for subscribers to share content to over 20 online networks and communities while providing the metrics marketers need to create a strategy around social content. Identify top networks, content, and subscribers for sharing and quantify the results of marketing strategies.

Our Direct to Social capability is a simple way for subscribers to share content with the click of a button, allowing subscribers to share content directly to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many other online communities.

In addition to Social Forward, ExactTarget also provides enterprise-level integration directly to Twitter. The integration allows marketers to automatically generate a Tweet and a link to the HTML version of an email message at the time of send. Additionally, the integration allows

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget marketers to automatically send a direct message to their top 100 subscribers.

Product Details Product Name At ExactTarget, we believe one size does not fit all when it comes to your email marketing needs. It‘s with this philosophy in mind that we‘ve built five editions of one powerful application.

Core. The Core Edition maintains the perfect balance of ease-of-use and sophistication to help organisations of any size create, deliver and track personalised communications.

Advanced. Packed with revolutionary segmentation, customisation, and integration tools, the Advanced Edition is designed to meet the demands of the most sophisticated marketers.

Enterprise. ExactTarget‘s Enterprise Edition is ideal for organisations seeking centralised control and compliance of one-to-one marketing campaigns.

Reseller. The Reseller Edition provides a comprehensive toolkit designed to generate recurring revenue, and comes backed by the largest partner network program in the industry.

Embedded. The Embedded Edition is ideal for independent software vendors (ISV), social networks, or developers tasked with building and managing an email infrastructure within their software application. Product Features Create. ExactTarget offers a range of content creation tools so you‘re guaranteed to find the toolset that meets your creative demands.

Target. Delivering one-to-one messages is easy with ExactTarget‘s exclusive Dynamic Content feature and powerful personalisation, segmentation and viral marketing tools.

Deliver. ExactTarget‘s powerful underlying technology and deliverability tools ensure your messages get delivered to the inbox.

Integrate. ExactTarget‘s AMP lets you seamlessly transfer content and data between our application and other business systems and automate one-to-one marketing through tight integration.

Track. With ExactTarget‘s robust, real-time tracking and graphical reporting you can analyse your results and dive improvements in the future.

Manage. ExactTarget‘s management tools provide a granular level of control, customisation, and configuration for account administrators.

For a complete list of features that ExactTarget provides please refer to the following web page: http://email.exacttarget.com/Products/ExactTargetFeatures/default.html Technical Overview High Availability: Your data is available when you need it – plain and simple. With multiple data centres redundant storing of backup data, our system protects against potential disruptions and ensures that you can access the application and your data when you need to.

Massive Scale: At ExactTarget, the future is now. We build and grow our application to meet the growing demands of our customers not only today, but in anticipation of the future. With load-balanced clustered servers, concurrent MTAs, and automated new server additions, ExactTarget delivers consistent, timely processing of transactions no matter what the volume. Currently our application is sending over 3 billion emails a month. There is virtually no limit to what our infrastructure can send, however ultimate send rates are determined by the ISPs. ExactTarget infrastructure routinely exceeds send speeds of 10 million messages per hour.

Always-On Architecture: ExactTarget is a highly available, fully redundant platform with failover to handle any kind of disruptions. In the unlikely event that our application is offline though, we want to ensure there is no disruption for the subscriber. The following enhancements are the next in a series of steps to delivering an Always-On Architecture.  Always-On Images- ExactTarget will always render images for HTML emails.  Always-On Opens- A by-product of images always rendering is that all opens will be captured as well.

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget  Always-On Clicks- When a subscriber clicks on a link in the email, we will ensure they are re-directed to the appropriate URL.  Always-On One-Click Unsubscribes- If a subscriber opts-out of an email using the One-Click Unsubscribe link, we will capture that and update the subscriber status in the database.

In addition, the Always-On enhancements, all ExactTarget URLs with customer Ids and subscriber information are now encrypted with our own algorithm to protect the customer‘s program and audience. Tracking capabilities ExactTarget provides over 50 standard reports and real time campaign tracking. Through the Tracking and Reporting interface, users can leverage, view, and export (to Excel or PDF) pre- defined and user-defined reports such as:  Real-time campaign tracking (overview, click activity overlay, conversion, surveys)  Email performance by list, domain, or over-time  Subscriber attribute by tracking event, list demographics, subscriber engagement, subscribers not sent to, subscriber most recent activity.  Conversion tracing, forwarding activity, recent email sending summary, response trend analysis, spam complaints, and transactional sends  Admin reports  Custom reports

In addition to valuable reports, dedicated strategists are available to monitor and report on key performance indicators and opportunities to develop stronger subscriber relationships. Data capabilities With the move towards more transactional emails triggered by activity on a website, e- commerce site, point-of-sale system or other platform we are seeing clients grow their email volumes significantly as well as the volume and complexity of customer data.

ExactTarget‘s comprehensive and flexible data model supports list, flat-file, and relational database structures. Clients can define, create, and manage their own relational data structure through the user interface, API, XML feed, or pre-defined table templates that are provided to ExactTarget customers.

The company‘s Data Extension capabilities include full support for managing tables, relationships, and data. All customer-created tables- and those from the ExactTarget system- are fully accessible for all segmentation, content personalisation, and analytics tools within the application. Clients can populate data via the user interface using flat-files, XML data, and external sources such as Salesforce.com and Omniture.

High-volume ExactTarget clients routinely send tens of millions of emails per day. ExactTarget‘s message construction and delivery infrastructure is capable of dynamically personalising messages based on simple logic or thousands of relational data-driven rules with highly complex scripts that evaluate subscriber-specific combinations.

Currently our application is sending over 3 billion emails a month. There is virtually no limit to what our infrastructure can send, however ultimate send rates are determined by the ISPs. The number of emails sent has grown over the last 3 years at a rate of over 100% per year. Costs and pricing methods Set-up license fee, integration, email charges and consultancy depending upon client (please be as specific as requirements. possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff ExactTarget provides around the clock service to its clients around the globe with a dedicated do you have? staff of Premium and Platinum support specialists located in London.

The mission of ExactTarget‘s customer support team is to provide sound technical advice and product expertise to each and every ExactTarget customer. Our dedicated staff of savvy business professionals is committed to resolving issues and questions in a timely manner. During what hours are your 24/7 UK support lines manned? What type of training Is ExactTarget‘s training team is passionate about educating and motivating customers so they can included? (e.g. telephone and achieve unprecedented email marketing and interactive marketing success. Whether you‘re an on-site product training) email marketing novice or a digital marketing expert, our training team can help you take your

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Company Details Company Name ExactTarget product expertise to the next level. ExactTarget trainers provide multiple training programmes, modes of facilitation, and a wide array of subject matter to fit varying client needs. Their services include:  ExactTarget university for Self-Paced, On Demand Learning  Live Weekly Training Sessions  Customised Web-Based Sessions  On-Site Training  Agency, Enterprise, and Partner Workshops  Train the Trainer Programmes With such a vast expanse of educational offerings, it‘s evident that our trainers are 100% focused on ensuring every single one of our clients is an expert at using our software. Is online support included? Yes Yes Please give details of other All clients also have access to an on-demand ―how to‖ training tools and best practices types of support and training documentation via our online social network 3sixty. In addition to the interactive online (e.g. strategic workshops and resources, the customer-only social networking site also provides customers the ability to access to experts) request technical support. Deliverability Please summarise your ExactTarget's Deliverability Services ensure messages arrive in the customer‘s inbox so that deliverability strategy marketers‘ invested time and resources result in increased ROI. We've helped marketers tackle inbox deliverability problems and poor sender reputation, ranging from unsatisfactory opt-in methods to low subscriber engagement and email frequency.

Our Deliverability experts are committed to helping customers get the highest return on marketing investment. And with a Deliverability Services engagement, we can provide a variety of offerings to get messages back where they belong.

 Detailed, full assessment of customers‘ current deliverability, identifying any potential problems for quick-fixes and improvements.  Assess companies‘ current state of deliverability, identifying root causes of problems, and creating a custom improvement plan so messages can get back to the inbox.  Ongoing, in-depth deliverability assessments of campaigns, with recommendations for improvement on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

Our Deliverability Services team can identify potential risk factors to prevent messages from arriving, analyse deliverability success with reports, and keep an organisation‘s sending plan aligned with its overall marketing initiatives. The most compelling and visually stunning email means nothing if it never arrives in subscribers‘ inboxes. That's why it's our mission to get customers‘ messages exactly where they need to be. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Our account managers will be able to provide best practice guidance. Also, the ExactTarget website has a resource centre that hosts white papers, blogs, webinar and client best practice examples. Do you have a full-time Yes- we have a fully staffed department dedicated to this purpose. data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ http://www.ExactTarget.co.uk/deliverability Publications/ http://www.ExactTarget.co.uk/sff Industry events http://www.ExactTarget.com/UKpreferences http://www.connections2010.co.uk Forums/Memberships http://blog.exacttarget.com/blog/the-exacttarget-blog

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ExactTarget – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we are we are going now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where we are going Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.12. Experian CheetahMail

Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail Company Logo

URL www.cheetahmail.co.uk UK Head Office Address Building One, The Heights, Brooklands, Weybridge, KT13 0NY Other office locations New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris, Roubaix, Barcelona, Dusseldorf, Sydney, Auckland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Melbourne. Contact Name Rachael Taylor (UK&I Marketing Manager) Contact Telephone 01932 422300 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Experian CheetahMail is the trusted service provider of digital marketing technologies for top enterprises worldwide. With the email industry‘s largest client services teams, feature-rich email technology, social media broadcasting, mobile marketing services and a broad range of data management options, Experian CheetahMail enables clients to build data-driven, relevant relationships with their customers.

Servicing the world‘s most recognisable brands, Experian CheetahMail‘s globally diverse client base includes Arcadia Group, Barclays, Boden, EA Games, HMV, ITV, John Lewis, KLM and Sky. Experian CheetahMail, a business unit of Experian (LSE:EXPN), was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Sydney, Auckland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Melbourne. For more information, please visit http://www.cheetahmail.co.uk or email [email protected]. Brief Company History 1998: Founded in New York (including number of years of 2002: Opened UK/EMEA Office in UK business in UK) 2005: Opened Dublin office 2006: Opened office in The Hague 2007: Acquired Emailing Solution, adding offices in France and Spain 2008: Opened Melbourne office 2009: Acquired United Mail Solutions, adding offices in Dusseldorf 2010: Acquired A-Care (Japanese email marketing firm) and launched analytics and social media capabilities Number of UK Employees 101 USP What sets you apart from Key advantages include: competitors? Client Services – Experian CheetahMail has the largest and most experienced client services team in the industry, employing over 750 digital marketing experts globally. The focus of this team is to proactively assist clients to maximise the return on their digital marketing investments. Our designated account teams act as an extension of our clients‗marketing function and serve as a true strategic partner. In the latest Forrester Wave for email providers Experian CheetahMail achieved a perfect score of 50 in customer satisfaction. This is achieved through the investment, and focus, in our client services teams and is one of the major reasons why Experian CheetahMail continues to have a market leading client retention rate.

The Experian Advantage – As part of Experian, listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN), CheetahMail gives clients easy access and integration with data such as demographics and lifestyle information (Mosaic), technologies such as online competitive intelligence (Hitwise) and world class data analytics. Experian also give sources to B2B and B2C email data and email validation services.

Deliverability – Experian CheetahMail has privacy and compliance professionals across online and offline commerce, and has built strong relationships with all of the major ISPs over the years.

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail

Technological Innovation – Experian CheetahMail‘s email marketing product is one of the most scalable solutions in the industry, delivering circa 11 billion emails per month across the globe. The Forrester Wave report stated: „Clients using Experian CheetahMail maintain large, complex email campaigns. They note that Experian CheetahMail is flexible and pushes them to succeed and that it is highly responsive to their needs.‟

The application gives marketers easy-to-use tools to set up, test, deploy, and track the performance of their mailings. Beyond email, Experian CheetahMail is continually expanding its related offerings through internal development, such as the fully-integrated ReMarketing tool, social media innovations, leading edge analytical capabilities and mobile marketing,

Other differentiators include technical flexibility, integration abilities with web analytics, loyalty programs, and CRM platforms and advanced data analytics capabilities. In addition, Experian CheetahMail offers Creative Services to help clients achieve maximum visual impact with their campaigns.

Data Security – Experian CheetahMail adheres to stringent security practices, which includes tri-located data centres, backup procedures, employee security testing, restricted accounts, guest escorts and network vulnerability testing.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Arcadia Group, Barclays, Boden, EA Games, HMV, ITV, John Lewis, Next, Panasonic, Sky, Ultralase, VistaPrint and Vodafone Which verticals/sectors, if any, We serve hundreds of clients across all verticals, including category leaders in retail, financial, do you specialise in? technology, entertainment, B2B, travel, hospitality, healthcare, and non-profit. Experian CheetahMail is listed as the email service provider to more of Internet Retailer‘s Top 500 retail Websites than any other vendor in its category. Case Study UK client case study Experian CheetahMail worked with ITV, the biggest commercial television network in the UK, to optimise ITV‘s permission-based email marketing campaigns. The aim was to improve viewer engagement, fuelling return traffic and advertising revenues for ITV.com. Over the past year, techniques such as multi-stage welcome programmes, trigger alerts and new creative templates have been introduced to drive better return on investment. Initial results saw the deliverability of its Coronation Street activity increase to 99.7 per cent. Its new email alerts programme versus traditional bulk newsletter communications also led to open rates doubling and click through rates increasing four-fold.

The next phase of activity for ITV was to look at how social media could be used to drive improvements in the email marketing programme. The strategy was divided into two parts. The first phase looked at how ITV‘s Facebook pages could be used to sign up new email subscribers.

At its peak, ITV attracted over 100,000 fans a week to its ‗I‘m a Celebrity...‘ Facebook fan page. As the TV programme gained exposure and momentum, the ‗I‘m a Celebrity...‘ email subscriber base rose from 9,000 at the start of the programme to 24,000 by the end of the programme via website and Facebook sign ups. At sign up, these people were also flagged by Experian CheetahMail with an interest of ‗Talent & Reality‘ so have been acquired as a base for future Talent & Reality Programmes (The X Factor, Britain‘s Got Talent, Dancing on Ice, etc).

Statistics for the ‗I‘m a Celebrity...‘ campaign that ran from November to December 2009 were strong - average unique open rates and click throughs over that period were 28 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. In terms of cumulative opens and clicks, that amounted to 109,000 and 45,000 respectively.

The second phase of the strategy was to use Experian CheetahMail technology to post new alerts directly to Facebook and Twitter for popular soaps such as Coronation Street. By following a few simple steps in the set up of the selected email campaigns, ITV can issue a Facebook ‗status update‘ or ‗tweet‘ to alert users to new content. Examples can be viewed at http://www.facebook.com/CoronationStreet

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS, MMS, RSS, Social Media posting e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Web Analytics, Transactional Database, Transactional Reporting and Tracking specify) Integration Please provide details of level Experian CheetahMail is platform agnostic, offering an extremely flexible solution for getting data of integration possible with in and out of the system. other technology, e.g. web analytics Experian CheetahMail‘s integration with website analytics providers has allowed clients to tightly integrate web data with email marketing to turn browsers and abandoners into buyers. Experian CheetahMail has successfully completed web integrations with almost all of the major web site analytics companies, including CoreMetrics, Omniture, Fireclick, and WebTrends, in addition to Experian CheetahMail‘s own ReMarketing tags, which are fully integrated into the Experian CheetahMail application.

Finally, for those clients with advanced data requirements, including the need to integrate email related data with CRM solutions or other back-end systems, Experian CheetahMail offers robust APIs that can be set up quite easily and generate very little increased system overhead on the client side. As with SFTP data transmission, bi-directional data streams via our APIs can be set

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail up to run in a completely automated fashion on any schedule that meets the specific needs of the client.

Regarding APIs, Experian CheetahMail supports the full automation of data transfers. This API process decreases human error and costs and adds efficiency in the data exchange process. Which protocols are supported (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Experian CheetahMail has added new functionality which will enable clients to automatically post integration with social media their marketing campaigns to Social Media outlets in addition to deploying mailings. Posts can services, and measurement include a link to a web-hosted version of the mailing, which will be tracked for performance activity.  Twitter – Post ―tweets‖ directly to a Twitter account. Anyone following the account will see the tweet along with an optional link to view the mailing.  Facebook – Post status updates, messages, links and images to a Facebook account. Any ―fan‖ or ―friend‖ will see the updates on the Facebook page and/or in their own live news feed.  ShareThis – Add a ―ShareThis‖ widget to mailing content, allowing recipients to post the mailing content to their own social media profiles and share it with their contacts.  Social Media Preview - Preview how content displays on the various social media sites.  Social Media Blog Posting - Post content to Wordpress and Blogger accounts.  Social Media Test Accounts - test accounts facilitate preview posting as part of the mailing testing process.

Product Details Product Name Product Features Campaign setup Experian CheetahMail provides clients with a suite of tools that help make campaign set-up and deployment easy and efficient.

The solution also enables multiple users to work on various parts of a campaign at the same time and allows users to easily navigate through any mailing function (mailings, segments, reports, etc.) at any point in the campaign setup process.

Work flow tools and a pre-deployment check system provide clients with the ability to perform one last final review of the mailing prior to deployment (this includes segment development, content creation, scheduling, approval, etc.).

Automated campaigns Experian CheetahMail fully supports lifecycle campaigns (dialogue marketing messages) so that consumers receive appropriate messages at various times based on a specific date or their position within a given cycle. These messages can be triggered automatically, and once a program is set up within the Experian CheetahMail system, it runs automatically. Lifecycle campaigns can also include dynamic content elements and personalisation. Many of our clients have deployed or are deploying lifecycle campaigns.

Campaigns and programs can be based upon any combination of multi-channel marketing elements including web site behaviour, purchase behaviour and email response over any period of time and overlay any demographic data as well.

Personalisation and dynamic content To increase relevance and conversion, Experian CheetahMail supports both basic personalisation and sophisticated dynamic content. Simple personalisation can be added into any part of the subject line or within the body of an email using our specific tags. As long as the client has collected the data point for which they are trying to personalise, the possibilities are unlimited. Personalisation is handled by the client or their account manager within the User Interface. Additionally, Experian CheetahMail‘s dynamic content engine, introduced back in 1999, is one of the most scalable, flexible and robust solutions in the industry. We support a

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail virtually unlimited amount of dynamic content in a given mailing and provide tools designed to support the simplest setup to the most complex. Dynamic content placement is determined at the point of mailing and can be based on an unlimited number of business rules, demographics, and behaviours (such as clicks, opens, purchases, etc.)

 Dynamic content can be based on a variety of different data including:  Purchase behaviour  Purchase recency  Customer type  Browsing/abandoning behaviour  Click behaviour  Predictive modelling utilising attitudinal data  Any combination of the above data

Experian CheetahMail has delivered messages for clients with thousands of dynamic content elements driven by multiple fields of customer profile data. The result is a single mailing with potentially thousands of uniquely personalised messages.

Analytics / segmentation Experian CheetahMail provides digital marketers with a platform where multiple data sources can be analysed to understand which marketing messages will resonate with which customers, at a particular point in time. The platform enables users to:

 Analyse and cap the frequency of campaigns  Create predictive segments, such as grouping customers by propensity to convert, repurchase or engage  Create recency, frequency, monetary value (RFM) models and flags  Append Experian profiling data to understand customer preferences and behaviour  Engineer data to group customers according to values such as age bracket or spending range  Understand and track customers‘ channel preferences  Develop multi-channel digital communication programmes  Segment campaign-ready data  Automate broadcasting through the selected digital channel

Testing and Quality Assurance The Experian CheetahMail platform offers a wide array of functionality aimed at helping clients effectively manage the Quality Assurance (QA) of email campaigns. The engine used in sending test mailings is the same as the one used in our mailing process. Test cycles and methods may be controlled by clients on their own, or by Experian CheetahMail account management, and are performed in near real-time (processing takes 60 seconds at most for QA test mailings).In addition, tests can be sent to the specified tester addresses in all the formats possible (HTML, AOL, Text, Multipart, etc.).Some of the QA features available include HTML Validation, Content Evaluator, Link Validation, Preview Functionality, and Tester Address Book.

Technical Overview Database: Experian CheetahMail‘s open database platform allows us to meet client database needs as necessary. Experian CheetahMail does not maintain a specific database structure for any individual client. Instead, we have built a system that builds custom databases based on client needs. Experian CheetahMail runs on Oracle database software running on SUN utilising Solaris operating system. Our software operates in a non-release dependent environment, meaning that it is consistently being improved and enhanced in a development environment. Once an improvement has been tested and approved it is migrated to the production environment. Experian CheetahMail runs on both Intel and Sun hardware and features LSI Logic disk systems for data storage.

Application Server: ModPerl

Web Server: Apache

Operating System: Solaris and Linux

Integration Services: API upload via the application

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail

Tracking capabilities Experian CheetahMail has several standard reports that are included in the application all Experian CheetahMail clients have access to. These reports include:

1. Mailing Reports: Report on mailing-specific data including sent, received, bounced, opens (total and unique), clicks (total, unique, and unique clickers), transactions (down to the item or SKU level), referrals (total and unique), unsubscribes and unsubscriptions, number of clicks by link (including by part, e.g. HTML, text, rich-text), domain delivery (top 50 domains - all metrics reported), source (typically of acquisition) comparison, ability to view an overlay of any demographic variables associated with subscribers sent the mailing, time of day/day of week analysis charts, ability to view reports after any set number of days from sent, View Content report which shows visually where a client is receiving their clicks, full dynamic content reporting by dynamic piece per placement (if applicable), Inbound Message Report showing abuse complaints by AOL and other as well as the number of emails forwarded to a client from our Inbound Support team, and Inbox Monitoring Report that shows % delivery to the inbox vs. the bulk/spam folder for the top ISPs.

2. Campaign Reports: Campaign Reports allow clients to compare mailings to one another from any time period.

3. Reports: Aggregate Reports show a roll up of reporting by month, quarter or year across entire client account or across specific business divisions, etc.

4. Inbound Message Reports: These reports show clients by mailing and over time their abuse complaint rate for AOL versus other domains, as well as all activity performed by our Inbound Support team on their emails (e.g. how many messages were forwarded to a client's customer service department and how many ECOA requests were processed).

5. Inbox Monitoring Reports: These reports show clients by mailing as well as over time their delivery results to the ISPs we seed for each of their mailings.

6. Subscriber Reports: Subscriber reports show by day, by list, bounces, unsubscribes, and new subscribers to the database.

7. Data upload Reports: Data Upload Reports show for any file uploaded to the Experian CheetahMail database how many records were successfully uploaded and processed, how many bad emails were on the file, how many new users to the database were uploaded, how many new subscribers to the list were uploaded, how many users had already been subscribed to that list, and how many users had previously unsubscribed or bounce removed

8. Advanced Analytics Report: Frequency Distribution A client can use this report to determine the optimal number of times to email their subscribers.

9. Advanced Analytics Report: Demographic Analysis Clients choose the mailing(s) they want to analyse and the demographic criteria, then they can view both the number of users that match each of the possible values for that demographic as well as the number of users that opened, clicked, transacted and the amount they spent.

10. Advanced Analytics Report: Data Cube Data Cube reporting allows clients to view their email results across any number of demographic columns and any number of values within those columns to help in the creation of RFM models.

11. Custom Reports: Experian CheetahMail also allows clients to create several types of "custom" reports. Reports can be run using custom date ranges, datasets, etc. Reports are available "as is" from the system or can be exported to CSV/Excel to be further manipulated. We do provide several clients with custom reports that are completed outside of the Experian CheetahMail application.

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail Data capabilities The Experian CheetahMail platform can serve as a full-fledged data management solution for leading businesses wishing to act on their multi-channel data.

Clients can store all of their actionable multi-channel data, including email response data, web browsing activity, transactional data, customer demographics, email preferences, etc., where it can be accessed to analyse and segment customers quickly and precisely. Because it uses platform-agnostic technology, it can easily integrate with third-party data from other vendors, such as loyalty programs, CRM platforms, centralised customer databases, and web analytics providers.

Unlike traditional, cumbersome customer databases, the Experian CheetahMail platform is synchronised in real-time and optimised for the speed and scale of today‘s marketing environment.

Experian CheetahMail also launched advanced analytics capabilities in 2010. The new platform brings together Experian CheetahMail‘s proven high performance marketing platform with Alterian‘s cutting edge database architecture.

Features include:  Fast querying through column based architecture  Visualisation tools for improved data analysis  Analytics and reporting modules  Campaign management to plan and build your campaigns  Rapid data load and export (Benefits of the new analytics platform are listed in the Analytics / segmentation section above). Costs and pricing methods Details are available on request. Charges simply cover five areas: Account Set-up; Training; E- (please be as specific as mail Volume; Professional Services; Hosting Requirements possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do 68 you have? During what hours are your UK support lines manned? All clients receive 24-hour technical support, 7 days a week.

What type of training Is Telephone / Onsite training is included included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other In addition to receiving support from their dedicated account teams, all clients have access to types of support and training Experian CheetahMail executives and industry experts for advice and best practices. Also, all (e.g. strategic workshops and clients receive admission to regular workshops and seminars, annual customer conference as access to experts) well as networking events. In addition, Experian CheetahMail clients receive access to exclusive webinars and white papers to help further their email programmes. Deliverability Please summarise your Experian CheetahMail maintains a full-time team of privacy and compliance personnel, who deliverability strategy regularly interface with the rest of the 40+ privacy and compliance team throughout Experian. The team is led by Ben Isaacson, a renowned expert on email deliverability (co-chair of the ESPC's Receiver Relations Committee).Mr. Isaacson frequently briefs clients on the latest ISP- specific and industry developments taking shape.

Experian CheetahMail is one of the foremost leaders in industry self-regulation and Internet Service Provider (ISP) relationship management. Experian CheetahMail personnel interact on a number of levels with ISPs around the globe and therefore our knowledge of global and in particular European ISPs is unrivalled. At the highest level, Experian CheetahMail participates with cross-industry groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (an international body) with ISPs to advocate standards that would enhance deliverability, such as email authentication solutions. In addition, Experian and Experian CheetahMail participate with other international ISP-related organisations such as the Email Service Provider Coalition, Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, Anti-Phishing Working Group, and Email Processing Industry Alliance.

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Company Details Company Name Experian CheetahMail

On a day-to-day basis, Experian CheetahMail actively manages relationships with all major ISPs, including Microsoft MSN/Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo! and EarthLink, and actively participates with all available white list programs. Four ISPs currently send Experian CheetahMail real-time recipient abuse feedback data for immediate suppression. Most of the administrators of these ISPs are on a first name basis with Experian CheetahMail staff. In addition, several large ISPs are Experian CheetahMail customers – including one of the three largest ISPs – and many other large ISPs and telecommunications providers are Experian clients.

Additionally, Matthew Seeley (President) joins Mr. Isaacson on frequent road trips to the various ISPs. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes Goodmail and Return Path email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy We have whitepapers and adhere to best practice in all areas of e-mail marketing. Please ask us for details on your specific area of interest. Do you have a full-time Ben Isaacson currently serves as the Privacy & Compliance Leader for Experian CheetahMail, data/spam/privacy overseeing all interactive marketing policy and email deliverability issues affecting Experian representative? CheetahMail and Experian's diverse marketing services client-base. White Papers/ Please visit Experian CheetahMail‘s website for our best practice whitepapers and details on our Publications/ past and up and coming industry events. Industry events Forums/Memberships DMA, ESPC, IDM, Messaging anti-abuse working group, Econsultancy, Catalogues exchange, Figaro Digital. Additional, supporting information Other relevant information Security and data protection: Experian CheetahMail manages three data centres. All locations are top tier earthquake resistant and bullet proof data centres with state of the art Halon fire control. Additional physical security measures include restricted entry access, locked cages/cabinets and 24/7/365 coverage by security guards. The system is built to be highly redundant and fault-tolerant. Routine physical and logical backups occur.

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Experian – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & Where support for whole Wherewe are we are client email going program now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution Where to incorporate we are Where bespoke now functionality we are

going

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.13. Lyris

Company Details Company Name Lyris Company Logo

URL http://www.lyris.co.uk UK Head Office Address 232 – 242 Vauxhall Bridge Road Other office locations Across the US, Latin America and Australia. Headquarters in California Contact Name Michael Weston Contact Telephone 020 7630 2961 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Lyris provides online marketers with industry-leading solutions that optimise campaign results across multiple channels using real-time analytics. Our solutions incorporate Lyris‘s experience and innovation, enabling our clients to understand customer journeys, predict usage patterns and translate them into campaigns that grow business results Brief Company History Lyris was founded in 1994 – so has deep experience of providing solutions for email marketing (including number of years of and customer communication. In 2005, Lyris started on a path to develop an integrated solution business in UK) comprising tools and services to gather customer intelligence (e.g. web analytics and other reporting tools) and tools to use that intelligence for targeted messaging across email, SMS and social media.

The UK team have been working together since 2004, providing strategic and tactical expertise using the Lyris solutions, with a particular emphasis on the retail and travel sectors. Number of UK Employees 30 (300 worldwide) Turnover for 2009 (or last $44 million accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 1% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 $50 million Projected year-on-year growth 15% for 2010

USP What sets you apart from Lyris is unlike any other provider in the email marketing space: we tightly integrate various competitors? marketing channels to deliver greater understanding of your customers to deliver greater ROI.

Our focus is on: 1. Analytics Integration Lyris provides analytics integration out-of-the-box allowing our clients to quickly and easily understand the journeys their customers take. This information is easily acted upon within Lyris HQ to deliver messaging that delivers significant ROI and more engaging communication.

2. Thought leadership; best practice Lyris has a huge depth of expertise both globally and in Britain that we share with our customers. Whitepapers, webinars and case studies are released throughout the year and the best are highlighted at our thought leadership events with our clients who showcase what has - and hasn‘t - worked for them. Recent examples of thought leadership content are:

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Company Details Company Name Lyris Email Deliverability 2010: What‘s New, What‘s True Email Design No-No's Guide

―They provide an awful lot of thought leadership whether that is about email, deliverability or segmentation.” Amanda Metcalfe, Marketing Director, my-wardrobe.com

3. Services Quality Lyris automatically assigns a dedicated Engagement Manager to your account to help you meet your own goals and needs. The services team at Lyris is known for its cross-channel knowledge of email, search and analytics and can advise on each individually or how they all tie together to deliver the best results for your business. Our commitment to deliver the best services is illustrated by the amount of business won through word of mouth alone.

―I went on maternity for a couple of months; literally they were almost another me.‖ Sandrine Deveaux, Director of Marketing & E-commerce, Matches

Clients Examples of UK Clients British Museum, Matches, Hand Picked Hotels, Kitbag, House of Fraser Which verticals/sectors, if any, Lyris is designed for all verticals - we therefore have clients in all verticals and apply learning do you specialise in? from specific verticals to others where applicable. The services team also has a deep knowledge and understanding of the retail and travel markets. Case Study UK client case study (up to Matches: using analytics and email together to deliver excellent ROI 500 words) Background Matches‘ boutiques have a reputation for delivering high quality, personal service. Hence, it is imperative to the company to provide the same level of service across online marketing channels, creating a consistent and engaging experience for its customers. To deliver an effective online marketing campaign, Matches wanted to better understand what information its customers desired and have the tools to deliver this information when and how they want it. Matches also needed an online marketing solution that would enable the company to maintain a unified view of customer purchasing behaviour across its multi-channel environment, communicate more effectively and drive customer loyalty and sales.

The Question Matches had a limited supply of items from niche label Boudicca. Who would be the most responsive audience to communicate this new stock to?  People who had said they liked Boudicca during the welcome programme  People who had previously bought Boudicca pieces  People who had browsed Boudicca‘s online store within www.matchesfashion.co.uk

Results All three segments performed well above average, on open rate, click through and conversion metrics.

However, it was the segment based on recent views on the website that performed by some distance the most effectively, with open rates at 48% and unique clicks at 26.6%.

This reinforced previous work with Matches, where we‘d already shown that the total revenue generated from targeted email campaigns based on these types of segments can prove higher than that from generic broadcast email sends to the whole audience. The ability to use this observed web behaviour as well as customer-declared preferences and purchase data allows for maximum engagement with customers – and leads to the best possible revenue uplift. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes

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Company Details Company Name Lyris ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes - Lyris has extensive experience delivering strategy and campaign planning to its clients. A planning recent testimonial illustrates this. ―Because they have a huge team and we are a fairly small team, we can give ideas to them and put them into action quickly‖ Paul Vulpiani, E-commerce Manager, British Museum Design and copywriting Yes - Lyris provides best practice advice around design and copyrighting and works with best of breed partners to deliver creative and copyrighting services. List provision No Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes – including segmentation across multiple channels Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes – fully integrated into Lyris HQ so it is visible prior to hitting ‗send‘ showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Social Media, Search (SEO / PPC) specify) Strategic and tactical consultancy/services Integration Please provide details of level Lyris has a deep knowledge of integration experience having integrated its single channel of integration possible with acquisitions into its multi-channel product - Lyris HQ. Lyris integrates with all the major web other technology, e.g. web analytics (Omniture, Coremetrics, Google Analytics etc), e-commerce (Venda, Magento etc), analytics community review (Bazaarvoice etc), recommendations platforms (Seewhy, 8 Seconds etc) today. Which protocols are supported SOAP, HTTP, XML, FTP, SFTP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No – however there is a very open API protocol. Ability to easily integrate is a key component of free access to your database Lyris HQ for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Yes – please call to discuss your needs. integration with social media services, and measurement Product Details

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Company Details Company Name Lyris Product Name Lyris HQ Product Features Email Marketing  Easy to use, but powerful message creation, via templates, cut and paste HTML code or from scratch using our built-in WYSIWYG HTML editor.  List management directly or via integration with external databases  Real-time reports.  Segment and target – including segmentation directly from observed web activity via built-in web analytics tools.  Salesforce.com integration out-of-the-box.  Google analytics integration out-of-the-box.  Deliverability & rendering tools are directly integrated within Lyris HQ, allowing you to see potential issues before you send Integral Web Analytics - See what recipients are doing on your Web site. When email recipients click through, you can automatically track their behaviour once they arrive at your site – thanks to our built-in Web analytics integration. You can create new visitor segments based on criteria you select – like purchase behaviour or time spent on site – and then send targeted messages to these specific groups.

Bid Management  Save time and simplify search marketing with unified PPC management.  Run all your Google and Yahoo! campaigns from a single interface.  Grow revenue by quickly discovering high-ROI keywords. Technical Overview The Lyris HQ platform is a SaaS (Software as a Service) based tool, allowing the platform to be upgraded regularly and to scale with minimal-to-no impact to our customers. This means we can deliver the best uptime and performance. Our infrastructure is fully redundant, load shared with a live/hot failover. We have more than one thousand servers that we own, manage and monitor. We perform daily incremental backups, with full backups weekly. Weekly, all tapes are taken offsite. Our average uptime consistently hovers between 99.98 and 100% uptime. Tracking capabilities Our tracking capabilities are second to none. Thanks to the integral web analytics tools, Lyris HQ will take you further than any other email provider. You can track detail of your customers‘ journeys through your website far beyond just the clickthrough from emails. Data capabilities Lyris HQ provides its own best-of-breed data capabilities within then platform itself. However, we know that many of our customers keep data elsewhere and need to ensure that their databases talk to each other. Our open approach to API protocols ensures that data can be synchronised across multiple sources. Costs and pricing methods Our pricing structure for the Lyris HQ is based on allowing full access to all components (email, (please be as specific as web analytics, search tools, landing pages tools etc) based on monthly email volume (prices on possible) request). Additional services are available according to your requirements. Training & Support How many UK support staff do 11 you have? During what hours are your UK Support is available via live chat, email and telephone from 8.30am through to 4 am, provided support lines manned? from the UK or from the US according to time of day. What type of training Is Training is available in-product, via webinar / GoToMeeting, via telephone … or in person at our included? (e.g. telephone and offices or yours. on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other Monthly webinars, strategic events, strategic reviews, cross channel advice types of support and training (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your Lyris works closely with the industry trade body MAWG to ensure it provides the most current deliverability strategy advice and approach to securing only the best deliverability rates. There is a dedicated team of deliverability experts in both Europe and USA to manage ISP relationships; provide advice and deliverability audits and ensure continuous delivery.

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Company Details Company Name Lyris Lyris fully supports all authentication standards and ISP feedback loops. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Do you have a full-time Yes – we have a team spread across Europe and the United States data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ A full range of white papers and other publications is available at: Publications/ http://www.lyris.com/resources/ Industry events Additionally, we stage (in London) a series of customer events, to share best practices, case studies and to facilitate collaborative benchmarking.

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Lyris – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email we are program now / going

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where

we are

going

Where we are now Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.14. MailPerformance

Company Details Company Name MailPerformance UK Ltd Company Logo

URL http://www.mailperformance.co.uk UK Head Office Address 58, Broadwick Street, LONDON W1F 7AL Other office locations 131 bd Sébastopol, 75 002 Paris, FRANCE; 32 avenue Canteranne, 33600 Pessac, FRANCE Contact Name Stuart Armstrong Contact Telephone +44 (0) 20 7434 7390 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition MailPerformance is an Email Service Provider (ESP) that provides solutions for companies to carry out sophisticated, targeted and profitable multichannel marketing campaigns. MailPerformance is a recognised expert in deliverability and as such help clients maximise revenue and customer retention through email and SMS. Brief Company History MailPerformance the trading name of NP6 was founded in 1999 by Stéphane Zittoun in (including number of years of Bordeaux, France. NP6 specialized from the very beginning in the creation of electronic business in UK) commerce sites, such as Cdiscount.com. NP6 then started to create added value around its various Internet services by offering its customers complete management of their newsletters. This was the start of the current MailPerformance application in 2001 MailPerformance has grown over the years to become one of Europe‗s largest Email Marketing Solution companies. MailPerformance is a recognised expert in deliverability and remains the ISO 9001 quality- certified Email Service Provider (ESP) in Europe. October 2008 saw MailPerformance UK open offices in Soho, London and now provide the same high quality service and solutions to UK customers. Number of UK Employees 10 Turnover for 2009 (or last NP6 is a privately-held company. Details of the company‗s turnover can be made available accounting period including upon request. dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Over 40% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 NP6 is a privately-held company. Details of the company‗s turnover can be made available upon request.

Projected year-on-year growth Over 40% for 2010

USP What sets you apart from At MailPerformance we strive to be your partner rather than just a supplier. We work with you competitors? (up to 200 providing strategic input, advice and expertise to achieve your business goals and objectives. words) Extensive ISO certification:

MailPerformance is the only European Email service provider to have attained the ISO 9001 quality certification. The ISO 9001 certification provides rigorous guidelines and audit procedures for ensuring a high quality of service.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Ecover, Armit Wines, Dogs Trust, Victor Chandler; Maximuscle; AXA PPP Healthcare Which verticals/sectors, if any, do you specialise in? MailPerformance provides services to B2B and B2C companies in all sectors with considerable

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Company Details experience within the following sectors:  e-commerce  Retail  Travel  Financial  Agencies and resellers  FMCG  Publishing  Sports and leisure  Online Gaming  Charity and not-for-profit

Case Study UK client case study (up to Client: A Gaming Company 500 words) Scenario: Managing New registrants and players expectations. Maximising revenue from new subscribers, whilst avoiding overmailing.

Resolution: Turning new subscribers into long term advocates of the product. The determinig factor in customer retention is engagement. It is crucial to make immediate contact with every new subscriber, to manage their expectations of your emailing programme. A structured Welcome Sequence of emails will underpin this engagement strategy. New registrants are ring fenced into a ‗new data pool‘. For a pre determined (short) period of time these customers will receive minimal but timely and relevant communication from the client. This serves to ‗warm up’ the new subscribers without over mailing them. A sequence of welcome messages introducing them to the pertinent aspects of the brand and the website/gaming portal ensures that the brand is presented in an engaging manner and opens the channels for continued, broader communication for the, now extended, lifetime of the customer.

Results: An increase in reactivity is shown, tied in with reduced attrition – through unsubscribing and complaints. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision No Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes

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Company Details Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Personalisation Yes Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, Yes (SMS and Print on Demand and Postal service integration) e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify)

Any other services (please  A/B Split testing specify)  Deliverability Audit  Personalised barcodes  Anti-Phishing certification  White labelling  Advanced personalisation  IP White Listing  ROI tracking  Voice Email (useful for those with bad eyesight)  Personalisable text and link showing the technique for adding the sender's address to the reader's address book for each messaging system (automatic detection).  Addition of the VCF to the address book.  Customer Contact Frequency: reverse the erosion of your database and improve the reactivity of your recipients

Integration Please provide details of level API Integration; Web Analytic Integration of integration possible with other technology, e.g. web analytics Which protocols are supported SOAP / HTPP as standard, but can support LAMP (PHP) (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Client webserver is authorised on Firewall and standard library of webcalls can be made free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Product Details Product Name MailPerformance: v7 Zephyr Product Features  Email and SMS marketing technology  Data Import

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Company Details  Data Cleansing  Form Creation  Html Editor  Dynamic Content and segmentation tools  Personalisation of messages  Behavioural segmentation  Event triggered emails  Sequenced emails  Integrated Content checker  Integrated Email rendering  Integrated Deliverability profiles  CMS Personalisation engine  Inbox monitoring  SMS creation  Research modules  A/B split testing  Template manager  Report builder  Customised reports  Simple Multi-part email creation  CRM integration  Survey creation  Personal barcode creation  Bounce management  Inbound email and SMS

Technical Overview .net application running on MS SQL Server based database, Web interface, open API (Full system architecture available on request). There are dual internet feeds, dual firewalls, load balanced web servers and clustered database servers. Security MailPerformance employs a combination of back-up methods for providing complete and robust safety conditions. The backup methods are implemented according to the strategies of every type of server:

 Physical security  Data and data exchange security  Intrusion security  Running security  Human management

OUR SECURITY POLICY Physical security of host’s environment A 24 hours operational service, 7 days a week, monitoring cameras, a biometric device for accessing to the protected areas, a power-supply physical redundancy system, a constant temperature for all servers and backup units. Server protection against non authorized access through Authentication certificates, using a combination of login/password, SSL, firewalls and no direct peer-to-peer link behind the firewall.

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Company Details Protection of customers‗ data against non authorized access or decay. On and off line duplicates and backup. The highest Microsoft certification: An up-to-date technical architecture One of our most important responsibilities is to ensure that your data is well protected.

Data security is controlled under our ISO 9001 certification.

24/7 Monitoring:

High level of availability Ensuring you continuity of service is a key component of our package. Our objective is to bring you the highest MailPerformance availability every day of the year so that your campaigns are as effective as possible. Our infrastructure allows us to send your campaigns in a matter of minutes and gives you the flexibility to send your campaigns at any time you wish. We run MailPerformance via several hundred of servers which helps minimize any potential downtime and ensure your campaign is delivered as quickly as possible.

Tracking capabilities  Number of outbound emails  Number of delivered emails  Number of non delivered emails – Breakdown of bounced emails – Gone away hard bounce – Unknown recipient – Unknown domain – Gone away soft bounce – Anti-spam filter  Opened (HTML, TEXT) – Unique Clicks – Clicks (HTML, TEXT) – Average number of clicks per user  Number of opt-out  Number of complaints – AOL – Hotmail – Yahoo – Spamcop – Signal Spam  Reactivity rate – Shows which emails were opened, which links were clicked and represents the number of clicked against the number of opened emails.  Full archiving of actions by target  Retrieval and update of performance indicators every hour (Single clickers, clicks, opens, reactivity rate, etc.)  Automatic management of non-deliveries, anti-spam filters, unsubscriptions, etc.  Results segmented by population  Comparison of performances over several actions of a campaign  Analysis of links and groups of links  View of the most effective fields (click) in your e-mailshot

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Company Details  ROI measurement  Multi-dimensional analysis: Tables and/or dynamic two-way tables  Analysis of multi-campaign and multi-account action statistics

Data capabilities  Full autonomy of field management  Choice if the primary key for the database  Unlimited number of fields  Option to create several fields for a given medium (professional e-mail, personal e-mail, etc.)  Multi-channel configuration (field to be used by default for send actions on a given channel)  Manual import/export (TXT, XLS, ZIP)  Automatic import/export via FTP  Real-time import/export via MPRemote web services  Automatic error detection (duplicates, syntax, non-deliveries, etc.)  Acquisition of targets via forms managed from MailPerformance

Costs and pricing methods Detailed costs upon request, but in essence the pricing is kept very simple with no hidden costs (please be as specific as that surprise the client later on: possible)  Small fixed monthly account access fee.  Volume dependent rates per email sent.  Integration costs.

Training & Support How many UK support staff do you have? 8 (with a full team of over 40 in France)

Support teams include:  Deliverability team  Design team  Data management  Technical Support Account Management team  Integration

During what hours are your UK UK Office Hours – 9:00 am to 7pm Monday to Friday support lines manned? (Out of hours support also available)

What type of training Is On site, webinar, client offices. included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other User Clubs, newsletters, types of support and training (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your Through the education of our clients, we ensure that relevant and timely messages underpin deliverability strategy (up to their email programme. Developing sector appropriate email strategies we strive to increase our clients‘ understanding and appreciation of customer engagement. To work together on strategies

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Company Details 200 words) that build on the relationship between product and customer. The ultimate aim is to send only personalised messages that are desired and when they are wanted by the recipients. Do you have a deliverability Yes, MailBox Monitor coupled with continuous monitoring. assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Return Path email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy MailPerformance is committed to best practice and expects the same from our clients. Our email policy is available at http://www.mailperformance.co.uk Do you have a full-time No data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ We contribute to the DMA National Email Benchmarking Survey Publications/ Industry events Forums/Memberships MAAWG; DMA;

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MailPerformance - Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole client email Where program we are

Wheregoing we are

now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke Where functionality we are Wheregoing we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.15. Neolane

Company Details Company Name Neolane Company Logo

URL http://www.neolane.com UK Head Office Address Evergreen House 2-4 King Street Twickenham Middlesex TW1 3RZ Other office locations 45-47 avenue Carnot 94230 Cachan France

One Gateway Center - 7th floor 300-334 Washington Street Newton, MA 02458 United States

Hyldegaardsvej 56 DK-2920 Charlottenlund Denmark Contact Name Hayley Molloy Contact Telephone 0845 680 1670 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Neolane drives marketing that delivers, with the only enterprise marketing software that enables companies to integrate emerging technologies such as mobile with traditional channels. More than 240 of the world's most innovative marketers use Neolane to improve effectiveness and drive revenue via cross-channel, personalised marketing. Brief Company History Founded in 2001 in France, Neolane is a privately held company which has experienced (including number of years of sustained growth and profitability during its history. business in UK) In 2005, having established itself as the undisputed leader in France, Neolane commenced its international deployment with the opening of Neolane Ltd in Twickenham followed by further expansion and with strategic partnerships in the Benelux and Nordic regions based out of Brussels and Copenhagen.

In 2007, Neolane entered the US market and opened its US operations in Boston. Number of UK Employees 18 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not disclosed (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed Projected year-on-year growth Not disclosed for 2010

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Company Details Company Name Neolane USP

What sets you apart from The Benefits of Neolane Platform include: competitors?  Single, open software platform for enterprise marketing  Automation of all marketing processes, functions and tasks.  Agility, flexibility and open-endedness of your business processes. Business functionality suited to all communication strategies.  Management of traditional outgoing campaigns.  Triggering of communications by product or customer events.  Personalization and sending of management or alert messages. Natively integrated channels  Traditional channels such as direct mail, call centre, and point of sale.  Online channels such as e-mail, SMS, MMS, Push WAP, and Web. A high-performance personalization engine that works on all channels  Dynamic personalisation of messages from the customer information available.  Manages all formats, including for mobile channels and digital variable printing. Innovative collaborative workflows  Communication strategies defined graphically: Multichannel campaigns, automated reminders customer journeys.  Integration of collaborative approval, notification and delivery functions. A unique application to manage all marketing data  Consistency and relevance of customer and prospect data. A business-oriented graphical interface  Unique environment to create, configure, execute and measure all campaigns and communications. An open software package based on standard technologies  Native SOA / Web Services integration.  Supports the standard databases on the market. Rapid deployment, a configurable and effective platform.  Templates with configurable processes, interfaces and tables.  Distributed architecture for optimum distribution of the main business and technical functions.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Abcam, Allianz, Accor Hotels, Bales Worldwide, Brand Alley, Canon, Confetti, Continental Airlines, Debenhams, Jobsite, Maybourne Hotels, Phase 8, Sony Music…. Which verticals/sectors, if any, Financial, Services, Retail, Media and Travel & Leisure. Both B2C and B2B. do you specialise in? Case Study UK client case study Bales Worldwide boosts holiday sales by five percent

Single customer view, profiling and campaign automation enable delivery of personalised communications that are relevant and timely – resulting in a 100 percent increase in response rates and an increase in sales in many areas.

The 70,000 customers of tour operator Bales Worldwide have a range of preferences when comes to the location, type and timing of their holidays.

―We recently redefined our go-to-market strategy, switching our emphasis from travel agencies to direct sales,” said Bales‘ marketing communications manager, Raymond Howe. ”A smart customer communications process became mission critical for us.‖

Bales determined that it needed automated marketing campaign software: an email marketing tool primarily, but with the scope to extend cross-channel, especially to mobile and print. Knowing that relevancy is essential to successful campaigns, Bales also wanted content to be personalised – to reflect each customer‘s interests and recent interactions.

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Company Details Company Name Neolane Bales selected Neolane‘s enterprise marketing automation software.

―Today, new data is added automatically by Neolane to customers‟ records in the datamart as they interact with us across communications channels or request brochures from 3rd party sites - constantly building and refining profiles,” said Howe. “Neolane enables us to run many thousands of mini email campaigns, tightly targeted to our customers‟ holiday preferences, stimulating interest, interaction and bookings.‖

Bales has analysed the success metrics of standard email content against personalised and also inferred content campaigns. Using test groups, it has found that for its business:

 Opening rates rise on average from around 20 percent for standard emails9 to 46 percent for personalised content10 to more than 56 percent when inferred preferences11 are used to determine content.  Click throughs rise from 8 percent to 29 percent to 41 percent.  Reactivity climbs from 24 percent to 38 percent to 49 percent.

Additionally, Bales recently extended Neolane‘s cross-channel personalisation capabilities to print. A personalised content brochure mailing sent to 50,000 people delivered a response rate of 14% after one month – double the company‘s expectation for standard mailings.

―By whichever metric we consider the improvements, Neolane has increased campaign response rates by at least 100 percent,” said Howe. “In the first year alone, Neolane and our switch to customer-oriented marketing has given us a five percent sales boost!‖

Howe concluded: ―We recovered our investment in Neolane in under a year and forecast a minimum 300 percent return within four years.‖

 Standard email content used no personal preference data  Personalised content was determined by historical client data  Inferred content was gathered from web visits following responses to an earlier email

Types of solution offered Full service Yes, via partners. ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- No

9 Standard email content used no personal preference data 10 Personalised content was determined by historical client data 11 Inferred content was gathered from web visits following responses to an earlier email

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Company Details Company Name Neolane sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics No Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash No Video No Audio No ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, Yes e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please specify) Integration Please provide details of level Data level / Webservices of integration possible with other technology, e.g. web analytics Which protocols are supported Soap/http (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers No free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any We have a twitter channel, enabling marketers to send personalised direct messages integration with social media services, and measurement Product Details Product Name Neolane Product Features MRM / cross-channel Campaign Management / email marketing / Inbound marketing / Lead management Technical Overview Three Tiers application: database / Application Server / clients Tracking capabilities Yes Data capabilities Mapping on any database Costs and pricing methods NA (please be as specific as possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do 4 you have? During what hours are your UK Office hours seven days a week support lines manned? What type of training Is Telephone, Webex and on-site product training included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Please give details of other Neolane offers a wide range of technical support options to meet your needs types of support and training

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Company Details Company Name Neolane (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your We develop our own deliverability solution, including inbox monitoring, rendering. deliverability strategy (up to We provide deliverability officers, deliverability management packages. 200 words) Do you have a deliverability No assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes, we have signed up with Goodmail and integrate with Return Path email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy We are sharing best practices regarding cross-channel management with our customers. Do you have a full-time No, we do not have a full time representative data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ We provide a lot of white papers on various topics. These are available on our website and are Publications/ shared with our customers. We also participate in a numbers of industry events each year such Industry events as conferences, trade shows, exhibitions etc. Forums/Memberships DMA, Econsultancy

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Neolane – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email we are program Where going we are

now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, including email product/services

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution

to incorporate Where bespoke functionality Wherewe are we are now going

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.16. Newsweaver

Company Details Company Name Newsweaver Company Logo

URL www.newsweaver.com UK Head Office Address The Lansdowne Building, 2 Lansdowne Road, Croydon, Surrey, CR9 2ER Other office locations European Headquarters, 2200 Airport Business Park, Kinsale Road, Cork, Ireland. Contact Name Nicholas Greig Contact Telephone 0800-904-79-55 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Newsweaver is the market leading email engagement specialist. We provide the tools, support and consultancy, that allows our customers to build relationships to achieve their business objectives, whether they be revenue, retention goals or awareness. We ensure you get the right message to the right people at the right time.

We provide over 1,500 customers in 26 countries with easy to use technology to develop and self manage meaningful email communication strategies.

Our core mission is to make our customers successful and have integrity in all aspects of our business. This is reflected in the approach we take with our customers, employees, suppliers and directors. It is also reflected in our customer retention rates, with 90% of our customers staying with use over the last 4 years.

Brief Company History Newsweaver has been providing email marketing solutions for companies, charities, government (including number of years of departments and membership organisations since 1996. In 2002 Newsweaver launched an ASP business in UK) solution. Number of UK Employees 45+ UK/IRL Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not disclosed (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed Projected year-on-year growth Not disclosed for 2010

USP

What sets you apart from  Newsweaver's key differentiators are as follows; competitors?  Unique Microsite Technology: When our customers create newsletters with Newsweaver, they are actually creating mini websites also known as microsites. This key differentiator gives our customers a number of benefits over other newsletters that provide only a front page with link backs to external websites and intranets.  Your readers stay within your newsletter environment, which has proven to increase engagement and interaction.  The front page of your newsletter stays focused, easy to scan, with all the detail on the back pages, your readers can easily find what is relevant and engaging to them.  All pages on the microsite are tracked in Google; each time you publish new content you will increases your SEO.  Every edition of your newsletter is archived; therefore access to back issues is easy for your readers.

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Company Details Company Name Newsweaver  We enable Flash/ Video/Surveys, to get past company spam blockers, by placing this content on the back pages of the newsletters‘ microsite. This allows our customers to get their message across via multimedia newsletters that reach their audience.  Advanced Personalisation: Newsweaver goes beyond the standard personalisation we have all come to expect. For example: Dear Marie, It was a pleasure meeting you at “X Event”, we know we can help “X Company”.... When we talk about personalisation we are talking about getting the right information to the right person. Our customers can define who receives what content; this has been proven to increase engagement threefold. Even personalising a small percentage of the content in your newsletter will impact your results. For example, 80% of your content is the same and 20% has been defined and personalised based on the reader‘s prior engagement or where they are in the sales cycle.  Automatic Segmentation: Email marketing is very cyclical by nature- it‘s never ‗finished‘ and this is the beauty of it. The cycle includes: test, send analyse, improve and repeat. At Newsweaver we understand the importance of this cycle and provide our customer with the ability to automatically segment their subscribers based on some action they took within the newsletter. For example all subscribers who click on a link about a certain event, are automatically segmented into a list, which can then be used for a follow up communication.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Our clients range from large multinationals and government agencies to SMEs, charities and associations across the UK and rest of Europe. We work with over 1,500 organisations in 26 countries.

Some of these include Juniper, ACCA, Remax, Kelloggs, University of Manchester, Zurich Insurance, BUPA, Unite, The Scottish Enterprise Board, Saudi Aramco and Shell as well as a large range of small and medium sized companies. Which verticals/sectors, if any, The in-built versatility / configurability of Newsweaver‗s proprietary platform makes it well do you specialise in? suited to a wide-range of industry sectors such as:

 B2B  Internal Communications  Recruitment  Associations  Education  Business Services  IT/Software  Financial  Travel

Case Study UK client case study Established in 1974, Manpower is the most innovative provider of workforce solutions in Ireland – creating and delivering services that enable its clients to win in the changing world of work. Manpower‘s email newsletters are sent to directors, senior managers and managers in organisations of various sizes and across diverse sectors. Marina Nitoumbi, Marketing Executive for Manpower, worked closely with Newsweaver to realigning their newsletter to meet their strategic goals.

Identify the Challenges and Set Goals for a redesign ―We wanted to maximise our ROI using Newsweaver and our meeting with you helped us determine how to improve the newsletter efficiency and results via the design, along with an adjustment of our practices.‖Marina created metric reports based on performance over the past twelve months, to benchmark performance with particular attention paid to Opens and Clicks. This research determined some of the goals for the redesign with a view to increasing reader engagement.

Design a new layout: Increased navigation points, add sections Here are the elements Manpower implemented to their layout in order to encourage increased engagement, and promote clicks and conversions:

 Stronger navigation - Besides giving the newsletter a stronger branded look, Manpower

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Company Details Company Name Newsweaver made more use of the left hand column in the two-column template. Coloured background and link text were inserted to make it easier to read. Permanent links were added via tabs in the navigation menu to create a more useful and interactive newsletter.  Request a call-back – Manpower took advantage of the ―Request a call-back‖ feature. When clicked, it generates an email from the reader with the From and Subject Line pre-populated.  In this Issue – This contains a list of sections and articles found in the current edition of the newsletter. It encourages readers to click on more than one article and section, making it even easier to navigate the newsletter and increase engagement.  Sections – By adding sections to a newsletter, articles can be categorised under different topics, making navigation easier on the eye and encouraging more reader engagement. Each section in the main article column is defined by a faded background colour (rather than an image) to help the viewer quickly find the section that is relevant to them.  Survey – The new flexible design now allows Manpower to add or remove a survey function as needed per issue.  Contact Us – This Contact Us link is one with a difference - by using a very simple in-built macro, it is personalised to feature the office that is sending the newsletter.

Improve Calls to action: more visible and actionable ―Firstly, calls to action were not properly inserted before the redesign of our newsletter. We were aware that they were critical but we did not insert them systematically to guide our readers as we do now. In terms of diversity, we now ensure that our calls to action address all of our readers‟ positions, i.e. what the next step is if a particular piece of content is of interest to them but also suggesting alternative options if this particular offer is not suitable to fulfil their requirements.‖ Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes Custom template design but no copywriting. List provision No Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Advanced personalisation, including personalised within a newsletter article: key words, business sector mentions, calls to action, links, downloads and landing pages. Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging No Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Inbuilt integration to Google Analytics Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes To ensure delivery we encourage our customers to use our unique microsite technology and place all Flash on the back pages of their newsletters. Video Yes

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Company Details Company Name Newsweaver Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, No e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Custom Design Templates, Best Practice Consultancy, Organisation-wide Audit of Email specify) Activity, Real Time Support, and Deliverability. Integration Please provide details of level Out of the box integration with Google Analytics supported. Other integrations are possible via of integration possible with the API. other technology, e.g. web analytics Which protocols are supported HTTP and HTTPS. API is REST based. (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Access to the underlying database is via API. free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any We allow the sharing of not only the entire newsletter but individual articles on social media integration with social media services such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. And because of our unique microsite services, and measurement technology our customers can add a comment feature to each article for increased sharing and interactivity. RSS feeds of Newsletters can be created automatically. All the above is tracked and reported on in the customers Newsweaver account. Product Details Product Name Newsweaver Product Features  Unique Microsite technology for email newsletters  Advanced Personalisation  Strategy and Campaign Planning  List management and Segmentation  Subscriber Insight and Reporting  Online Surveys  Social Media Integration  API  AB Split testing  Real time customer support Technical Overview Newsweaver is a web based, in-house developed system utilizing leading edge development tools (Apache, Linux, Tomcat, MySQL, and Java). The system is highly scalable and resilient and is deployed over a large number of servers. The system allows email templates to be built directly from the user interface. As well as sending email or newsletters the system creates microsites (email websites) for each email sent as uniquely Newsweaver can generate multi- paged emails. The system has a sophisticated, REST based, API allowing creation and sending of emails, syncing of subscriber data and access to reports etc. Tracking capabilities Newsweaver‗s unique microsite technology allows for deep tracking of reader activity allowing reporting on content popularity, who read what, and reader profiling and segmentation. Newsweaver also provides the following reports for each publication sent. Emails Sent, In Transit, Delivered, Who Opened, Who Clicked, Bounces, Subscribes, Unsubscribed and Complaints. Data capabilities  Ability to host images, PDFs, Flash, Video, Office documents, etc  The API allows the extraction and syncing of subscriber data Costs and pricing methods Newsweaver has a pricing structure that is developed so our customers only pay an amount that (please be as specific as is relevant to their usage. possible) Our pricing can be split into two areas: 1: The first relates to the setting up of an account and the development of email templates. A customer is booked in for a design consultation with our internal design team. Once a template

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Company Details Company Name Newsweaver is designed and approved it is added to the account and the customer is then trained on how to use our system to populate their email communications with content, uploading data and preparing for the first send. Our average set up fee for the above is approx. £700.

2: The second charge is monthly and relates to ongoing access to the software and the amount of monthly mails sent from Newsweaver. Coupled with our real time support and access to our consultants on how to achieve higher readership and engagement, from market leading email relationship experts.

A typical monthly license fee for a company sending between 1 – 7000 emails per month that also uses Newsweaver‘s standard email creation, personalisation, social engagement and reporting tools would be £290. This rate is discounted for those organisations sending less than 1,000 mails and for those sending higher email volumes per month the pricing structure means that the cost per 1000 decreases significantly as volumes increase.

Please call sales on 0800-904-79-55 for a personalised quote as each customer requirement is unique. Training & Support How many UK support staff do 20 Support staff are based in our European HQ (Ireland) with additional resources in the US you have? and Australia. During what hours are your UK 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday except for UK public holidays. support lines manned? What type of training Is A suite of on-demand training videos are available online focusing on different product features. included? (e.g. telephone and Customers also have access to our phone support line if further assistance is required. For on-site product training) enterprise customers customised training videos or onsite training can be arranged if required. Is online support included? Yes On-demand online training videos email and designated support pages on our website. Please give details of other Newsweaver employs some of the world‘s leading specialists on email best practices, and they types of support and training advise our customers on the most effective use of email marketing and how best to optimise (e.g. strategic workshops and Newsweaver for their business objective. Access is available by arrangement. Newsweaver also access to experts) run customer days where customers have in-person access to product and email specialists. Deliverability Please summarise your Customers are assigned to different monitored email server queues and can be moved if deliverability strategy (up to problems arise. Newsweaver keeps lists clean by using an automatic Bounce Manager. The 200 words) Bounce Manager has a wide range of rules for dealing with different ESPs. There are currently 873 different rules. Email servers will try to deliver the mail for 5 days before stopping and marking as bounced. We participate in ISP feedback loops. Emails are sent with all the latest standards including DKIM, SPF and SenderID. Blacklists are constantly monitored and actions taken if necessary. A summary of the delivery problem with each subscriber is displayed in the User Interface. Spam detectors are built in to the system to recognise potential problematic emails prior to send.

Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an No email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy As members of the DMA we follow the DMA UK Email Best Practice guidelines, which is sets a standard above and beyond what is required within legislation. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Newsweaver‘s team of best practice specialists are continually publishing whitepapers, and Publications/ news articles on all aspects of email marketing communications. We also produce a monthly Industry events newsletter called the Business of email, and a blog called email matters! We can be seen participating and speaking at most industry events.

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Newsweaver – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Where Full service & support for whole we are client email going program

Where we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality Where we are going Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.17. Profusion

Company Details Company Name Profusion Company Logo

URL http://www.profusion.com rd UK Head Office Address 3 Floor, 85 Clerkenwell Road, London. EC1R 5AR Other office locations Contact Name Komal Helyer Contact Telephone 0845 194 7600 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Profusion is a digital marketing service provider specialising in email marketing solutions. We have a dedicated team of email and multichannel marketing experts who use proven technology to give our customers the tools and techniques that ensure their digital marketing campaigns deliver optimum results.

Brief Company History Originally known as Mailtrack Digital and then DMS, Profusion was born in 1999. We were one (including number of years of of the first email marketing providers and have since evolved our approach to remain at the business in UK) forefront of digital marketing services provision. Profusion has been in business for 11 years. With a healthy mix of Clients, from major blue chips like HSBC and M&S Financial Services, to leading retailers like Faith Shoes and Glasses Direct, we have the flexibility to work with any business looking to develop and enhance its digital presence. We also work with advertising and media agencies, providing tailored solutions to their Clients and acting as an extension of their team. Number of UK Employees 25 Turnover for 2009 (or last N/A accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth N/A (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 N/A Projected year-on-year growth N/A for 2010

USP What sets you apart from With over 10 years experience in email marketing and being a founding member of the email competitors? marketing council, we are pioneers at the forefront of the industry. Through listening to our clients and enhancing our products (especially the ability to integrate with emerging technologies) and portfolios to meet the ever changing needs of the marketer, our clients trust us to deliver relevant, timely, engaging and responsive communications.

Our expert end to end solutions offer you a single supplier relationship with a company that has a true understanding of your business, a company that operates reliably and with utmost integrity to both increase results and reduce costs.

 Expert Knowledge – our team of senior managers, account managers, creative and back end developers are considered the best available in the marketplace. We are deeply experienced, passionate and honest in helping you achieve your goals.  Flexibility. – We relish the challenge to find the right solution for your particular needs, we do not believe in one size fits all. The benefit to you a customer experience that fits with your business needs.

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Company Details Company Name Profusion  Deliverability – Deliverability is a key factor in the success of your campaign. We work very hard in the background to ensure that your strategy follows best practice to get the most out of your deliverability.  UK Based – You are supported by a UK team that works your hours and that can support you in real time.  Boutique – Your business means everything to us. We are a small company, with a highly expert team, that works extra hard and is committed to help you deliver big results

Clients Examples of UK Clients HSBC, First Direct, M&S Money, Black & Decker, Dewalt, Screwfix, Tooled Up, Virgin Galactic, Hogg Robinson Group, Gro Group, Glasses Direct, Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Which verticals/sectors, if any, Profusion has a range of clients in various sectors including: - Financial Services, Retail, do you specialise in? Telecommunications, Travel and Entertainment Case Study UK client case study These can be provided on request. Please contact Komal Helyer, Head of Marketing. [email protected] Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Profusion‘s Account Directors are some of the most experienced in the industry, working very closely with clients to ensure they move away from batch and blast, to engaging their consumers with smarter communications that are personalised, timely and relevant. This in turn moves consumers along their lifecycle and increases their lifetime value.

Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes

Profusion's ProDigital email and multichannel platform includes advanced segmentation and targeting functionality to enable your email marketing team to:  Create target groups based on multiple criteria using the graphical query editor  Calculate indicators, scores and aggregates  Achieve seamless integration with specialist data mining applications - offering even more sophisticated modelling functions Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Profusion‘s email and multichannel platform has an in-built dynamic content management module that gives you the tools to get the right message across to the right people. With the Enterprise platform you can:

 Create pre-defined templates with content targeted by customer segment  Use business rules to define what content each customer receives  Personalise and publish one-to-one content to any channel

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Company Details Company Name Profusion  Analyse results and tweak content to optimise ROI  Achieve all of this in one campaign to minimise admin cost and time

Integration Please provide details of level Profusions email and multichannel platform is built in open standards, allowing clients to use a of integration possible with range of native connectors for integration with other technologies. The system is also designed other technology, e.g. web to permit additional integration via APIs. analytics Integration with CRM systems, Web Analytics, ELT (Extraction, Transformation, Loading), File import/export functionality, Module. Which protocols are supported (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Web services API (SOAP HTTP/XML)

Do you allow client developers Yes free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any integration with social media Integration with Twitter and Facebook. Social Media measurement tools also available. Email services, and measurement and Social Media integration strategies given.

Product Details Product Name ProDigital – Enterprise Platform Product Features Prodigital is an enterprise level marketing platform that allows marketers to design and execute campaigns across multiple channels, providing cost efficiency via scheduled and event triggered events to deliver highly targeted on-brand communication.

The Prodigital marketing platform supports the entire marketing process, incorporating segmentation, personalisation, delivery, response management and campaign reporting. Our Support team is with you every step of the way to help you use the technology and give you advice and guidance on good practise

Segmentation The ProDigital platform allows you to easily identify campaign targets and rapidly set-up highly targeted campaigns with no technical knowledge needed.

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Company Details Company Name Profusion

 Easy to use tool to investigate and set-up target segments  Geographical targeting module  Integration with predictive modelling tools

Personalisation Improve the customer experience with relevant content, therefore increasing campaign response rates.  Dynamically personalise campaign content based on customer profile.  Insert merge fields and targeted HTML content  Multi-language support

Analysis & Reporting ProDigitals real time reports enable quick decision making.  Monitor systems actions to evaluate internal process  Detailed tracking of all campaign activity: opens, clicks, transactions, opt-in etc  Over 40 detailed reports plus ability to create custom reports  Integration with Web Analytics tools supported  Bespoke dashboards available

Multi-channel delivery ProDigital allows you to engage with your customers through their preferred channels. ProDigital allows for a single customer view across various channels.  Support for Email, SMS/MMS, Web. Fax, Direct Mail and Contact Centre  Create one message and deliver in the appropriate way for each channel  Integrate multiple channels within one campaign

Graphical Workflow ProDigital allows you to automate campaigns throughout your customer lifecycle to save time and money.  Create campaign processes with an intuitive workflow tool (segmentation, routing, file handling etc)  Trigger scheduled and event based actions  System integration and process modelling capability  Fully automated

Content Management ProDigital‘s content management allows you to quickly make controlled content changes, allowing for improved team work efficiencies.  Build emails from pre-approved templates  Authorisation workflow  HTML code checking  Spam score analysis

Social Media Integration  eShare emails with social media networks  Send messages who chose a social network as a delivery channel  Messages are sent to those who are opted in  These messages can be personalised, tracked etc  Direct integration with Twitter and Facebook

Technical Overview From a high level perspective, the ProDigital system is made up of the following main components:

 Database Tier  Application Server Tier  Application Server (Web)

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Company Details Company Name Profusion  HTML Presentation Layer  Delivery Server (MTA)  Incoming Mail (inMail)

Further detailed information will be supplied on request Tracking capabilities  Detailed tracking of all system actions  Automatic tracking of all customer reactions: opens, clicks, transactions, opt-in & opt-out  40 detailed reports, plus ability to create reports  Integration with web analytics tools  Bespoke Dashboards Data capabilities  Data loading, quality management and exporting capabilities  Marketing data mart can be extended  Web services API (SOAP HTTP/XML)  Automatic handling of opt-in & opt-out, web form and forward to a friend data  Integration with external systems for event driven marketing Costs and pricing methods (please be as specific as Profusions pricing model is competitive, and easy to understand. Please contact the Profusion possible) team for more information Training & Support How many UK support staff do 10 you have? During what hours are your UK 9-6, 5 days a week support lines manned? What type of training Is Telephone, On-site, At Profusion‘s offices. Profusion will design training courses to suit the included? (e.g. telephone and clients' needs. on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other types of support and training Access to the Profusion blog with expert techniques and best practice – (e.g. strategic workshops and http://www.profusion.com/blog access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your At Profusion we believe that deliverability is key to the success of your campaign. In 2009 almost deliverability strategy 50% of marketers experience problems reaching recipients in-boxes, however only a fifth of these know what percentage of their email budget is lost through non delivery, (Source – Econsultancy Email Marketing Census 2009).

Profusion is constantly working with global and local ISPs to maximise deliverability and maintain feedback loops. We employ a 6 step strategy to get the best results. These include:-

 Suppression  Creative optimisation  Certification  Sender authentication  Sender reputation  Deliverability reporting

For more information on this strategy please contact us. Do you have a deliverability assurance solution? We have a dedicated deliverability team whose purchase is to ensure we work on our clients‘ deliverability and keep ahead of any issues faced by clients. Are you signed up with an In partnership with Return Path we are able to bring you the Return Path Certification email certification or programme. Once accepted you can experience increased deliverability to over 1.3 billion authentication service (e.g. inboxes worldwide and benefit from increased email delivery rates. Goodmail, Return Path)?

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Company Details Company Name Profusion Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Profusion is dedicated to best practice. All Account Directors are trained experts in email and in developing multichannel marketing strategies.

At Profusion we take Lifecycle marketing seriously. We recommend building a digital marketing strategy that will deliver customer satisfaction and maximise lifetime value to drive your ROI.

The idea behind lifecycle marketing is easy to grasp but implementing a commercially viable strategy requires expert knowledge. Profusion has a tried and tested methodology, supported by proven technology, which helps you manage digital marketing at every stage of your customer lifecycle. For more information on our best practice and lifecycle methodology please contact us. Do you have a full-time We have a dedicated team whose purpose is to ensure the highest deliverability, build ISP data/spam/privacy relationships and address any problems that arise. representative? White Papers/ Profusions blog- http://www.profusion.com/blog is a great source for best practice, top tips and Publications/ guidance on email, social media, mobile and integrated multichannel marketing. We will also be Industry events launching a series of Whitepapers Forums/Memberships Members of the DMA

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Profusion – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & Where support for whole we are client email Where going program we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke Where we are functionality we are going now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.18. Pure360

Company Details Company Name Pure360 Company Logo

URL www.pure360.com UK Head Office Address Unit A-D, Lvl 7, New England Hs, New England St, Brighton BN1 4GH Other office locations N/A Contact Name Marc Munier Contact Telephone 01273 647870 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition We are the people who provide the best email marketing service to people like The FT, Rightmove, Innocent Drinks, Seatwave, Gocompare & Wiggle.

We believe we are the best because:

1. We've the highest client retention rate

That‘s 98.6% with no contracts for any of our clients. All those great marketers stay with us because we deliver great service and software. Our competitors tie people into long term contracts – why? What is the advantage to the client? There are none, we give a great system at a reasonable price.

No one else publishes their client retention rate, if you are talking to any ESP who has a long term contract – ask them why and let us know.

2. The most usable Google Analytics integration

We are the only enterprise level ESP with 2 way integration – that is we let GA know where your email traffic is coming from plus we draw back analytics information into PureResponse so you can see what people are doing on your site after they click through – this enables you to gain far more insight into how your recipients are reacting to your messages.

Check out our entry in the Google App store

3. 10% higher open rate than the DMA average

The DMA have a group within it which is made up of ESP‘s just like us. Every quarter members submit their sending volumes, with total opens and clicks broken down by retention and acquisition.

Through this we know that the average open rate is 25% and our average open rate is 28% which means ours is a full 10% higher than our competitors. Meaning our clients get consistently higher open rates than they would with our competitors, why? We believe it‘s down to our exceptional account management and support teams plus our clever software.

DMA Email Benchmarking Report (free to DMA Members)

4. Largest customer service team in the UK This one is super easy. We know that when you‘re looking for an ESP you aren‘t just looking for a bit of software, you‘re looking for people who also improve your email marketing campaigns, which is why we have the largest customer service team in the UK.

We don‘t include customer service teams based overseas, because as anyone knows who has called Barclaycard, they don‘t give a great level of customer service.

Our numbers are based on the last years Econsultancy Buyer‘s Guide (Econsultancy by the way is a great source of industry know how on anything from Email to social, Affiliate – anything digital really.)

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Company Details Company Name Pure360

Brief Company History Founded in 2001, Pure360 is one of Europe‘s top email marketing companies. Listed as the (including number of years of fastest growing email service provider in Europe by GP Bullhound. PureResponse, our business in UK) multilingual email platform, is used by 2000 marketers in over 50 countries. Number of UK Employees 58 Turnover for 2009 (or last 3.2m accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 20% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 4.4m Projected year-on-year growth 40% for 2010

USPs What sets you apart from While a lot of ESP‘s will claim ―ease of use‖ we know we achieve this – our average login time is competitors? below 12 minutes.

Whilst advanced functionality such as intelligent timed sending, inbox preview, subject lien testing and social share ensure we are at the forefront of email marketing technology, our focus remains on making this functionality so user friendly and accessible it genuinely saves time and make marketers lives easier, as well as increasing results and ROI

We provide exceptional deliverability and functionality and are truly passionate about the work we do. Every client is managed by a Pure360 expert who will provide ongoing advice on tools and techniques to maximise the effectiveness of their email campaigns.

Our platform, PureResponse has dozens of different modules, allowing the spec of the system to develop with the user‘s needs. This also ensures that users are not paying for functionality they do not require, and that our agency and reseller clients can accommodate the diverse needs of their own client base.

NO LONG-TERM CONTRACTS – We are still the only enterprise level ESP with no contracts, based on the speed of change within the industry we can‘t understand why anyone would sign a 2 year plus contract with an ESP.

Having no long-term contracts means we work extra hard to ensure customers‘ needs are met and exceeded. This is proven with our customer retention rate of over 98%.

Are ESP‘s with long term contracts motivated to do the same? Clients Examples of UK Clients Direct Customers Include:  Rightmove  Emap  The FT Group  British bankers Association  Alzheimer‘s Society  London College of Fashion  Innocent drinks  Guardian Media Group Radio  LA Fitness  Anya Hindmarch  RS Components  Seatwave  Exchange & Mart  DVLA

Through our dedicated agency team we‘ve worked on behalf of:  Pepsi

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Company Details Company Name Pure360  Tesco  Starbucks  Redbull  Levis Which verticals/sectors, if any, We specialise in working with clients who want to invest in their email channel – we‘re do you specialise in? passionate about getting our clients better results – regardless of the sector they work in. However we are particularly strong in:  Online retail  Charities  Travel & Tourism  Content Publishers  Leisure Case Study Giving the fans what they want, when they want it

The audience of award collecting, fan-to-fan ticket exchange, Seatwave want to know about the latest events and ticket availability, the moment they hit the website.

So the Seatwave marketers not only need to deliver this information quickly and efficiently, but they need to ensure that their email marketing arrives in each subscriber‘s inbox at the time they are most likely to open, and act on it.

Bringing the brand to life

On top of their time-critical challenge, the marketers at Seatwave also require an email marketing campaign that brings to life the core principles of simplicity, clarity and passion whilst allowing audiences to easily understand the product proposition.

This would have a major impact on the final design of their email campaign and the key messaging that they communicated within it.

And the ultimate objective of the campaign?

To drive traffic to the Seatwave website and increase ticket sales, cost effectively of course.

The email marketing solution

Email marketing expert Lucy recommended a flexible and cost-effective solution designed to maximise impact and responses to Seatwave‘s email campaigns. The platform, PureResponse, would give Seatwave the capability to quickly assess the effectiveness of their campaigns and build relationships with customers by gathering data and tracking responses to enable more personalised campaigns.

Timing is everything

Seatwave‘s ongoing email marketing campaign uses ‗Intelligent Time Sending‘ to analyse when each recipient is most likely to open their emails, and click-through to the website. This information is used to ensure emails arrive in recipients‘ inboxes at the time he or she is most receptive – an essential tool as Seatwave‘s success is dependent on the audience responding quickly and purchasing tickets.

Another essential and time-saving feature they use is ‗Automatic Message Import‘ that makes it possible for Seatwave to send out the latest offers by uploading web content automatically into their email marketing campaign, meaning they use minimal resources.

The power of personalisation

For local or niche events Seatwave can construct lists based on recipient interests and location.

New events can be announced at any time and the ability to rapidly build segmented lists from its database, to target the right subscribers with new and relevant information, is key to capturing traffic and sales.

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Company Details Company Name Pure360 Battle of the inbox

‗Automatic Subject Line Selector‘ is used to send out campaigns with multiple subject lines and analyses open rates in real time to ensure that further messages automatically adopt the most successful subject line. ‗Subject-line optimisation‘ has also been central to the success of this campaign - getting the subject line right is the difference between Seatwave‘s emails being opened or deleted.

Meanwhile using PureResponse‘s design toolkit, Seatwave can create visually engaging emails that reflect the core brand values. Their emails include dynamic content to convey the emotion and passion of the live experience, as this is the ultimate purchasing trigger.

A social service

Ticket purchasing is frequently a group decision as the majority of events are attended in couples or groups so Seatwave use the ‗Social Share‘ functionality to share information with friends in a click via email or social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The technology also extends their reach to many more people than those that are listed on its database.

The proof is in the results

By using the sophisticated reporting capability, Seatwave monitors not just open and click through rates, but also vital post-click information such as how many and what type of tickets were bought. In addition to helping measure campaign effectiveness, this has proved invaluable in increasing the effectiveness of targeting within future campaigns.

Email marketing has been so successful that it is now an intrinsic part of Seatwave‘s marketing. With average open rates of 11.18%, and click through rates of 31%, it has driven phenomenal growth in an extremely cost-effective way, delivering an ROI of 1600%.

The clever team at Seatwave have now won numerous awards and they say that their email marketing has been central to this success. Marvellous.

Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No In-bound Yes API Yes, fully programmable SOAP API Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision No Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites

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Company Details Company Name Pure360 Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes, able to integrate with most providers. Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, e.g. Yes, mobile SMS, Fax, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Unusually our best practice advice and proactive account management comes as part and specify) parcel of our packages. Rich media content capability Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes Integration Please provide details of level ―off the shelf‖ integrations are available for: of integration possible with  Faststats other technology, e.g. web  Sage ACT! analytics  Salesforce  Microsoft CRM  Google Analytics Do you allow client developers Yes, Anything that is possible within our web interface is possible using our API. We also have free access to your database ‗Simple API‘ options for basic integration tasks such as uploading or adding to data lists. for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Product Details Product Name PureResponse Product Features Work With Data

 Import, append & export unlimited lists - with no restrictions on number of contacts  De-duplication and list cleaning – Dedupe of lists on upload, clean bounces  Automatic bounce, opt-out and spam complaint management  Listbuilder - Create unlimited signup forms to use on websites or microsites  Map custom data fields for personalization or targeting  Auto list upload - Update lists directly from your database  Upload Suppression list/s with existing opt-outs and/or bounces  Create filters to segment and target sectors of your list  Double or single opt-in functionality  Trigger updates to your CRM, or emails to your team when recipients react to your email campaigns  Full API - for 2-way connectivity with your CRM or third party system/s

Work With Messages

 Visual editor - Create impressive email designs without HTML knowledge, in an easy to use WYSIWYG editor  Layout Templates - Over 20 included templates to get you started, with options for custom and advanced branded options  Code / Plain text editor - Edit messages in your chosen format  SMS editor - create trackable SMS campaigns, with character limit tracker, personalisation, and branded ‗from‘ name and reply/short-code handling options

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Company Details Company Name Pure360  Upload library - Brand-neutral Hosting for all your images  URL and FTP Import - Import designs direct from any URL or from design software, or batch transfer images using an FTP client  Social Share - Build share links into your emails, so recipients can easily share your message with their contacts by either email, or via social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg and many more  Web version - Auto-generated web version of each email, so you can offer recipients the option to view in a browser, and get the same level of reporting  Language modules - For emailing in languages other than English, languages modules not only provide translated landing pages & links (a legal requirement for opt-outs!), but also support encoding of the appropriate local character set within your message. Available in over 40 languages, the world is your oyster!  Dynamic Content - Deliver personalised articles, product offers or call-to-actions based upon information known about the recipient such as demographics, personal preferences, purchase history or online activities  One to one - Get personal. One to one lets your team send individual branded and tracked emails to their contacts and prospects - with real-time reporting of results. Great for telemarketing operations, brand consistency, or just understanding the effectiveness of your follow up emails!  Snippet manager - For content you‘re likely to use regularly, snippets allow you to save your commonly used. We‘ll get you started with useful stuff like trust earning text and share to social network links and logos

Test & Optimise

 Inbox Preview - View screenshots of your email design, as it will appear in over 20 major email clients, so you can ensure your design looks great for all your recipients. To deliver the most complete insight into how your email is likely to be received, Inbox Preview allows you to view your design with and without images blocked, check your subject line length, excerpt text and display how your email will appear in the recipients preview pane  Unlimited test sends  Choose up to 10 of your own test addresses and send as many test emails as you like. On us  Subject Line tester - Send to multiple subject lines to see which generate the best open results  Subject Line Selector - This tool will analyse the open rates to see which is most popular – and automatically adopt the most successful subject line  Deliverability & Spam check - A simple ‗traffic light‘ status will alert you to issues within your email that could increase your chances of getting blocked or marked as spam

Automate & Re-target

 Automations - Send emails automatically when things happen, or based on any dates that you have in your list. Whether it‘s a simple (and well timed) ‗happy birthday‘ offer, a series of emails to welcome new subscribers, or a complete client subscription lifecycle strategy - automations make planning clever automated campaigns quick, and easy  Auto responder - Deliver a full HTML email in immediate response to any inbound reply, so whatever day and time your recipients reply, you can rest assured they will never, ever be ignored  Retarget non-opens - Automate a timed follow up send, using a different subject line, to reach people that didn‘t open the first time round

Track & Report

 Automatic tracking of every link within your email  Real-time online graphic reporting, with summary and detail views. Track actions such as: Opens Clicks  Replied Auto-replied Forwarded / Viral Subject line performance Unsubscribed Bounced Soft-bounced Blocked email addresses  Set and track goals... for each campaign based on your own criteria for a successful

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Company Details Company Name Pure360 campaign, or compare your results against the DMA national averages  Link appender - adds a tracking code to every link in your email to allow easy integration with your website analytics software and tracking  Overlay reports - See exactly where recipients clicked within your email. Overlay reports show which areas of your designs are getting attention, in order of popularity - and even links which go on to get repeat views, so you can really understand what makes your recipient‘s tick  Opens over Time - Chart the timeline of recipient activity

 Postclick tracking - Find out exactly where your customers go and what they do once they‘ve clicked on your email. Postclick tracking gives you the clearest possible picture of customer activity, from which pages they visit to how much money they spend and how many items they buy, allowing you to optimise your email and website accordingly  Export results in spreadsheet format  Group reporting - group and view results over any period, or from multiple brands (profiles)  Advanced reports  Unprecedented insights to provide all the feedback and comparative tools you will ever need.  Manipulate data like never before - e.g. extract data on non-opens to automatically create a new list and send a different message  Identify the best day of the week, even the best time of day to target your prospects - the time when they are at their most receptive  Compare ongoing and previous campaigns (or campaign series) to monitor trends - clearly see ‗gains and losses‘ relative to target criteria  Advanced overlay reports  See not only where, and in what order recipients interacted with your email, but also what they then went on to do at ‗individual person detail‘ level, view micro-reports based on this detailed click behaviour and use these epic insights to truly understand your recipients - and improve your engagement

Deliver

 Schedule emails for immediate or future delivery  Set up date based recurring deliveries and automations  Intelligent Time Sending  ITS is one of our smartest, and easiest to implement features. Imagine if your campaign landed in every recipient‘s inbox at the precise moment they wanted to read it. ITS takes the guess work out of sending times by learning from existing data on when your recipients open and click emails, to calculate this exact moment for every recipient on your database  Dynamic ‘from’ and reply addresses - Have each individual email in a bulk campaign come from a personal email address and ‘from’ name, and even better - each individual reply will also go then go back to the ‗real‘ email address specific to that recipient  Webscrape (Auto Message Import) - Pull content from a URL and set rules to ensure duplicate content is never sent

Branding

 White label - Fully branded system, with 24 customised elements. URL masking allows users to login from your choice of domain, or via a form on your site  White label preview tool - View and tweak your branding before you sign off on your white label  Landing pages - Custom or advanced options for branding the landing pages recipients can interact with, such as opt-out or share  Email Masking - allows branding of ‗from‘ address, so emails appear to come from you, and avoids your emails being marked as SPAM by anti-phishing filters

Technical Overview Pure360 runs a LAMP setup, we find this provides us with the balance our clients need of reliability with speed of deployment.

MySQL has been chosen as the key database solution, structured in a full clustering database

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Company Details Company Name Pure360 setup for absolute diversity.

PHP has been chosen as the front end due to its speed of operation, versatility and rapid development capabilities over Enterprise Java. Apache, as the industry standard web server has been chosen for its robustness in operation. Tracking capabilities Website conversions, Opens, clicks, post clicks, all available by domain, time and are exportable with all custom data provided. Data capabilities Using our list management tool, complex segmentations can be done easily in minutes with up to 40 custom fields available in addition to email and address and mobile number.

As an alternative to the above, PureResponse is integrated with numerous CRM packages including Salesforce, Microsoft CRM & SageACT! For a statistical database solution for Cluster and Predictive data modelling PureResponse integrates directly with Apteco‘s Faststats system. Costs and pricing methods Our pricing is clear and open, consisting of a one off set-up cost, and monthly rolling costs, (please be as specific as without a minimum term contract. Email and SMS credits are purchased separately, with possible) discounts applied based on the volume purchased, and can be paid monthly or in bulk to suit the clients‘ preference.

Importantly, Email and SMS credits rollover indefinitely – Our clients have often been stung by past experiences where they‘d been tied into costly non-rollover contracts with their previous ESP. Rollover credits also offer clients a great opportunity for bulk buy credits if they wish, and make increased savings

While every account is bespoke, with a variety of access options, and product and service bolt- ons to ensure the system is a perfect fit, we offer a series of 3 core starter packages, with varied and matched feature sets and services. Each package is available in direct client and Agency/reseller versions.

As an example of package costs;

Lite - From £395 set-up/ £49 per month Pro – From £695 set-up / £99 per month Expert – From £1995 set-up / £199 per month

An additional, unique solution we offer is PureUnlimited, with dedicated hardware, full support and unlimited email volumes without any ‗per email‘ costs. Each unlimited solution is specified on a bespoke basis, so specific pricing requires consultation, but clients have saved tens of thousands of pounds by PureUnlimited Training & Support How many UK support staff do 14 you have? During what hours are your UK 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday. support lines manned? Is telephone product training Yes included? Is on site product training Yes (as an option) and we also offer a face-to-face training option at our own facility. included? Please give details of other Pure360‘s account managers act in a consultative manner providing detailed advice, regularly types of support and training contacting customers proactively to offer strategy advice and best practice, we also conduct (e.g. strategic workshops and regular webinars to provide insights into email marketing strategy. access to experts) Deliverability Do you have a deliverability Continuous data processing checks are done on every delivery, known as ‗Risk Analysis assurance solution? Monitoring‘. Should the sends exceed tolerances set for hard bounce, soft bounce and opt-out, sends are automatically paused allowing Pure360 support staff to investigate the potential issues with the list immediately.

In addition to this we prescreen all list uploads to ensure that there are no indicators that the list

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Company Details Company Name Pure360 is from a non opted in source.

Are you Goodmail-enabled? Yes What was your Q1 '09 97.5% - this is a completely arbitrary number as it‘s an average across of over 1000 customers, Deliverability rate? the question you should be asking is can this ESP get my emails delivered to the inbox – we can‘t say that without knowing what your email practices are – give us a call and we‘ll talk you through the factors which effect deliverability. Please indicate the level of We proactively manage our relationships with the ISP‘s as we see this as absolutely key to our relationship you have with continued success. We follow all the published guidelines and ensure our clients do the same; major email providers such as this has helped us remain white listed with all major ISP‘s that have white lists. Hotmail, Yahoo!, Google, and AOL Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy We publish best practice articles regularly in our industry resources section of our website, we also send the industry newsletter The EMM on a monthly basis.

We‘ve even started doing video guides – check out our latest deconstruction of Apples emails here:

Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Yes, Pure360 produces many white papers to assist its client base. Publications/ We produce frequent advice, insights and opinions, from leading experts across the email Industry events marketing industry in the Resources section of our website and also contribute to The DMA and Econsultancy blog.

Check out our latest timing research – surprising results on the best time to send Forums/Memberships, AOP, DMA and Email Marketing Council.

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Pure360 – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & Where Where support for whole we are client email we are program now going

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters)

Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke Where functionality Where we are we are

nowgoing

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

Ability to offer Text and html email provision dynamic email solution

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10.19. RedEye

Company Details Company Name RedEye Company Logo

URL www.redeye.com UK Head Office Address Oak House, Crewe Hall Farm, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 5UE Other office locations 26 Shenley Pavilions, Chalkdell Drive, Shenley Wood, Milton Keynes, Bucks. MK5 6LB 26 Grosvenor Gardens, Victoria, London, SW1W 0GT Contact Name Katie Traynier Contact Telephone 01908 340 990 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition RedEye is the leader in behavioural email.

We offer email, web analytics and usability services (ASP and managed).

Our integrated service of web analytics with email marketing allows us to create behavioural email campaigns that improve conversion.

RedEye‘s web analytics service tracks real individual level data allowing us to produce email campaigns that drive exceptional year on year improvements in top line revenue and ROI.

Targeting customers and prospects based on browsing behaviour and producing personalised emails drives the 20% improvement most companies need to grow their business.

At RedEye we understand customer needs, and know for email to be successful it has to be relevant. All our email campaigns are designed to be relevant and timely helping clients improve deliverability problems and receive white list status as well as improve ROI and conversion.

Brief Company History RedEye was established in 1997. In 2005 the company bought e-relationship marketing Ltd (e- (including number of years of rm) and began the drive towards integrating email and web analytics in order to increase return business in UK) on investment for customers. Capabilities grew and in 2006 a unique behavioural email marketing solution became available. During this time optimum.web also became part of RedEye, expanding RedEye‘s services to website usability.

Number of UK Employees 60 Turnover for 2009 (or last £4,003,853 (year ending 31.03.10) accounting period including dates) USP What sets you apart from  RedEye offers a truly integrated service of web analytics with emailing marketing creating

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Company Details Company Name RedEye competitors? effective behavioural email campaigns based on online behaviour. Our unique service allows clients to target customers and prospects as individuals from the inception of an email campaign. This ensures only relevant communication is sent to every user, every time.  RedEye‘s unique integrated service not only allows us to run basic behavioural triggered programmes such as basket abandonment, but also allows us to create campaigns based on hundreds of different variables of online behaviour such as content viewed, out of stock apology, incomplete quotes and welcome programmes.  The biggest block to rolling out a successful behavioural email campaign is the complication of data integration. At RedEye our single database approach including all website data, all channel data, all email data and all transactional data, by passes this block.  RedEye‘s single integrated system allows hundreds of different behavioural emails to be generated allowing every user to receive a unique email tailored to their individual behaviour.  At RedEye we offer a fully managed service including the support of an Account Manager and Client Services team to ensure clients get the most out of all campaigns. Our Client Services team is unique in the industry. The team is on hand to provide day to day set up and full support whenever needed. Clients Examples of UK Clients Interflora, Bourne Leisure, Monarch, Wilkinson, William Hill, Kwik-Fit, Direct Gov, ASOS Which verticals/sectors, if any, Travel, Finance, Retail, Gambling, Public Sector do you specialise in? Case Study UK client case study Case Study: Clifford James (BVG-Airflo)

BVG-Airflo achieve 678% ROI with Abandoned Basket Behavioural Email Campaign “We wanted greater visibility of our customers online behaviour to better meet their needs and continually develop the web as a profitable sales channel. RedEye‟s unique services enabled us to do this. RedEye‟s agility, support and pro-active approach to problem solving has exceeded our expectations. We have experienced a 678% return for our behavioural email campaigns and a 154% revenue improvement from our email marketing campaigns. My only issue with RedEye is that we weren‟t working with them sooner.” Iain Burgess, Chief Executive, BVG-Airflo Challenge Clifford James is part of the multi-channel retail group BVG-Airflo. As a traditional catalogue retailer with a growing online presence, BVG-Airflo recognised it needed to gain a better understanding of online customer behaviour across its portfolio of ecommerce websites if it was to improve conversion and sales. Like most online retailers BVG was aware of the large number of users abandoning online shopping baskets before making a purchase. BVG wanted to find a way to re-engage these users and convert more abandoned basket users into buying customers.

Solution Using RedEye‘s behavioural email programme of integrating web analytics with email marketing, BVG implemented an abandoned basket behavioural email campaign. The behavioural email campaign was designed to uplift conversion through re-engaging any users that may have been distracted while making their purchase or needed additional reassurance and support during the buying process.

By extracting accurate analytics regarding online customer behaviour RedEye helped BVG identify online users abandoning their online shopping baskets before completing a purchase. Based on this information BVG sent a highly personalised and targeted email to each individual abandoned basket user to re-engage the customer and encourage them back to the website to complete their order.

An initial behavioural email was sent 1 day after the user abandoned their online shopping basket. If the user did not re-engage a follow up email was sent 3 days later offering the user a 10% discount.

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Company Details Company Name RedEye RedEye‘s in-house segmentation tool made it possible for BVG to easily create customer segments based on online customer behaviour. This ensured a highly targeted email was sent to every individual abandoned basket user.

In addition to the abandoned basket behavioural email campaign BVG also focused on improving email marketing campaigns across its portfolio of sites by utilising RedEye‘s easy to use email ASP solution, REACT.

During all email campaigns RedEye provided BVG with ongoing support and guidance to ensure success.

Results Within the first three months of working with RedEye, BVG received a 20% improvement in deliverability, 16% increase in click throughs, a 10% rise in average order values and 154% uplift in revenue generated by its email marketing campaigns. The abandoned basket behavioural email campaign implemented on the Clifford James website resulted in a 678% return on investment driven by a 70% increase in open rates, 36% click through rate and a 10% click to order conversion. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS

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Company Details Company Name RedEye e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Website Usability specify) Integration Please provide details of level RedEye offers all levels of integration. of integration possible with We also provide a unique, fully integrated email and web analytics proprietary platform. The other technology, e.g. web platform drives trigger, event based and behavioural email offering dynamic and real time analytics segmentation functions fully supporting behavioural email strategies. Which protocols are supported HTTP, NOML, CTP, CSV (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Free access is allowed to the database through API applications. free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any REACH (RedEye Email and Community Host) integrates social media with targeted email integration with social media marketing campaigns, maximising the opportunity for clients to effectively communicate with services, and measurement customers. We help clients provide a direct link between their email campaigns and the social media they use and use actionable analytics to monitor how email subscribers are using social networking sites. Overtime clients can build a segment of subscribers using the social networking sites in order to improve communication with socially engaged customers. Product Details Product Name REACT(RedEye Email and Communication Tool) Product Features REACT provides users with the capability to design, build, deliver and report on email marketing campaigns. It is intuitive, easy to use and makes the whole process of sending email fast and efficient. Whilst the intelligent reporting technology provides clear information on the delivery of email campaigns, the integrated interface allows you to extract detailed data regarding your mailings to help you understanding ROI and improve campaign performance. REACT can be used in the following ways to help you improve your email marketing:  Can deploy automated behavioural email for targeted and personalised campaigns.  Is able to access online behavioural information from RedEye‘s unique database of customer activity.  Includes an A/B testing facility to optimise response.  Features an integrated SMS interface for in depth reporting of SMS campaigns.  Provides segmentation and dynamic content modules for developing relevant communications.

Technical Overview REACT was designed and built by RedEye‘s own expert developers, ensuring it includes the highest standard of technology available in an easy to use interface.

All RedEye's systems are built upon a highly resilient and robust architecture with scalability and redundancy built in at all levels. Our systems are regularly reviewed and independently security tested. Our processing and warehousing hardware is provided by high end hardware and is operated in a continuous replacement cycle to ensure that no equipment is operated beyond its preferred retirement age.

Our equipment is all housed in a UK based, co-location data centre which provides physical security and security of environment. Tracking capabilities Full web and email tracking Data capabilities Full data management and database management provision Costs and pricing methods Pricing is based on client requirements, volume based, ROI focussed and based on the specific (please be as specific as solution required. Pricing is available on application. possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do 60 (36 are focused on account management) you have?

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Company Details Company Name RedEye During what hours are your UK 24/7 support lines manned? What type of training Is RedEye provides full installation and on-site training. included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? No Please give details of other RedEye‘s unique Client Services team is available for all support from technical, practical and types of support and training strategic when using REACT. (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your Deliverability is a ‗virtuous circle‘. Better deliverability means improved results and improved deliverability strategy results mean better deliverability.

Through highly segmented and targeted campaigns, we make it a priority to improve deliverability rates for our customers, ensuring more emails are delivered, opened and read, improving response rates and conversion rates.

To help clients improve deliverability RedEye offers a market leading suite of email deliverability tools and services (powered by Return Path). These tools enable clients to fully understand what is happening with their email marketing campaigns and creatives, and allows them to manage email delivery in a challenging environment.

Through expert knowledge and reputation management RedEye is able to help clients receive white list status using the Sender Score Certified programme offered by Return Path. This exclusive white list programme guarantees deliverability to over 1.3 billion mailboxes worldwide.

Do you have a deliverability RedEye‘s in-house reputation management resource includes the following services to help assurance solution? clients improve deliverability:  Reputation Monitor: Understand how email receivers rank your reputation, how you compare to other senders and what you need to change to improve delivery rates.  Campaign Preview: View you campaigns in over 50 different email readers (including mobile). This will help you identify HTML or content issues enabling you to fix them prior to deployment.  Mailbox Monitor: This effective tool uses data to help you understand how your sender reputation, infrastructure and authentication processes are affecting email deliverability.  Blacklist Alert: Notifies you when any IP addresses appear on a blacklist enabling you to take fast action to ensure all your email marketing reach the inbox.  Deliverability Audit and Consultation: This will provide an insight into the current deliverability situation, and facilitate the development of an action plan to improve deliverability and campaign effectiveness. The action plan could involve data analysis work, as well as segmentation recommendations and bespoke planning and monitoring. Are you signed up with an Many of Redeye‘s clients have now achieved white list status. email certification or As a partner of Return Path, RedEye makes it a priority to help clients achieve Sender Score authentication service (e.g. Certification (whitelisting). Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy RedEye adheres to the DMA Email Marketing Council best practice guidelines as a minimum. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ RedEye presents and eNohibits at a range of industry shows and events. Events for 2010 Publications/ include: Industry events  Internet Retailing Conference (October 2010)  Econsultancy‘s Jump (October 2010)  Henry Stewart Conference: An introduction to Marketing Analytics (June 2010)  TFM&A(February 2010)

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Company Details Company Name RedEye Recent white papers and reports include:  Research Report – Measuring Website Performance: Run in association with Travolution this report is based on a survey of over 400 readers of the Travel Weekly Group. The report looks at the strategies and techniques used to measure and improve website performance and online conversion in the travel industry. (July 2010)  White Paper – Engagement Segmentation: How to successfully integrate engagement segmentation into your email marketing strategy. (May 2010)  White Paper – Understanding behavioural email and how it can improve your business: A look at the past, present and future of behavioural email marketing. (April 2010)  Research Report – Econsultancy's Conversion Report: Based on a survey of more than 700 client-side and agency digital marketers this report contains a detailed overview of the tools, strategies and processes used by companies to improve conversion rates. (October 2009) White papers and reports can be downloaded from http://www.redeye.com/events/whitepapersandreports/

Forums/Memberships IDM, DMA Email Marketing Council, E-consultancy, Catalogue Exchange Additional, supporting information Other relevant information RedEye received the award for Best Use of Email at the NMA Awards 2010.

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RedEye – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole client email program

WhereWhere wewe are are nowgoing

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where Wherewe are we aregoing now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.20. Responsys

Company Details Company Name Responsys Company Logo

URL www.responsys.com nd UK Head Office Address 20 Tudor Road, 2 Floor, Pinnacle, Reading, RG1 1NH, United Kingdom Other office locations Headquarters: San Bruno, CA. Offices in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Denver, Singapore and Australia Contact Name Simon Robinson, Marketing & Alliances Director, EMEA Contact Telephone +44 (0)118 951 5734 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Responsys helps the best companies in the world execute highly effective marketing campaigns across key interactive channels – email / mobile/ social / web. Brief Company History Responsys has been in business since 1998. (including number of years of Responsys has done business in the EMEA region since 2001, and services enterprise clients business in UK) throughout the region. Number of UK Employees 40 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed. accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not disclosed. (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed. Projected year-on-year growth Not disclosed. for 2010

USP

What sets you apart from  Focused on getting marketing campaigns to the next level of impact and ROI competitors?  Only provider able to fulfil the requirements of sophisticated enterprise-level marketers  Consistently recognized as #1 solution by industry analysts and experts  Products and services cover the full spectrum of marketing cycle  Unrivalled implementation success,

 Best-in-class system reliability

Clients Examples of UK Clients Avery Dennison Europe, eCommera, Electrocomponents, L‘Occitane en Provence, Lufthansa, OctopusTravel.com, River Island, and The Digital Property Group. Which verticals/sectors, if any, Responsys focuses on the retail, financial services, travel/hospitality, and B2B verticals, in which do you specialise in? the majority of its clients compete. The strategic services team is organized by vertical markets and includes staff with both vendor/agency- and client-side expertise in each vertical who publish industry-specific webinars and benchmark reports.

In addition, Responsys offers vertical best practice libraries, built directly into the product, that offer pre-built program templates to support specific vertical scenarios, such as shopping cart abandonment, mortgage application abandonment, pre-travel upsell, and lead nurturing. Case Study

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Company Details Company Name Responsys UK client case study LEGO (http://www.responsys.com/downloads/case_studies/Responsys_LEGO_CaseStudy.p df)

Types of solution offered Full service Yes, Account Management, Campaign Production, Technical Services, Marketing Services, Analytical Services, Creative Services, Training Services. ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of No, not as standard. ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes, digital marketing and eCRM strategy and planning. planning Design and copywriting Yes, global expertise. List provision No Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes, plus integration with website personalisation and recommendation engines. Dynamic content solutions Yes, powerful and easy to use dynamic content management enabling unrestricted versions per campaign. Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes, 24/7 ‗listening campaigns‘ triggered by external events, web transactions, and/or web behaviour through automated integration with web analytics, eCRM systems, and eCommerce systems. Sequence messaging Yes, through automated business logic and 24/7 listening campaigns. Web Analytics Integration with major web analytics vendors such as: Coremetrics, Omniture, Webtrends, Google, etc. Reporting Yes, web interface to real time and performance reporting. Real-time reporting Yes, including overlay reports. Flash Yes Video Yes, through partners. Audio Yes, through partners. ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes, delivered through Return Path. showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS and Social (Facebook and Twitter). e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please N/A. specify) Integration Please provide details of level Automated integration with web analytics (e.g. Coremetrics, Omniture/Adobe), CRM SFA of integration possible with systems (e.g. Salesforce.com), recommendation engines (e.g. RichRelevance, Proclivity other technology, e.g. web Systems), and content management (e.g. Interwoven, Vignette).

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Company Details Company Name Responsys analytics

Which protocols are supported SOAP, HTTP, SCP, SFTP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Yes free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Productised integration, through Interact Campaign for Social, that allows for the creation, integration with social media scheduling, automation, and tracking of promotions to customers on Facebook and Twitter. services, and measurement Product Details Product Name Responsys Interact® Product Features The Responsys Interact® Suite provides marketers with a powerful, comprehensive solution for Individualized Lifecycle Marketing™ across email and other key interactive channels.

It offers marketing teams a single, collaborative solution to plan, execute, optimize and manage high-impact marketing campaigns and multi-stage programs. Built on the industry's most open and flexible platform, Responsys Interact empowers marketers to use their data, their way, to keep customers engaged and buying throughout the lifecycle.

The Responsys Interact Suite includes the following integrated software applications:

Interact Campaign™ for campaign creation and execution: Efficiently create, test, and execute high-volume, highly individualized marketing campaigns across touchpoints for compelling ROI.

Interact Program™ for program design and automation: Orchestrate and automate intelligent customer-driven dialogues at desired moments in the customer lifecycle for more relevant, profitable interactions.

Interact Team™ for marketing workflow and approvals: Plan, coordinate, and monitor projects and resources for greater marketing efficiency and improved collaboration among geographically distributed marketing teams.

Interact Insight™ for marketing reporting and analytics: Understand and optimize campaign results with advanced reporting and ad-hoc data analysis capabilities.

Interact Connect™ for data transfer and automation: Integrate Responsys Interact with your enterprise or marketing information systems for easier leverage of marketing data and a complete view of customers at every interaction point.

Interact API™ for application control and development: Leverage the power of the Responsys Interact platform to create customized solutions that address your specific marketing challenges.

Technical Overview The Responsys Interact on-demand email and cross-channel marketing platform provides a highly reliable, secure and scalable environment on which to build and deliver interactive marketing campaigns. The architecture of the Responsys EMEA Data Centre is designed around the principles of fault tolerance and scalability.

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Company Details Company Name Responsys Logically the Data Centre comprises a series of functional areas which carry out different tasks. For example, campaign servers to build campaigns, launch servers to deliver email, image servers to handle graphical content and so on. Each logical unit is made up of multiple machines and Responsys Interact manages the use of these seamlessly in the event of a physical failure. Tracking capabilities Responsys Interact offers a sophisticated and easy to implement clickthrough tracking system which can be used to track both web site links and calls to response forms and other follow up campaigns. The solution can also be used to track email conversions. Data capabilities Responsys Interact is built on an open data schema which provides a highly flexible platform for email marketing. Within the product there are no restrictions on both the number and the type of data tables that can be created.

The tool provides the ability to create filters, segments, table joins and SQL statements whilst merge/purge and data scrubbing features offer a mechanism for ensuring data is clean and fit for purpose.

Interact Connect and Interact API provide a solution for automatically integrating with third-party data sources and allows users of the system to manage the flow of data between the web and email. Costs and pricing methods Responsys offers a capacity-based pricing structure: (please be as specific as possible)  Account Set-up – create account, open account, open application gateways, user training  Monthly Service – hosting, data management, email delivery (tariff based on volumes), and mobile delivery (tariff based on volumes)  Integration – Monthly service charge for automation, eCommerce, Salesforce.com, Mobile, and Print Gateways  Professional services – on demand Training & Support How many UK support staff do 6 you have? During what hours are your UK 8am – 6pm. support lines manned? What type of training Is Both telephone and on-site product training. included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other Two areas of knowledge transfer: types of support and training (e.g. strategic workshops and  Email Marketing Best Practice access to experts)  Optimal use of the Responsys product suite Deliverability Please summarise your The ―permission marketing‖ philosophy is ingrained in every aspect of the Responsys solution. deliverability strategy (up to We take a holistic approach to email deliverability, acknowledging the wide variety of factors that 200 words) determine whether an email reaches the inbox, gets diverted by filters, or bounces back. We also recognize the importance of ISP relationships and work with both the large and medium- sized ISPs on a regular basis to maintain high deliverability rates for all Responsys customers.

In addition to providing deliverability reporting as standard application functionality, Responsys also offers services to assist you with monitoring and ensuring email deliverability. Do you have a deliverability Yes, Return Path integrated into solution. assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes, Goodmail and Return Path. email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Responsys is committed to embedding best practices within its solution – as evidence by the template library within Interact Program, the process library within Interact Team, and the included reports and dashboard within Interact Insight – to name a few.

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Company Details Company Name Responsys

Additionally, Responsys provides a wealth of best practices through our Strategic Services team as well as ongoing customer education and training webinars. Do you have a full-time The global Deliverability Management Team (DMT), headed up by the Senior Director of data/spam/privacy Deliverability, and with representation in Europe, is a group of resources including executive representative? team members (COO, VP Services), Operations, Legal Counsel, Account Managers, Customer Advocacy, and Professional Services. It is the responsibility of this team to set policies and ensure that all issues are managed appropriately and efficiently to resolution. White Papers/ http://www.responsys.com/resource_center/index2.php Publications/ Industry events Forums/Memberships Responsys is a member of the ESPC (Email Service Provider Coalition), TRUSTe, NAI (Network Advertising Initiatives), AIM (Association for Interactive Marketing), DMA (Direct Marketing Association) branches in California and UK, FEDMA (Federation of European DMA), Microsoft Sender ID, FTC Authentication, IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). Responsys is certified under the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Department of Commerce with respect to European Commission‘s Directive on Data Protection.

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Responsys – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & Where support for whole we are client email program Wheregoing we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of products/services, on email product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke functionality we are Wheregoing we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.21. Shift Click

Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group Company Logo

URL www.shiftclick.co.uk UK Head Office Address Lateral Group, Aldersgate House, 135-137 Aldersgate Street, London, EC1A 4JA Other office locations Kent, Nottingham & Edinburgh Contact Name Mr. Ruaraidh Thomas, Managing Director Contact Telephone 0845 859 0000 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition By combining powerful technology with advanced data-handling capabilities we can take full advantage of the powerful and cost-effective medium of email. Our full-service offering gives you an expert team capable of handling your entire campaign, from planning and testing to deployment, tracking and reporting. We also offer design and copywriting services. Our email deployment platform, SmartCast 3.0, is one of the fastest, most reliable email broadcasting platforms around, efficiently managing the delivery of campaigns involving millions of emails. For more information, download a copy of our ―Little Book of Integrated Email Marketing‖ http://www.lateralgroup.co.uk/LittleBooksOrder.aspx. Brief Company History Shift Click (www.shiftclick.co.uk) and sister company Data Lateral(www.datalateral.co.uk) are (including number of years of divisions of UK based Lateral Group (www.lateralgroup.co.uk) and based in central London. business in UK) We have been delivering data driven email solutions for over 10 years and grown in that time to become one of the UK‘s leading digital communications service providers. Our email delivery platform, Smartcast 3.0, delivers email for some of the UK‘s leading brands including RBS, HSBC, Audi, Yell and O2 to name a few. Number of UK Employees 400+ Turnover for 2009 (or last Annual Report:http://www.lateralgroup.co.uk/downloads/open/brochures/Annual_Report.pdf accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Annual Report:http://www.lateralgroup.co.uk/downloads/open/brochures/Annual_Report.pdf (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not Stated Projected year-on-year growth Not Stated for 2010

USP What sets you apart from We help our customers understand how to manage email marketing communications that will competitors? create ongoing revenue streams from their customers and which extend the lifetime value of those relationships so that profitability can be recognised and maximised.

Our email deployment platform SmartCast 3.0 is builtto offer one of the most advanced and reliable email broadcasting platforms available. With our experience constantly pushing us to be pro-active in this space, SmartCast 3.0 is constantly being developed to offer you the latest technology available. SmartCast 4.0 is due to be released in Q4 2010.

SmartCast has been built to ensure the highest possible delivery rate into inbox. Our managed services proposition also provides you with not only our ‗in-house‘ experts to work on your campaign, but our relationships with all the major ISPs, helping to ensure that your domains receive the best possible reputation rating.

As experts in email marketing, our highly skilled account teams are here to offer you support and advice right from the start.

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Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group These skills range from creative best practice, right through to the delivery and ‗email open‘ strategy and post campaign insight analysis.

In short, our commitment to our clients is to provide the best possible service in the following areas:  An Enterprise level technology platform  Class leading deliverability  Continuous improvement in services and technology  Dedicated expert support Clients Examples of UK Clients RBS, Department of Health, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, HSBC, Domino‘s, Yell, O2, Audi, Warehouse Express Which verticals/sectors, if any, Retail, Financial Services, Telecommunications, Public Sector, Mail Order, FMCG, Automotive do you specialise in? Case Study UK client case study INTEGRATING ALL THE COMMUNICATIONS OPTIONS Lateral Group is proving its integrated capabilities with the government‘s Change4Life campaign, using multiple communications channels and smart data capabilities. Change4Life encourages families to ‗eat well, move more and live longer‟. It takes a different approach to conventional social marketing. Rather than rely on mass market above-the-line advertising, Change4Life focuses on one-to-one engagement. Achieving that demands a complex and robust mix of email, data and technology – exactly the sort of challenge Lateral Group is engineered to tackle.

Highlights of our involvement Data platform linking with multiple data sources Automated data cleansing and suppression Real-time output to multiple channels including email Complex fulfilment programme for multiple target groups Targeted Action Plans to over 5 million combinations True Integrated Communications Management.

Automated data handling Initially the contract focused on small print runs and mailings directed at NHS staff. Given our resources, Data Lateral were soon asked to scope and create a data platform to handle the responses from a range of sources that would follow the national launch in January 2009. SmartCast automates specific data cleansing and suppression services and incorporates inbound data feeds. It means data can be processed in real time for prompt response then output simultaneously to whatever communications channels and specifically, email.

The data platform we designed links with a diverse range of data sources including:  Stortext Royal Mail data capture  BSkyB red button  emuse SMS  TLC Call Centre  Change4Life website on NHS Choices  ITV red button  Market Developer Contact Management System  ShiftClick for e-mail/SMS broadcasting and microsite development and hosting.

Fulfilment customised to multiple groups Following the launch, data from call centres and websites managed by other partners, began feeding into the central platform, triggering a complex fulfilment programme. It produces a huge range of packs for specific groups and sub-groups of responders – consumers, local and national supporters and the workforce.

The integration we built into the platform produces impressive turnarounds. Consumer email response was instant, with applications captured within SmartCast to then output online packs to a microsite driven to by trigger emails based on the information captured.

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Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group

Over 5 million potential combinations How Are The Kids? Action Plans are built on reports developed for each child. These reports highlight two of the eight behaviours Change4Life targets. They spotlight specific areas families should focus on – providing an achievable and practical agenda for change. These combinations were handled within SmartCast to then output the bespoke online packs. Customisation to this degree creates a mind-boggling array of possibilities for the fulfilment system to handle. There are 131,072 combinations of report card copy and 64 combinations of highlighted behaviours. Applied logic reduces the combinations of highlighted behaviours to around 20. That still leaves 131,072 x 20 potential combinations of behaviour, a ball-park of 3,932,160 potential combinations.

Response targets exceeded Less than two months after launch, How Are the Kids? Email responses exceeded all expectations with 99% gross opens and 50% unique. Lateral Group is now working with COI, Department of Health and EHSBrann to get even more families and organisations involved in Change4Life and build the momentum towards healthier lifestyles.

Summary Lateral Group has contributed ‗best in class‘ integrated multi-channel communications management drawing on the full range of resources available across the Group, in particular our SmartCast platform, which was key in enabling the highly complex and logic driven dynamic email and microsite combinations.

Quote ―Lateral Group‟s ability to provide the full range of services from print and mailing through to complex data solutions ensured a co-ordinated and successful campaign which has greatly exceeded targets. They‟ve demonstrated an ability to work well with other partners and have provided a quality of service I‟ve not seen bettered during a 20 year marketing career.‖ Adrian Robertson, Department of Health Marketing Consultant Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign planning Yes Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes Legal advice Yes Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes

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Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services Yes, SMS, MMS, Direct Mail, Social Media feeds and RSS Any other services (please Full Integrated Communications Management service covering Analysis, Data Management, specify) Creative, Response Fulfilment, full output across on and offline channel services (http://www.lateralgroup.co.uk/12_steps.html). Integration Please provide details of level of The SmartCast 3.0 API allows integration with any platform which supports web services, and integration possible with other indeed is currently integrated with enterprise level solutions such as: Portrait Campaign technology Management Software, The full Alterian Suite, MS SQL Server, .Net Applications – numerous consumer websites. Which protocols are supported  HTTP (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)?  HTTPS  SSL  SOAP  POP3  SMTP Do you allow client developers Yes free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Alterian (SM2 - http://socialmedia.alterian.com/) integration with social media services, and measurement

Product Details Product Name SmartCast 3.0 (SmartCast 4.0 to be released in Q4 2010) Product Features SmartCast 3.0 delivers targeted email messages with dynamic and personalized content. It has content management and multi-channel delivery capability, and includes sophisticated permission-based user management that accommodates multiple levels of access for varied user roles.

Some key product features of SmartCast 3.0 includes:  Dynamic Content – personalised data driven email templates and microsites.

Any number of variables can be personalised directly onto an HTML/PLAINTEXT email, or used to build lookup tables to drive personalisation rules.

There is built in functionality to create text, images or entire sections of dynamic HTML based on flags and/or values within the data fields.

Microsite management – as many pages as deep as required behind the initial email template List Management – powerful and flexible data management functionality means SmartCast3.0 can be used as an email marketing database platform Reporting - Real time reports within SmartCast can be grouped by user defined types and can contain any number of dimensions. To provide granular reporting for repeat campaigns, executions can be further divided into subsets representing individual broadcasts.

Technical Overview Our Smartcast 3.0 email application has a default deployment speed of 1 million emails per hour across each MTA (Mail Transfer Agent), of which we have 3. The technology used to deploy the emails currently sends in the region of 400,000,000 emails per month. SmartCast 3.0 bulk email deployments ensure the highest possible level of deliverability, through our robust and scalable email deployment IT infrastructure.

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Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group The SmartCast 3.0 front end user interface can easily be made available to install on local machines, as a ―thin client‖ installation. This means the application has the feel of working with a locally installed network solution, but provides much more control over the available functionality rather than with a web interface, by delivering a more seamless working environment with no page ―post-backs‖ following every click on the page.

SmartCast 3.0 supports both SFTP for automatic list loading for trigger deployments and multiple application integrations using the SmartCast 3.0 API which allows all system interface functionality to be available programmatically. The next major release of SmartCast (Version 4.0) in Q4 2010 will be web based utilising Microsoft Silverlight to ensure an enhanced user experience. Tracking capabilities There is a flexible user module within reporting which allows the user to define their own reporting metrics based on any user defined tracking and/or built in system variables.

All links contained within SmartCast 3.0 hosted templates (both emails and landing pages) are automatically tracked in reporting, as well as all actions which occur on an email (such as open, click, complain, unsubscribe, Hard Bounce, Soft Bounce, Spam etc.).

All metrics are available at both gross and unique level. Users can drill into reports, starting with a top-line view of the entire year to date, or all known time, right down to the specific actions taken by a single recipient within a single campaign. This functionality also provides the user with the ability to view the actual email the recipient(s) have received at the time with a single click of the mouse.

Reports can be aggregated at up to 4 levels, which can include any field within any list, regardless of whether or not that field was used within the campaign. This is ideal for reporting at a subset level on cells used within a campaign.

ROI reporting can easily be incorporated within SmartCast 3.0, by simply applying a CPR and conversion rate within the resulting reports. SmartCast 3.0 also includes post-click tracking functionality where a simple java tag can be supplied to the web-master responsible for web-site reporting for them to update their sites pages. This allows the standard reporting in SmartCast 3.0 to include the user journey taken by recipients once they click away from the pages hosted within SmartCast 3.0. Data capabilities SmartCast 3.0‘s powerful list management functionality can literally be used as an email marketing database. All records uploaded via the user interface are held on the back-end database only once, even when uploaded multiple times. The lists which can be seen in the user interface in SmartCast 3.0 are ―views‖ on the back-end relational database where only one instance of the defined primary key (usually email address) is held.

Any number of additional customised variables can be uploaded to SmartCast 3.0 and it is possible to use any field on any list to aggregate the built-in reporting. For Example: it is possible to upload a file of email addresses with a new customer segmentation variable, and retrospectively report on all email activity historically aggregating on the new variable created.

The powerful list management tools within SmartCast 3.0 include a user friendly data upload process which takes the user through a serious of steps within the upload ―wizard‖. New data can be loaded from a range of sources including CSV files and Excel spreadsheets. All data is held within a secure client database at email level – providing a single view of all recipients. Alternatively, existing lists and campaigns can be queried and merged to build new lists. Drop folders are useful for repeat uploads, for example: daily/weekly new customers to receive a welcome email.

Drop folders are configured within SmartCast 3.0 where the creation of a drop-folder automatically sets up a new FTP folder. The placing of a data file in this specific FTP folder will automatically upload the data into SmartCast 3.0. Costs and pricing methods ASP: (please be as specific as  Annual Technology License, which includes email database hosting possible)  Per Seat Access License to client access  Training included with domain and license set-up  Volume based email broadcasting pricing

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Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group  Rate card for additional services  FOC Workshop programme  Access to in-house Data, Creative & Solution Design Team for additional support

Managed Service:  Annual Technology License, which includes email database hosting  Per Seat Access License to client access  Training included with domain and license set-up  Volume based email broadcasting pricing  Per Campaign broadcast set-up and management charge  Rate card for additional services  FOC Workshop programme  Access to in-house Data, Creative & Solution Design Team for additional support Training & Support How many UK support staff do 10+ you have? - +10 During what hours are your UK 9am – 6pm support lines manned? Monday to Friday as standard What type of training Is Onsite and at our London office included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other Creative, planning and strategy workshops build to client‘s specification and held at our types of support and training London office or on the client site. (e.g. strategic workshops and access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your We understand the critical importance of deliverability. To assist we utilise a series of tools and deliverability strategy techniques to monitor and manage deliverability with all the major ISPs.

Firstly, domains are set up to include all the best practice recommendations from the ISPs to help them identify IPs as sending valid (and therefore not spam) emails. Within our platform we have 3 types of reporting – Quick Totals can be used to monitor basic deliverability and can be split by campaign; domain; platform and any variable, field or list. Message tracking enables recipient level reporting. Delivery performance is specifically about deliverability. There are 3 sections, all of which can have different criteria applied to them Do you have a deliverability Yes Pivotal Veracity assurance solution Are you signed up with an email Yes, Pivotal Veracity certification or authentication service Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy There are 3 key features within the tool that support data hygiene and help to minimise bad sends that affect your sender reputation.

Email addresses are screened against agreed rules. Our platform will then not import addresses that are invalid in terms of their structure and format.

Over time, our platform tracks your email addresses and the activity seen on them, allocating scores for different events. These scores are aggregated into a health score against that individual email – positive scores for good events, such as opening emails and clicking on links; and negative scores for events that suggest your email is invalid or no longer active, such as hard and soft bounces. Unsubscribes and complaints are included in the health score and these are automatically prevented from being emailed going forward.

The third feature is the ability to exclude specific opt out lists. Do you have a full-time Yes, our Group Compliance Director data/spam/privacy

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Company Details Company Name Shift Click – a Lateral Group representative? White Papers http://www.lateralgroup.co.uk/library_lg_white_papers.html

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Shift Click – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we are we are now going

Where

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality Where Where we are we are going now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.22. Silverpop

Company Details Company Name Silverpop Company Logo

URL www.silverpop.com UK Head Office Address Suite 119 Business Design Centre 52 Upper Street London N1 0QH Other office locations Head office: Atlanta, Georgia (USA); Munich (Germany); Irvine, California (USA) Contact Name Richard Evans Contact Telephone 44 20 7288 6343 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Silverpop's engagement marketing solutions help marketers turn prospects into customers—and customers into fans—through the creation, automation and delivery of relevant, multichannel digital messaging. Companies rely on the Silverpop Engage platform to create and manage sophisticated email marketing campaigns that reach millions of individuals - one at a time - engaging prospective customers and enhancing lifetime customer value and brand loyalty. Silverpop's marketing automation capabilities enable B2B marketers to efficiently manage leads and drive qualified sales opportunities through scoring and by nurturing campaigns that move prospects from interest to conversion.

Silverpop's industry-leading thought capital, strategic counsel, service and support provide our customers with the precise level of training and advice needed to quickly improve campaign results and ROI. With offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, Silverpop's marketing technologies are used by industry-leading brands around the globe. Best practices and white papers are available at www.silverpop.com.

Brief Company History Founded in 1999, Silverpop is a leading provider of an email marketing and marketing (including number of years of automation platform for B2C and B2B marketers. We established our International headquarters business in UK) in London in 2005 and currently work with more than 150 clients in the region (1,100 worldwide). Number of UK Employees 40 in the UK (370 worldwide) Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not disclosed (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed Projected year-on-year growth Not disclosed for 2010

USP What sets you apart from Silverpop provides marketers with the industry‘s best email marketing and marketing automation competitors? capabilities on one powerful, scalable platform. Our top-ranked lead management platform is built atop one of the most stable, scalable email delivery infrastructures in the world, enabling marketers to treat millions of recipients as unique individuals—taking segmentation and campaign automation to a whole new level. Silverpop is focused on helping our clients improve their campaigns and increase ROI. We provide them with unmatched training opportunities and customer support, and our product has been consistently recognized by industry analysts for its market-leading features and usability.

At Silverpop, our mission is to serve and partner with the world‘s best companies and help them become leaders in their use of email communications for marketing and customer relationships. We offer best-in-class technology backed by world-class marketing expertise.

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop "As new people come into the company, it's very easy for them to get up to speed with using the product." Adam Sewell, Head of Business Systems--Macmillan Publishing

“With Silverpop‟s expertise, we were able to double the percentage of people opening our emails and quadruple click-through rates.” Sara Borland, Brand Communications Manager--East Coast Trains

”“When we brought on board both Omniture and Silverpop together, we thought it would be a potent combination, and we were right."Angela Greenwood, Online Marketing Manager--Red Letter Days Clients Examples of UK Clients Shop Direct Group; Macmillan; Tate; Ladbrokes; Bauer; Play.com; Prudential; Virgin; Sega; bmibaby; Greenpeace; STA Travel Which verticals/sectors, if any, Our customer base covers a broad range of verticals, including Retail, Travel, Media, do you specialise in? Entertainment, Finance, Online Gaming and not-for-profit. However, we work with 1,100 clients across all industries.

This means we can provide a wide and ever changing variety of testing strategies, emerging trends, best practices, benchmark statistics and deliverability techniques that can be leveraged across our entire client base. What distinguishes our clients is the desire for competitive advantage through excellence in their customer communications. By establishing and developing dialogues that are relevant to their customers, they drive superior return on investment. Case Study

UK client case study U.K. airline implements best practice email program and soars past the competition with 50 percent increase in sharing

The Company bmibaby is a British low-cost airline and part of the bmi group. Launched in 2002, bmibaby flies from four U.K. bases to 29 European destinations.

The Challenge Several years ago, bmibaby was using an in-house email solution to send blanket messages to its subscriber base. Its system required significant IT involvement, and there were unexplained deliverability issues. This prompted bmibaby to begin a search for a commercial email solution to assist with these challenges.

―We wanted a more advanced email solution that would make our marketing team increasingly self-reliant and provide us with features to send more targeted, relevant emails,‖ said Helen Yarnall, head of marketing, bmibaby. ―bmibaby is in a very competitive space. We realized that we needed a more sophisticated email marketing program to remain at the forefront in successfully delivering from this channel.‖

The Solution After a competitive selection process, bmibaby chose Silverpop Engage due to the strength of its features and Silverpop‘s credibility in the email service provider space. Today, bmibaby uses Silverpop Engage for promotional emails and a monthly newsletter, and Silverpop‘s Transact offering for confirmation emails and travel reminders.

bmibaby‘s promotional emails include messages offering specific packages and distressed inventory offers. The company‘s monthly newsletter focuses on promoting specific routes that need more exposure and entices subscribers to take advantage of current offers. All of bmibaby‘s email communications have a playful tone with subject lines such as, ―It‘s good to have you on board, baby!‖ and ―The offer has landed, baby!‖

Some of the additional tactics bmibaby has adopted because of Silverpop‘s recommendations include:

 Data cleansing of inactive subscribers  Building a preference centre

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop  Social sharing  Consistent value reminder

―The flexibility and usability of Silverpop Engage has enabled us to switch from our dependence on IT to a complete reliance on our marketing team to build and send emails,‖ Yarnall said. ―This allows us to focus more on our email tactics and planning and take on larger, more strategic endeavours.‖

The Results bmibaby can now analyze the results of its email campaigns and make decisions based upon this information. ―With our previous solution, we didn‘t have the ability to analyze the impact of our emails through detailed reporting and analytics,‖ Yarnall said. ―With Silverpop Engage, we‘re able to be more strategic and understand how to optimize our email program.‖

In addition, bmibaby has had great success in broadening the reach of its messages by using Silverpop‘s Share-to-Social feature in all its promotional emails. ―We‘ve seen a 50 percent increase in social sharing over last year,‖ Yarnall said.

Today, bmibaby is able to better deliver relevant content to its subscribers. The result is a strong connection with customers, as evidenced by an above-average 35 percent open rate on its newsletters. And bmibaby continues to optimize its email program as it looks for new opportunities to engage with customers in a personal manner. Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes, with assigned Relationship Manager Dedicated Server (As part of No ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes, dedicated local Strategic Services team who have completed projects for multiple clients planning across EMEA Design and copywriting Available through partners List provision Available through partners Legal advice Available through partners Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes, including the ability to share content into social networks Segmentation Yes, including behavioural segmentation Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes, with easy to use WYSIWYG driven interface Hosting for images and micro- Yes, all images are hosted automatically on Akami. Silverpop also has a powerful Landing sites Pages product to support micro-site and landing page development and hosting, integrating back into Silverpop Engage. Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes, partnerships with Coremetrics, Omniture, WebTrends, and Nedstat and integration with Google Analytics Reporting Silverpop offers more than 80 interactive reports that allow marketers to view and customize each report to their specific needs. These reports include a unique Analytics Reporting tool that allows clients to integrate marketing metrics with offline customer data to built insightful, actionable Pivot Table style reports that help confirm customer insights and identify new segments and opportunities that may have previously been hidden. Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes, full integration with Pivotal Veracity covering the Top 25 consumer and mobile inbox clients showing clients how email worldwide. content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, Silverpop provides RSS and SMS platforms. Other services are provided through partners and e.g. SMS, contact centre client/industry specific examples can be provided upon request. (please specify) Any other services (please Product Consulting specify) With Silverpop‘s Product Consultants it‘s easy to close the gap between what marketers know is possible and what they‘re actually doing today. Our Product Consultants are experts on the functionality of all facets of the Silverpop Engage platform. On top of that important skill set, they also have years of industry experience. The result is that they can quickly understand these marketing aspirations and translate them into the optimal way to configure Engage to support efforts. Our consultants will take a close look at our clients‘ programs to ensure Engage is perfectly tuned for optimal performance.

Integration consulting Custom integrations can be established between the Silverpop Engage platform and many other applications such as Web analytics, CRM, e-commerce or other external systems. Customers interested in integrations like these can rely on the expertise of Silverpop‘s professional services team to deliver efficient solutions for data import, export, triggered messaging and other activities. Through integrations with external systems, marketers can easily automate complex marketing programs to reduce manual effort while improving relevancy and return.

Custom application development The development of custom branded opt-in and opt-out forms as well as complex preference centres and reporting are common requests for customers requiring additional levels of flexibility in their online marketing programs. In addition to these common projects, Silverpop Professional Services can develop and maintain any range of custom applications to support your marketing efforts.

Specific Projects include: custom form development, custom forward-to-a-friend, custom opt-in and opt-out, custom landing pages, RSS opt-in, preference centres, application white labelling, custom list data import and export feeds, custom tracking export data feeds, custom CRM integrations, custom Web-site analytics integrations, integrations with legacy and third party applications.

Strategic consulting We provide a range of supplementary services for extending the capabilities of our clients‘ Silverpop applications. We can help drive additional value by increasing the effectiveness of online marketing programs, thus enabling marketers to engage customers more effectively. Our consulting services help customers:

 Boost performance and effectiveness of current programs  Discover new opportunities for online communications  Ensure organization-wide policy and regulatory compliance

Deliverability Services Silverpop‘s dedicated deliverability team and suite of deliverability tools gives maximum visibility into deliverability with minimum effort. At every step, from assembling a message through analyzing results, Silverpop‘s ongoing relationships with inbox providers and sophisticated deliverability processes work seamlessly in the background to ensure that messages reach their intended targets.

Integration Please provide details of level Silverpop integrates with all the major EMEA and US web analytics companies. Integration of integration possible with ranges from simple integrated/dashboard reporting to triggering targeted emails based on other technology, e.g. web website behaviour (abandoned shopping basket, clickstream, product view, etc.). We have also analytics completed several complex integrations with internal proprietary databases and CRM systems including Epiphany, Siebel, Salesforce, Viper, etc.

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop

Which protocols are supported To maximize convenience and accessibility for our clients, Silverpop offers two protocols for (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? accessing our API: Web Services (SOAP) or XML over HTTP(S). Our complete set of Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) documents means that clients using SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) for Web Services can easily integrate with Silverpop Engage to automate repetitive tasks. Any task performed using our XML API can also be executed via SOAP and vice versa. Both API protocols give users complete access to list, recipient and report management functionality.

Do you allow client developers Yes, via published APIs. free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any With the launch of Silverpop‘s Share-to-Social feature in 2008, Silverpop became the first email integration with social media service provider to bridge the gap between email marketing and social networking. The feature services, and measurement allows marketers to quickly turn emails into socially-enabled viral messages. With a click, marketers can place links within an email allowing recipients to easily post the message to their profile page on Facebook or MySpace, where friends can see the message, make comments and even post the email on their own profile pages. Product Details Product Name Engage Product Features Silverpop Engage combines the power of sophisticated email marketing tools with top-ranked marketing automation and lead management applications to enable online marketers to boost conversion and demonstrate ROI.

Our lead management platform is built atop one of the most stable, scalable email delivery infrastructures in the world—one that treats millions of recipients as unique individuals and takes segmentation and campaign automation to a whole new level.

Specific features include:

 Share-to-Social technology that enables email recipients to share messages on their favourite social sites and provides valuable insight and reporting data on recipient sharing activity.  The industry‘s most flexible Data and List Management solution to import, manage and leverage the myriad marketing data needed to execute sophisticated, multi-channel campaigns.  Silverpop‘s proprietary Send Time Optimization technology that automatically sends emails to recipients when they‘re most likely to open them.  For marketers supporting a sales force, Lead and Contact Scoring routes prospective customers identified as ready to buy to sales and moves those not yet ready to purchase into automated nurturing programs.  Nurture campaigns monitor buyer behaviour and serve up timely and relevant content, keeping your brand top of mind and helping move buyers toward a purchase.  Campaign Automation, featuring the industry‘s premier drag-and-drop visual campaign builder, reduces manual processes and builds intelligent, automated, buyer-driven campaigns that save time and free up marketing resources.  Improved marketing results are achievable with Reporting and Analytics that deliver real- time, data-driven insights to optimize performance and prove ROI.  CRM and Web Analytics integration leverages point-and-click integration between Silverpop Engage, Salesforce.com, Web analytics providers and virtually any other application, giving marketers the power to improve relevance and boost marketing results.  Surveys to gather deeper customer insight and broader customer attributes that can help drive ROI and increase the relevance of communications.  Personalized Landing Pages, Web forms and microsites that can be integrated with marketing efforts to drive acquisition and conversion.  Multichannel Marketing tools that automate and coordinate delivery of messages across any number of channels, including email, Web sites, landing pages, RSS, mobile and social

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop media.  Silverpop Inbound monitors social buzz, identifies big picture trends and allows marketers to dig deep and interact with relevant individual social posts and conversations, thereby better garnering the benefits of exciting inbound channels.  Full suite of deliverability tools including: Inbox monitoring to determine the percentage of each mailing that is actually being delivered to the leading ISPs; SpamAssassin Content Scoring to remove any elements from the message that may cause it to be inaccurately perceived as spam; Bounce Management to intelligently detect bounced addresses and automatically retry soft bounces; Message throttling and Top Domain reports to identify deliverability problems with specific ISPs. Technical Overview Silverpop has created a digital marketing platform that allows companies and agencies to deliver millions of dynamic, personalized and highly-scalable messages across the globe in near real time. The Silverpop Engage platform offers a robust engagement marketing platform without the concern of software ownership or maintenance. This solution is quickly implemented with low initial costs and we provide all maintenance, software upgrades, administration and technical support.

Silverpop utilizes multiple instances of our software, distributed across two secure hosting centres to distribute load. These hosting facilities are complete with redundant Internet connectivity, disaster preparedness and daily backup to ensure that data is safe. Additionally, using SSL to secure client traffic over the Internet provides peace-of-mind that sensitive information is safe. Session timeouts and deep user permissions ensure that only authorized users have access to data.

Our high performance hardware makes even large tasks quick to complete. Large data jobs finish in a fraction of the time it takes other solutions. Even large, dynamic content messages are sent quickly, ensuring your messages arrive when clients want, without delay.

Core Technology  100% J2EE application  XML interfaces and Web Services API for easy customization and integration  Port 25‘s PowerMTA SMTP engine for email delivery.  Convergent Mobile SMS aggregation for mobile message delivery  Dedicated transactional messaging engines  Distributed data centres within major hosting providers  Akamai EdgeSuite and Mirror Image worldwide content distribution networks  Oracle 9i and 10g databases complete with Data Guard and RMAN Recovery Manager

Security Silverpop secures customer information by employing state-of-the-art technologies for:

 24-7 automatic system and performance monitoring  Authentication  Physical and system access control  Data integrity and encryption  Audit control  System security  Network security  Intrusion detection  Frequent external penetration tests  Multi-tiered data storage including off-site storage

Tracking capabilities Silverpop understands the importance of data and data analysis to professional marketers; Engage was designed to provide detailed metrics on all aspects of a client‘s user database and its mailing campaigns. Multiple pages of relevant tracking data provide big-picture measurement information about every mailing. In addition to overall information, Silverpop Engage provides detailed reporting information on each recipient of a mailing going as deep as the profile and response history. Silverpop‗s Share-to-Social feature enables clients to identify which messages have gone viral, allowing them to track message activity at a granular level and target future communications based on that information. Clients can see how many times a message has

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop been shared on social networks, viewed and clicked. Data capabilities Silverpop offers one of the most extensive and flexible data management solutions in the industry. Clients can create an unlimited number of databases, each with up to 400 customizable and editable fields.

Alongside those databases, customers can create both static and dynamic list segments, as well as three dimensional relational tables that further extend the level of customer data supported in the system. All data import, export and management can be accomplished by non-technical users directly within the user interface.

Data integration involves setting up the automation of co-ordinated exports and imports. This scheme can be used: to refresh engage databases with updates and/or inserts that have happened in an external system to extract updates and/or opt-ins and/or opt-outs from Engage for use in the external system to extract engage tracking metrics for use in an external analytical/reporting tool; or import external data into our onboard Analytics engine (either before or after a mailing) Costs and pricing methods Silverpop pricing is designed to be simple and all inclusive. There are no hidden costs or (please be as specific as supplemental fees associated with using the application (e.g. link tracking, conversion tracking, possible) segmenting, dynamic content creation, data up/download). Our customers can calculate exactly what they‘ll be paying before they execute a mailing. Pricing is made up of an initial training fee, ongoing mailing fees and customisation fees if applicable. Training & Support How many UK support staff do 15 you have? During what hours are your UK 24x7 support lines manned? What type of training Is Silverpop offers its clients a tremendous number of training opportunities—more than 80 hours included? (e.g. telephone and of training per month on a wide range of topics. Training licenses (additional fee applies) allows on-site product training) users to take these classes as often as needed.

Clients have several options for training including, but not limited to:  Phone and web-based training: On average, 23 classes are offered each week and can be presented in both English and German  Individualised training sessions: Client specific training classes that cover the features and functions the client will use most, based on their specific requirements  Onsite training: Client specific, on-site training is also available for an additional fee

Silverpop Support is available via a number of channels including Phone Support, Help Files, FAQs and online Case logging. Clients chose the channel that suits their specific need. Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other In addition to our phone, web-based and on-site training opportunities, Silverpop hosts types of support and training numerous informative webinars and a full menu of Strategic Workshops is available upon (e.g. strategic workshops and request. We also host an annual EMEA Customer Conference. access to experts) Deliverability Please summarise your From white-listing strategies to ISP relationships, our email deliverability services help ensure deliverability strategy your messages reach their destination. Silverpop manages the delivery of email messages from every possible angle.

Our serious commitment to email deliverability is demonstrated in the sizeable team dedicated to maintaining relationships with all of the major ISPs. These highly experienced industry professionals constantly monitor the ever-changing deliverability landscape and work proactively to identify and resolve any issues our clients may experience.

In the beginning, we work to make sure the client establishes a good email sender reputation with all of the major ISPs. We then help them navigate the complicated whitelisting process and establish the appropriate authentications to ensure messages have the best possible chance of being delivered to the inbox every time.

In addition, Silverpop has incorporated many deliverability features right into the product, like

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop ―spam scoring‖ by SpamAssassin, so that many potential deliverability problems can be resolved before clicking ―send.‖

Do you have a deliverability Yes, Silverpop believes deliverability is a key component of email marketing and therefore in assurance solution? addition to a dedicated team of deliverability experts based both in the US and in London; Silverpop has integrated with Pivotal Veracity to offer a suite of applications including Inbox Monitoring which shows delivery performance at more than 50 international ISP‘s and Inbox Providers, as well as Inbox Preview which previews email rendering in nearly all major ISP, Inbox Provider and email applications.

We also develop whitepapers providing best practice advice on deliverability and provide timely deliverability updates via email and deliverability tools within the Engage platform itself to automate and aid marketers.

The dedicated deliverability team proactively monitor blacklists; maintain direct relationships with ISPs globally (with dedicated people in the UK for the EMEA region) to resolve deliverability issues; provide industry thought leadership; work with the major trade bodies to improve deliverability technology and monitor all emails sent to pre-emptively identify any decrease in deliverability performance of ISPs.

Are you signed up with an Yes, Silverpop integrates with both Goodmail and Return Path. In addition, Silverpop is currently email certification or a Certified member of the Certified Senders Alliance (CSA). authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Silverpop is committed to leading the industry on the topic of best practices. We provide recommendations and consultancy where appropriate, and strive to make our customers leaders in their use of email and communications. Silverpop‘s thought leaders routinely provide highly sought after advice through whitepapers, webinars, articles and presentations at industry events. Additionally, we work with user groups and industry bodies in the UK and Europe. Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Silverpop leads the industry with our thought capital. In addition to a regular series of Publications/ whitepapers, webinars, case studies and newsletters (available at Industry events http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/index.html) , Silverpop spokespeople are widely in demand for speaking opportunities at industry events throughout the UK, Europe and the United States and also serve as frequent contributors to online and print publications.

The following blogs are maintained by senior members of the organization:

 Silverpop Engagement Marketing Blog: http://www.silverpop.com/marketing- resources/blogs/index.html  Silverpop B2B Demand Generation Blog: http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/demand- generation/  Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey: http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/email-marketing/  Engagement Marketing (EMEA): http://www.silverpop.com/emea/blogs/engagement- marketing/

Additionally, you can follow Silverpop at twitter.com/Silverpop or become a fan at facebook.com/Silverpop Forums/Memberships  CSA  DMA  Econsultancy Additional, supporting information

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Company Details Company Name Silverpop Other relevant information  A 2010 Customer Satisfaction survey found that more than 9 out of 10 Silverpop customers would recommend Silverpop to another company   More than 90% of Silverpop customers report being satisfied with the company‘s ability to provide them with strategic direction and best practice counsel   93% of customers report that Silverpop Engage helps them do their job more effectively

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Silverpop – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email Where program we are we are now going

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where Where we are we are going now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.23. SmartFOCUS

Company Details Company Name smartFOCUS Company Logo

URL www.smartfocus.com UK Head Office Address Bristol Other office locations smartFOCUS operates internationally with offices in Bristol, Southampton, London, Boston and Denver and through a global partner network of Marketing Services Providers. Contact Name Bryan Black, Sales Director +44 (0) 207 965 6050 Suzanne Butler, Group Marketing Manager +44 (0) 117 943 5800 Contact Telephone +44 (0) 207 965 6050 Contact email [email protected] [email protected] Company Proposition smartFOCUS serves thousands of marketers internationally with an integrated digital marketing application, smartMARKETER eChannel for email SMS, RSS and web channel marketing delivered over the internet.

smartMARKETER eChannel and the expert support and services team at smartFOCUS make it easy for marketers to cost effectively turn insight into relevant, personalised digital communications that improve marketing results.

smartFOCUS, headquartered in the UK, is the international provider of high performance Multi- Channel Marketing Software. Its solutions deliver marketers the power to transform marketing performance and to more effectively and affordably deliver relevant, personalised and timely communications across multiple channels such as print, email, mobile and the web. To see the full range, please visit www.smartfocus.com. Brief Company History 1999Founded (including number of years of 2004 Floated on London Stock Exchange – (STF) business in UK) 2005 Acquired AIMS Software S.A. in France 2006 Acquired Email Reaction Limited in UK, renamed smartFOCUS DIGITAL 2007 Delivered integrated on-line and off-line multi channel marketing platform 2008 Acquired Astech Intermedia, renamed smartFOCUS Astech Number of UK Employees 144 Business Development: 37, Delivery: 53, Product Development: 32, Support: 22 Turnover for 2009 (or last £11.9m accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth 15% (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 £13.2m Projected year-on-year 11% growth for 2010

USP What sets you apart from  UK headquartered email service provider with the domain expertise and thought leadership competitors? that invests in delivering the business and marketing challenges of our marketplace and customers through product and service innovation.  Integration of advanced marketing software functionality to drive the performance of digital marketing for our customers including: – High performance digital insight and analytics; – Automated campaign management optimization;

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Company Details Company Name smartFOCUS – Email and social networking integration; – Fast, effective and standard integration with; . Marketing database or single customer view; . Sales and contact management systems; . Web analysis systems. – Dedicated Client Services team delivering on-going account management. – Intuitive user interface designed for marketing users. – A high performance and scalable web-based platform built on industry standard technology. – A digital service charge that covers everything: . email solution delivered as a complete package in a single and easy to understand price, with no hidden extras, no itemization of technology or product features; . Unlimited Support from specialists in email and digital marketing included in monthly fee.  On-line and off-line expertise and products offered by smartFOCUS, to support our customers as they grow.  Expert teams who understand the challenges and have proven experience delivering the solutions.  Solution updated monthly giving regular new benefits and ensuring solution capability remains best of breed. Marketing driven transactional emails Clients Examples of UK Clients  Lastminute.com  Trainline  Manchester United  EasyJet  Chelsea Football Club  GolfBreaks  Money Supermarket  PaddyPower  LK Bennett  The Chartered Institute of Marketing  Harper Collins  RIAS  The Wine Society Our client portfolio includes individual client email volumes from tens of thousands per month to tens of millions. Which verticals/sectors, if any, smartFOCUS has over 700 B2C and B2B customers, across a wide range of market sectors do you specialise in? including: financial services, media, telecoms, retail, utilities, travel, gaming, not for profit and marketing services.

Case Study UK client case study At smartFOCUS, our success is measured by that of our clients marketing success. We are proud to serve and support many leading companies internationally, working with thousands of the finest and brightest marketers.

Golfbreaks.com Increases Campaign Response Rates by 40% with smartFOCUS

Working with smartFOCUS, Golfbreaks.com implemented a structured approach to email campaign optimisation based on multivariate testing. The intention was to optimise email copy, design and layout. The multivariate campaign optimisation project generated a 40% improvement in campaign response. In addition, Golfbreaks.com has a more thorough understanding of what works and what doesn‘t and can plan and adapt email campaigns accordingly. Its marketing team has strong data and campaign intelligence to work with, and this means email campaigns are improving all the time.

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Company Details Company Name smartFOCUS Hotpoint achieves 33% response rate with smartFOCUS Hotpoint chose to work with smartFOCUS, leveraging the email service provider‘s experience in email marketing to design a suitable campaign and manage it from concept through to execution and delivery. Because the campaign demanded such a high response rate, every part of the campaign needed to be optimised, and a multi-stage contact strategy would need to be used. All campaign elements were implemented using the smartFOCUS eChannel solution.

Wine Society achieves 99.8% deliverability and response rates of 45% with smartFOCUS The Wine Society was already communicating with its members via direct mail, but the organisation wanted to expand the scope of its marketing to include email. The company started using smartFOCUS‘ email delivery platform to promote wines to members, and drive sales. The email campaigns have proven to be very successful, with the wine society experiencing 99.8% deliverability rates and click through rates of up to 45%.

Landal GreenParks saves €30,000 a year and increases the effectiveness of its marketing with smartFOCUS Landal GreenParks, one of Europe‘s leading park management and chalet rental organisations, is now capable of performing sophisticated marketing analysis, with software that complements its marketing team, enabling them to work on every individual aspect of its data and campaigns, across multiple channels, including email.Landal GreenParks now enjoys control over every aspect of off-line and digital marketing processes and campaign construction time has been reduced from a week to an hour. Thanks to this much more efficient system, Landal GreenParks is saving €30,000 a year and doing much more with its customers.

Bounty Halves Email Campaign Construction Time and Achieves Over 95% Deliverability Rate Bounty is a long-term smartFOCUS customer with a highly successful core smartFOCUS marketing deployment. Since deploying the smartFOCUS solution, Bounty has greatly increased the flexibility of its email marketing. The company is now capable of complex segmentation and vastly improved analysis. Bounty now conducts a range of email marketing activities. As well as messages detailing offers, and product updates, Bounty also sends out a weekly newsletter, personalised for each individual member. The company has discovered that setting up and launching these campaigns is a much simpler task than it was.

To read more client success stories visit www.smartfocus.com

Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software No Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision No Legal advice No – we provide best practice advice and regular information from legal experts in our knowledge base articles and via account managers and comply with current DP legislation. Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro-Yes

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Company Details Company Name smartFOCUS sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Web tracking incorporated into smartFOCUS micro-sites Web analytics in partnership with leading solutions, including Omniture, Coremetrics , Google Analytics Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video No Audio No ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS, RSS, Social Networks, Micro-sites e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please  Strategic Consultancy specify)  Learning and Development  Best practice workshops  Campaign optimisation  Fully managed and blended services for; newsletter campaigns, transactional emails, preference centres, list growth, external content import and re-use, automated campaigns, feedback forms, surveys, automation. Integration Please provide details of level smartFOCUS‘ SOAP API and range of Connectors offers a comprehensive suite of tools for of integration possible with implementing ―out-of-the-box‖ and customised system and data integration. other technology, e.g. web Advanced features include automated content import, transactional emails and triggering of analytics individual or campaign emails. Which protocols are HTTP, HTTPS, SOAP, FTPS, FTP supported (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client Yes, via the smartFOCUS SOAP API developers free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Content sharing via social media integration with social media services, and measurement Product Details Product Name smartMARKETER eChannel, Digital Marketing solution (DMS) Product Features smartMARKETER eChannel is an application which allows users to design, create and report on digital marketing campaigns that include email newsletters, RSS and SMS channels as well as surveys, landing pages and microsites. DMS provides a digital insight application in a visual drag and drop interface allowing marketing users to create segments in a matter of minutes. Technical Overview smartMARKETER eChannel allows you to make the most of your online marketing, enabling you to manage every aspect of a campaign, from targeting with dynamic content, right through to measurement, reporting and optimisation.

Improved customer engagement – by creating campaigns that are tailored to the needs of the recipient you can improve customer engagement and retention as well as minimising the negative effects of poorly targeted communications on your brand.

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Company Details Company Name smartFOCUS Increased campaign response and conversion rates – intelligently targeted campaigns, and improved customer engagement will result in higher response rates, reduced list attrition and higher ROI.

Marketing KPI Reporting – smartMARKETER eChannel comes with intuitive and visual reports allowing you to measure the success of your campaigns and provide valuable metrics back to the business. Tracking capabilities Delivery, bounce back opens, click-through (from emails and microsites), post-click tracking, transactional tracking, web analytics tracking codes. Data capabilities Product Highlights:

 Total control over all aspects of your digital marketing – from campaign planning, customer segmentation, lifecycle management, through campaign delivery, to measurement and follow-up, smartMARKETER eChannel and DMS enables marketers to manage and optimise every stage of the digital marketing process, quickly and easily. You can also assign users with varying levels of permission and use templates to manage the way your company is creatively represented. You can even modify or halt campaigns to ensure optimal effectiveness.  Multi-channel digital marketing – campaign management functionality allows you to manage and optimise campaigns across your direct digital marketing channels including email, SMS and RSS, micro-sites, surveys and landing pages. Include event triggered actions to create auto-responses to actions taken by targeted recipients.  Advanced form creation – capture data and profile information from websites and emails quickly and easily. The simple Form Builder makes it easy to collect information from customers signing up to newsletters, completing surveys or entering competitions.  Data/List management – create distribution lists with just a few mouse clicks or using visual drag and drop interface. Extra information, such as expiry dates, can be easily added to list definitions so the status of the list is always clear. Manage un-subscribes, duplicates, upload new data, segment lists AND integrate data with your third party CRM solutions.  Dynamic personalisation – increase customer engagement by tailoring subject lines, email content and web landing pages to appeal to each customer.  Multi-step event triggering – establish autonomous campaigns that respond to the customer‘s actions by automatically sending a tailored email response. Campaigns no longer need to be micro-managed and can respond to each customer‘s specific needs.  Simple to use interface – smartMARKETER eChannel has been designed with marketers in mind. The WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface means that the software is intuitive, whatever your level of IT expertise.  Fast start deployment – SaaS (Software as a Service): to reduce on up-front costs. smartFOCUS provide an inclusive service, taking care of servers, bandwidth, ISPs, throughput optimisation and deliverability for you, so you can focus on campaigns and strategy.  Highly scalable system – smartMARKETER eChannel is proven to deliver for both large and small enterprises. Support for worldwide languages, including full double byte support and time zones enables dispersed international marketing teams to easily collaborate on campaigns.  Support for multiple operating systems – smartMARKETER eChannel is available for both PC and Mac, is fully Microsoft Windows 7 compatible and includes support for Mozilla Firefox 3.5+  Automated reporting and analysis using real-time Excel reports  Deliverability - smartMARKETER eChannel can take care of deliverability too, preventing your messages from getting caught by the spam filter, and allowing you to change a campaign accordingly. We work with the major ISPs on your behalf to prevent deliverability issues. Plus, with our integrated targeting and testing capabilities, there‘s less chance of your messages being identified as junk! Consequently, our delivery rates exceed those of DMA benchmarks. Costs and pricing methods Single and straightforward all-in monthly CPM fee (please be as specific as possible)

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Company Details Company Name smartFOCUS Training & Support How many UK support staff 15 do you have? During what hours are your UK help desk support is available by phone or email 0800-1900 Mon-Fri and by arrangement out UK support lines manned? of hours. Contextual help is available throughout the system and includes walk-throughs for common tasks and best practice guidance. How to guides, FAQs and user documentation is online with regular updates and is fully searchable. What type of training Is In addition to our online knowledge base and ‗how to‘ guides we provide private face to face included? (e.g. telephone and training, public scheduled session in multiple locations and webinars. on-site product training) Is online support included? Support via email and phone included. Please give details of other  Strategic consulting workshops and project engagements types of support and training  Best practice and creative review workshops (e.g. strategic workshops and  Full managed services, delivering campaigns on our clients behalf access to experts)  Analytics and data services  Comprehensive product training programmes and resources including: – Train the Trainer Programmes – Bespoke courses, written and undertaken on request – On-site training for all user functionality both standard agenda courses – Workshops based on client requirements – Scheduled training courses for users from multiple clients on a standard agenda. – Web based training, remote training using Webex  Marketing services partner workshops Deliverability Please summarise your We proactively monitor key metrics and take action should any metric go outside of safe levels. deliverability strategy (up to Risk is reduced by running of many sets of IP addresses. We work with all major ISPs ensuring 200 words) whitelisting and use spam complaint feedback loops. We have continuous monitoring of block lists and inbox delivery. We believe deliverability starts with data quality and work with our clients to explain best practices that will help them. Do you have a deliverability smartFOCUS provides standard deliverability monitoring to major ISPs. All campaigns are assurance solution? automatically checked for deliverability and inbox placement and exceptions are highlighted. Are you signed up with an We are partners of Goodmail and ReturnPath. email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy  All clients are encouraged to follow the DMA‘s best practice guidelines: http://www.dma.org.uk/information/inf-practice.asp  Best practice guides on email design, deliverability rates, and more Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ Dave Chaffey, leading e-Marketing commentator writes White Papers for smartFOCUS on a Publications/ regular basis. smartFOCUS Consultants, as part of their roles are constantly involved in the Industry events production of white papers, publications and industry events, such as TFM (Technology for Marketing), Internet World, Econsultancy and DMA events. Forums/Memberships smartFOCUS is a member of the DMA (Direct Marketing Association).  Direct Marketing Association (DMA) UK & US  Proactively engaged on the DMA Email Marketing Council  Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) UK Patron  ESP best practice; Goodmail , Return Path Sender Score  ISO 9001:2000 accredited  Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner  Prince2 Certified Project Management

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SmartFOCUS – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & Where support for whole we are client email going program Where we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where Where we are we are now going

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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10.24. SpinnakerPro

Company Details Company Name SpinnakerPro Company Logo

URL http://www.Spinnakerpro.co.uk UK Head Office Address 15 The Courtyard, Timothy's Bridge Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 9NP Other office locations Ireland, US, Germany and China. Contact Name Mike Broomfield Contact Telephone UK 0203 086 9938 | Ireland +353 1 447 5938 | US (415) 367 4814 | Germany +49 173 5433491| China +86 21 3227 0872 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition Our experience with great brands and agencies provides a better insight into how great email campaigns work, get delivered and return tangible commercial results.

We own and support our own technology that has best in class deliverability infrastructure. Whether you are an experienced email marketer, an agency or just starting out, we provide the best technical and practitioner led support to ensure your brand gets the gold standard. Brief Company History Founded 2002. Our focus is on building the best in online marketing technology. Built from the (including number of years of ground up on SQL Server, .NET and C#. business in UK) It is one of few applications that is hosted (on-demand) or licensed (on-premise) from the same codebase. The product has won the TMC CRM Best Product Award and was finalist in the Clickz best Newsletter product award. The product is white labelled by Epicor UK, Intellegentia UK and Digital Relevance UK. Number of UK Employees 10 Turnover for 2009 (or last Not disclosed. accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Not disclosed. (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Not disclosed. Projected year-on-year growth Not disclosed. for 2010

USP What sets you apart from Best in class Ironport delivery infrastructure hosted in Europe.Completely free option for less competitors? than 500 subscribers. Full support for China market. Available as on-demand or on-premise. Agency edition with PayPal / credit card billing module for client accounts. Clients Examples of UK Clients Riverford Organic, Kyocera, Kingston Communications (KCOM), Penna, Premier Mortgage Services, ANIX Computing, Bankhall, Finance and Audit Association UK, Hartwell Motors, ECMOD, XTAQ, Riverford Organic, Ellen MacArthur Trust, The Manufacturing Institute, Invest East of England, Midlands CO-OP, Hospitality Update,Different Tracks, National Express, ClickTonight, Inco-Online Scotland, Softbrands UK, Fresh RM,ICAEW, BDL Hotels, Accor Hospitality. Which verticals/sectors, if any, CPG, Retail, Technology, Media, Finance, Publishing, FMCG, Hospitality. do you specialise in?

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Company Details Company Name SpinnakerPro Case Study Client: Different Tracks

Holiday experiences are a key part of LIFESTYLE Work hard. Play hard. Stay fit. That's a mantra today. A rich, balanced life is a life worth having and it is increasingly difficult to attain. Different Tracks produce individual itineraries, structuring the ideal holiday - for individuals, couples, families, or a group of friends. Whatever the interests and however much time there is to spare the possibilities are endless.

The Difference is Personal Service! We have a hands-on approach and personally take time to speak to our clients when designing itineraries. Putting together a holiday for a client requires skill, but designing a holiday that encompasses the exact itinerary a client has envisaged also requires an in-depth knowledge of the region, built upon many years of experience.

We therefore needed to inform people in a way that would truly reflect the high quality service and beautiful, unusual destinations that we offer. Each month we send an HTML email newsletter that is consistent with our image and branding. We don‘t need to employ a designer in order to produce an HTML email. Our admin costs are reduced further by de-duplicating our contact lists and managing opt-out processing.

―SpinnakerPro don‘t just broadcast our emails, they pay attention to detail and make it easy for us to generate top quality e-newsletters with no HTML skills.‖ Trish Cosgrove, Director, Different Tracks Types of solution offered Full service Yes ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision No Legal advice No Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes

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Company Details Company Name SpinnakerPro ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, Fax (efax and faxcore) e.g. SMS, Fax, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Landing pages, email polls, Online surveys, competitions, advert creative testing, statistical specify) analysis of email campaigns. Integration Please provide details of level Integration with survey solution Sensorpro.net, Salesforce.com, Epicor, Microsoft CRM. of integration possible with other technology, e.g. web analytics Which protocols are supported WSDL and API (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Yes free access to your database for the purposes of integration of data and systems? Please give details of any Post to Twitter from your campaign, URL shortener from your campaign. Tell a Friend page has integration with social media share to social also. services, and measurement

Product Details Product Name SpinnakerPro Product Features INFRASTUCTURE  Servers based in Europe  Carrier grade bandwidth  Superior Ironport machines for best in class delivery and speed.  Full DKIM (Domain Key signing) support  Deployed as Hosted or Licensed solution  Fast image server support (Canopy, Akamai)  Goodmail support for certified email  Configurable throttling  Full support for GMAIL and HOTMAIL unsubscribe button  Feedback loops for all major ISP (Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL etc)

LIST MANAGEMENT  SQL Server, ODBC, Web service and direct link to Salesforce.com  CSV import wizard with macros  Opt in and Opt out management  Bounce management configurable by ISP  List cleansing  Customisable Email Preference Centre  CAPTCHA included with signup form  Autoemail on opt-in and opt-out  Can import contacts and auto-assign to opt-in category  Mass update of subscribers to new opt-in category  List detective to check domains and valid emails

SEGMENTATION  Store and reuse segments  Segment by previous campaign metrics  Quickly create a seed list segment  Segmentation based on external databases

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 Demographic segmentation  Clickthrough segmentation  Survey response-based segmentation  Dynamic ―From email address‖ based on contact data  Send campaign by category

CONTENT CREATION  WYSWYG Content Editor  Works on all browsers including Mac Safari  Pre-tested HTML templates  Pre-tested HTML snippets [Calendar of events, Product lists etc]  Enhanced mail merge on all fields  Dynamic and conditional content  Survey Insertion  Rendering Validation  Email Polls that do not hinder delivery  Extract content from external URL at broadcast time  Dynamic diarised content extraction based on date at end of URL  True multipart message support  All email links converted for optimal delivery

CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT  Schedule campaigns  Archive campaigns for future review  Client billing module for Agencies (PayPal and credit cards)  Auto-responders (drip, diary, recurring, trigger, serialization)  Post to Twitter, Facebook and more.  Configurable Throttling per ISP and domain

REPORTING AND TRACKING  Real-time reporting  URL Clickthrough tracking  Clickstream and Post-click tracking  Refer-a-Friend functionality and tracking  Hard and Soft Bounce Tracking  Flex2 charting  Email client fingerprinting  Cross campaign trend analysis Technical Overview Available as on-demand or on-premise. Web farm enabled. Ironport delivery machines. Based on Microsoft SQL Server, .NET and C# Tracking capabilities Email opens, Hard bounce, Soft bounce, URL clicks, post-click tracking, Share with a friend tracking, Clickstream tracking. Data capabilities API to allow embedding of functions within your own ecommerce site. Export to XML, Excel, CSV. Full import wizard for contacts and options for ODBC connections to other systems. Costs and pricing methods 1. Free FOREVER: For contacts under 500, no limits. (please be as specific as possible) 2. Pay as you Go: Only Pay to Send - first 1,000 sends FREE.

3. Never Pay Again: One fee and NEVER pay to send email again

4. Annual UNLIMITED: Flat fee for UNLIMITED sends

Full details http://www.spinnakerpro.com/email-pricing.html

Training & Support How many UK support staff do 5 you have? During what hours are your UK 08:00 – 18:00 GMT Monday to Friday support lines manned? email support to 22:00 GMT Is telephone product training Yes

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included? Is on site product training Yes included? Please give details of other 1. Benchmarking reports types of support and training 2. Webinars for product updates and email best practice (e.g. strategic workshops and 3. Best practice Workshops access to experts) 4. Online resource centre 5. Dedicated Account Manager for best practice support Deliverability Please summarise your Our deliverability service manages your sending reputation. Initially we will look at your deliverability strategy (up to reputation across various networks including Senderscore and Microsoft SNDS. Before sending 200 words) any email we would ensure that SPF and DKIM are setup correctly (http://urlx.ie/spf) Then we would setup bounce handling and manage throttling for email sending. Finally we would look at content to ensure optimal delivery. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an Yes email certification or authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? What was your Q1 '08 96% Deliverability rate? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy http://www.spinnakerpro.com/deliverytips.html Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ http://facebook.com/spinnakerpro Publications/ http://youtube.com/spinnakerpro Industry events Forums/Memberships, DMA, MAAWG, EEC (Email Experience Council -Silver ) Additional, supporting information Other relevant information OFFER Use code ―econsultancy‖ for an extra 750 email sending credits. New accounts get 1,000 email sending credits automatically. Free deliverability audit: http://repucheck.ie

TESTIMONIALS ―They offer a very professional service that and are always helpful and supportive. We like the continuous innovation and new ideas generated. We get excellent value from Spinnakerpro and would have no hesitation in recommending it‖ Jim Maher, CEO, Trigraph Professional Services.

―On behalf of our team I'd like to thank you for your help in implement the system as smoothly as possible, your professionalism and, last but not least, your wonderful sense of humour, were top notch" Janice O'Donnell, Thomson Carswell

―We are delighted by the results and will use the data to evaluate and further improve our conference booking enquiries and conference facilities” Dina Toori, Sales Support Manager, Dana Lewis, MICE Sales Director ACCOR UK

“SpinnakerPro doesn‟t just broadcast our emails, they pay attention to detail and make it easy for us to generate top quality e-newsletters with no HTML skills.” Trish Cosgrove, Director, Different Tracks

"We could attribute 26% pickup in our business directly to our Spinnakerpro campaigns. With the Response reporter we can clearly see the real time results of a campaign and we can then track that against actual pickup in business, i.e. bookings made. This allows us to assess the offers and the marketing message for future campaigns. We can actually measure the amount of people who clicked from the ezine into the Hot Deals on our website, and then we can query our booking engine to assess the exact number of bookings made. Along with reports from OPERA we can see how may rooms were booked on a particular offer in a defined period. This is a far more precise measurement of success, than trying to assess the result of a press/media advert

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or poster/flyer campaign" Deirdre Power, General Manager Commercial, Tower Hotel Group.

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Spinnakerpro – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email program we are going

Where we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate Where bespoke functionality we are going

Where we are now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

Text and html Ability to offer email provision dynamic email solution

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10.25. StrongMail

Company Details Company Name StrongMail Company Logo

URL www.strongmail.com UK Head Office Address Prospect House, Crendon Street, High Wycombe, Bucks HP13 6LA Other office locations 1300 Island Drive, Suite 200, Redwood City, CA 94065 USA Contact Name Paul Bates Contact Telephone +44 (0) 1494-435-120 Contact email [email protected] Company Proposition StrongMail‘s online marketing solutions for email and social media enable businesses to reach, engage and influence their target audience using two of the most powerful channels available to marketers today. StrongMail gives email marketers the control and support they need to improve campaign performance, boost deliverability and lower costs, while leveraging the power of social media to extend the reach of their campaigns to new audiences.

Combining an easy-to-use email marketing application, high-performance delivery system, viral- marketing tool, social media integration, and a wide range of deliverability, strategic and supporting services, StrongMail makes it possible for companies with all levels of resources and expertise to take advantage of its proven solutions.

Headquartered in Redwood City, CA, StrongMail‘s clients include global leaders across virtually every industry. To learn more about StrongMail, please visit www.strongmail.com or follow us online at www.twitter.com/StrongMail or www.facebook.com/StrongMail. Brief Company History StrongMail Systems was founded in 2002 to provide companies with a compelling email (including number of years of infrastructure solution that offered superior reliability, scalability, control and performance over business in UK) existing freeware solutions based on 25-year old technology. The company has continued to evolve and now offers a suite of online marketing solutions for email and social media.

StrongMail offers its full-featured email marketing solution on-premise or on-demand, providing business users with powerful and easy-to use tools for creating, managing and tracking highly relevant marketing messages. StrongMail‘s social media solutions enable marketers to create truly viral and relevant campaigns that can be tracked and measured to maximise results.

StrongMail complements its email marketing and social media solutions with a full suite of strategic, deliverability and supporting services. The company opened its UK office in 2007. Number of UK Employees Undisclosed. StrongMail is a privately held company. Turnover for 2009 (or last Undisclosed. StrongMail is a privately held company. accounting period including dates) 2009 year-on-year growth Undisclosed. StrongMail is a privately held company. (compared to 2008) Projected turnover 2010 Undisclosed. StrongMail is a privately held company. Projected year-on-year growth Undisclosed. StrongMail is a privately held company. for 2010

USP What sets you apart from StrongMail's market-leading MessageStudio email marketing solution offers the best ROI of any competitors? tier-1 email service provider today. More importantly, Message Studio integrates with our ground-breaking referral marketing platform and social media marketing solutions, allowing companies to leverage the power of the social web to improve campaign performance, acquire new customer and identify key influencers for future remarketing. No other company provides a comparable social media solution that motivates, enables and tracks the performance of key influencers sharing offers with their social networks. StrongMail supports its solutions with a top- notch strategic services team offering expert advice and assistance in online marketing strategy and execution.

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Company Details Company Name StrongMail

StrongMail offers a different approach to traditional email service providers. Our patented delivery technology, unique pricing and availability models and innovative services provide email marketers with a better choice for maximising the performance and return-on-investment of their email programmes.

There are multiple reasons why leading brands like Intercontinental Hotels Group, Viacom, Travelocity, WebEx, Dow Jones, McAfee, Zappos and more than 500 others have chosen StrongMail as their email marketing provider. The following are the top 10 reasons that companies switch to StrongMail to power their critical customer email communications:

1. Deliverability: With our powerful combination of industry-leading high-deliverability technology and expert services, StrongMail enables its clients to realise some of the highest deliverability rates in the industry. 2. Integration: StrongMail's unique ability to connect directly to its clients' systems and data sources eliminates typical ESP challenges around data integration, synchronisation and latency, plus it increases the ROI of these existing systems. 3. Cost: StrongMail‘s unique ownership pricing provides companies with the lowest total cost of ownership of any tier-one email marketing solution. With no CPM Fees, the more email our clients send, the greater their savings will be. 4. Control: StrongMail provides every client with a dedicated email marketing solution, which means no sharing of IP addresses with other businesses, no send-time latency or waiting in queues and accurate reporting that can be tailored to their business. Plus, our clients can rest assured that their customer and campaign data will remain secure because it never has to leave their data centre. 5. Performance, Scalability and Reliability: StrongMail's patented technology maximises performance and reliability while offering infinite scalability to accommodate the growth of our clients' email programmes. StrongMail customers are successfully delivering millions of emails within a matter of minutes. 6. Social Media Integration: Going beyond simple sharing, StrongMail is a full-service social media partner, helping companies leverage email and social media to create impactful programmes with clear objectives and trackable results. 7. Transactional/Triggered Email: StrongMail's industry-leading transactional email platform enables business users to create and manage dynamic, fully branded transactional email campaigns that drive revenue through relevant cross- and up-sell offers. 8. Centralisation: The combined value of StrongMail's integration, performance and cost model make it an ideal solution for centralising all email streams, which is a key step towards maintaining consistent communications and realising operational efficiencies. 9. Expert Strategy, Creative and Production Services: StrongMail offers its clients a full array of services to help ensure their success - from programme strategy, to campaign execution. Our experts partner with its clients and serve as an extension of their team, enabling them to achieve their goals. 10. On-Premise or On-Demand: Whether our clients choose to use StrongMail in an on- premise model or an on-demand model, it‘s the same great solution. We also offer them the ability to seamlessly switch between models, so if their business needs change, their email marketing system doesn‘t have to. With StrongMail, companies can replace legacy email systems easily and cost-effectively, with minimal IT resources.

Clients Examples of UK Clients Tesco, Reed.co.uk, Datech Limited, Best of the Best, TMN Group, The Fool UK, LoveMoney.com, Real Networks, Ticketmaster, Privalia, echef.com, PKR Which verticals/sectors, if any,  Education do you specialise in?  Entertainment  Financial Services  Marketing Services  Retail

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Company Details Company Name StrongMail  Social Networking/Web 2.0  Technology  Travel & Hospitality Case Study UK client case study Introduction If you‘ve walked through one of the UK‘s main airports, you may have come face-to-face with a Ferrari, Lamborghini or other supercar that‘s being offered as first prize in a ‗spot the ball‘ competition. The company behind these competitions is Best of the Best, and in the last six years it has given away £8million worth of cars to more than 200 winners.

The company‘s revenue is largely derived from ticket sales within airport terminals, although an increasing number of participants are playing online too. Every entrant is asked to provide an email address so that they can be contacted, should they win. It also allows Best of the Best to contact players again in the future and encourage them to take part in new competitions.

Best of the Best has built up a database of over 250,000 players who are contacted each week. This means the company generates around one million emails per month. Email is, therefore, a vital part of the company‘s sales and marketing strategy – and the principal way in which it can encourage repeat business.

Limitations of a Traditional Email Service Provider

Prior to installing StrongMail, Best of the Best outsourced the management of its email campaigns to an email service provider (ESP).Richard Bewley, online marketing manager for Best of the Best, notes that this originally seemed the best approach as Best of the Best had limited IT resources and wanted its IT staff to focus on email campaign development and support for other employees. However, as Best of the Best‘s database continued to grow and its email campaigns continued to evolve in complexity, flaws began to appear in the traditional outsourced ESP model.

Best of the Best‘s IT team had already started investigating an alternative solution as it had become increasingly concerned that their email campaigns were being compromised. This was because the ESP used the same server to send out multiple campaigns for a range of different customers and there was no way to specify what time a specific campaign would go out to potential players. ―It was down to pot luck,‖ comments Bewley, ―and that‘s no way to run an email marketing campaign in the twenty-first century.‖

Matters came to a head when Best of the Best suffered a major delivery problem with one of its email campaigns. Bewley explains: ―We were told by our ESP that they were turning off the server one Friday afternoon – it was a fait accompli and there was no room to negotiate. We send our campaigns out on Fridays each week because we know it‘s the most effective time. However, that week, we simply couldn‘t send them out when we wanted to. It cost us a great deal in time, effort and most worryingly, lost revenue.‖

At that point, it was clear to Best of the Best that it couldn‘t rely on a traditional outsourced email service provider any longer and had to take more direct control of its email campaigns. However, the company still faced the same dilemma about over-stretching the IT team‘s resources.

StrongMail’s dedicated solution selected for precision, speed and control

After reviewing a number of alternatives, Best of the Best selected StrongMail‘s On-Demand service to replace the now tired and troubled ESP relationship. Bewley explains: ―StrongMail‘s On- Demand service provides a solution that offers the best of both worlds. We get more control over the timing and segmentation of our campaigns, while also gaining a dedicated email delivery server – so we no longer have to battle with other companies for the necessary bandwidth to send our email campaigns.‖

In addition, as Rackspace, one of the world‘s most respected managed service providers, hosts the StrongMail On-Demand service, Best of the Best doesn‘t need to dedicate IT resources to server upkeep and management. ―We can therefore take direct control of our email campaigns, without having to invest time maintaining and managing the server ourselves,‖ comments Bewley.

Firing on all cylinders

In addition, StrongMail‘s solution has cut the time taken to create an email campaign by allowing

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Company Details Company Name StrongMail Best of the Best to design and send personalised emails based on customer participation history and preferences, which improves customer responsiveness to campaigns. Furthermore, StrongMail‘s automatically analyses message delivery trends to check bounce-back numbers and unsubscribe requests, which improves list hygiene and deliverability levels. Bewley also notes that, prior to installing StrongMail, he had no such visibility and found it extremely difficult to gain a full understanding of potential delivery problems.

Bewley was particularly enthusiastic about StrongMail‘s Live Update feature, which ensures Best of the Best‘s emails meet changing ISP delivery requirements. He explains: ―Thanks to StrongMail, we are always aware of the parameters that Google, Hotmail or other ISPs are using to identify potential spammers – and we can take action to make sure our emails which have, after all, been requested by our customers, arrive in their inboxes and not their junk folders. Our previous email solution didn‘t even come close to offering such a dynamic and responsive way of improving deliverability – and I‘m convinced that the effectiveness of our campaigns suffered as a result.‖

Bewley concludes: ―StrongMail On-Demand has been a revelation to us. It combines ease-of-use with detailed campaign analysis and practical ways of ensuring improved deliverability levels. It offers us much more control than an ESP solution could and, because our StrongMail server is located in a hosted environment, we don‘t need to worry about maintenance, management and updates. In short, it‘s an all-round winner!‖

Types of solution offered Full service Yes However, StrongMail's solutions can also be managed by the customer and supported by a full suite of deliverability, strategic, creative, production, implementation and system administration services. StrongMail's social media solutions are 100% hosted and can be managed by StrongMail or its clients. ASP Yes Dedicated Server (As part of Yes ASP service) Off-the-shelf software Yes Types of services offered Strategy and campaign Yes planning Design and copywriting Yes List provision Yes Legal advice No Available via third party. Data management Yes Data cleansing, de-dupe and Yes validation Broadcast Yes Segmentation Yes Personalisation Yes Dynamic content solutions Yes Hosting for images and micro- Yes sites Event triggered messaging Yes Sequence messaging Yes Web Analytics Yes Reporting Yes Real-time reporting Yes Flash Yes Video Yes Audio Yes ―Inbox snapshot‖ service (i.e. Yes

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Company Details Company Name StrongMail showing clients how email content appears on major email clients and browsers) Other messaging services, SMS, social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, Wordpress, Blogger) e.g. SMS, contact centre (please specify) Any other services (please Implementation Services, Managed Hosting Services, Deliverability Services, Strategic Services, specify) Creative Services, Production Services, Social Media Services Integration Please provide details of level Integration with custom and/or third-party databases and applications (e.g. SAP, Teradata, of integration possible with Omniture, Coremetrics, Salesforce.com) are made possible through a robust set of web services other technology, e.g. web APIs. analytics Which protocols are supported SMTP, TLS, Web Services, SOAP, HTTP, HTTPS, JDBC, FTP, OpenWire, and Stomp. (e.g. SOAP/HTTP)? Do you allow client developers Yes In addition, StrongMail provides a rich set of ETL tools and APIs that enable developers to free access to your database integrate StrongMail products with diverse enterprise applications using web services or at the for the purposes of integration database or file system level. of data and systems? Please give details of any StrongMail integrates with its own proprietary social media marketing platform that includes a integration with social media referral marketing platform, social sharing tool and campaign management application. In services, and measurement addition, StrongMail integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media providers via their APIs. Product Details Product Name StrongMail offers a full suite of email and social media marketing solutions. Products include:  StrongMail Message Studio  StrongMail Transactional Email  StrongMail Influencer  Social Direct  Social Notes  StrongSurvey  StrongDelivery Tools  StrongMail Email Integration Server  StrongMail Email Delivery Server A full view of our products is available here: http://www.strongmail.com/technology/overview/ Product Features  Campaign management  A/B split testing  Content creation  Data segmentation and targeting  Social media integration  SWYN (Share with Your Network)  FTAF (Forward to a Friend)  Multi-variate Testing  Planning Calendar  Dynamic Proofing  List Management  Workflow collaboration and security  Real-time delivery  Real-time visibility and reporting  Real-time data integration and control  Campaign Preview  Mailbox Monitor  Blacklist Alert  Web Services APIs  Local datamart  Dynamic content  Multi-server management

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Company Details Company Name StrongMail  Smart Bounce management  Live Updates  High Availability A full list of features for all products is available here: http://www.strongmail.com/technology/overview/ Technical Overview Technical white papers on our products are available here: http://www.strongmail.com/resources/whitepapers/ Tracking capabilities Ability to capture and report on opens, clicks, conversions, influencers, unsubscribes, feedback loop complaints and bounces/failures. Data capabilities Database connectivity – Ability to connect directly to Oracle, MS SQL Server, MySQL DB2, Teradata, Sybase and PostgreSQL databases.

Web Services APIs – Enables seamless messaging integration for business applications. Costs and pricing methods Pricing varies based on volume and configuration needs. (please be as specific as possible) Training & Support How many UK support staff do Undisclosed. StrongMail is a privately held company. you have? During what hours are your UK StrongMail support is accessible around the clock, 24/7/365. support lines manned? What type of training Is Live online instructor training is included. On-site product training is an optional service. included? (e.g. telephone and on-site product training) Is online support included? Yes Please give details of other StrongMail offers 24/7/365 phone support, as well as access to its online customer community, types of support and training which provides access to StrongMail experts as well as other StrongMail customers. In addition (e.g. strategic workshops and to online training, StrongMail offers specialised, multi-day training courses that can be conducted access to experts) remotely or on-site. Deliverability Please summarise your StrongMail's patented email-delivery technology was built from the ground up to maximise inbox deliverability strategy (up to delivery by effectively addressing the challenges created by spam, phishing and other email 200 words) abuse. Additionally, StrongMail offers a comprehensive suite of deliverability services to help its clients improve their delivery rates, including a staff of deliverability experts that work directly with ISPs to resolve problems. Do you have a deliverability Yes assurance solution? Are you signed up with an StrongMail has active partnerships with Goodmail and Return Path, and supports the top email email certification or authentication technologies (DKIM, SPF, Sender ID, DomainKeys, etc.) authentication service (e.g. Goodmail, Return Path)? Best Practice and Thought Leadership Details of best practice policy Issues such as spam and phishing have plagued email for years. StrongMail takes its leadership role in the email industry seriously and remains committed to proactively addressing matters of abuse and the protection of legitimate email delivery.

StrongMail's efforts to overcome these challenges are multifaceted and include a combination of technological development, legislative advocacy and promotion of industry standards. We leverage leadership roles in numerous industry organisations to help curb abusive and fraudulent email practices while still preserving use of the channel for legitimate communication and commerce.

As a firm believer in the importance of being a good corporate citizen, StrongMail requires customers to embrace its same high standards for quality and integrity. As such, we target distribution of our products to companies who share our vision and maintain compliance not only with appropriate laws but also with current best practice standards. Our exacting standards focus our sales efforts on responsible companies who are not likely to harm the reputation of our

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Company Details Company Name StrongMail services, or of our other customers, by using our products in an inappropriate manner.

To support these activities and objectives, StrongMail carefully reviews all potential clients to ensure that we share a common goal of improving the viability and integrity of email as a communications channel. We are committed to continuing these efforts to help protect the long- term growth of the channel so all legitimate users of email can unlock its potential.

Do you have a full-time Yes data/spam/privacy representative? White Papers/ White Papers: http://www.strongmail.com/resources/whitepapers/ Publications/ Publications: http://www.strongmail.com/company/news-and-events/in-the-news.php Industry events Industry Events: http://www.strongmail.com/company/news-and-events/upcoming-events.php Forums/Memberships Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Email Experience Council (EEC), Email Service Provider & Provider Coalition (ESPC), Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), Shop.org, Canadian Marketing Association (CMA), Asian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA)

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StrongMail – Market Positioning Charts Chart 1: Company focus

Full service & support for whole Where client email we are program Where going we are now

Focus on particular aspect of email, (e.g. technology or newsletters) Focus only Offer range of on email products/services, product/services including email

Chart 2 – Type of solution

Tailored solution to incorporate bespoke functionality

Where Where we are we are going now

Off-the-shelf and ready to go

SME focus Mainly blue chip / enterprise customers

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