• by John Gaffney , June 16, 2003

Continuing its move away from media and into technology, DoubleClick is now claiming big victories in the marketing automation sector. Yesterday it announced the results of its foray into the field, which include two new partnerships and seven major client wins since Jan. 1.

DoubleClick senior VP of marketing automation Court Cunningham described marketing automation as the process by which clients manage and measure their direct marketing efforts including the Internet, direct mail, email and call centers. In November 2002 the company bought Protagona, a marketing solutions company. That enabled the launch of DoubleClick Ensemble, which put DoubleClick in business. Now the division has 45 clients including Sprint, Royal Carribbean and Landing Tree. New wins this year include Lycos and Orbitz.

Cunningham said the marketing automation success shows him that companies are looking across all marketing channels to understand how consumers purchase products.

"The Internet is just one channel of many," Cunngham said. "To just look at the Internet is to miss the picture. Clients are trying to understand channel preference."

For example, a recent DoubleClick client report showed that catalog sales were dirving 45 percent of demand at retail locations. That's the kind of information that can be gleaned from the Ensemble reports. Lycos is using the solution to test and measure the possibility of new prescription services. Orbitz has signed on to further segment its marketing efforts.

The division is also working with resellers for DoubleClick Ensemble to grow the business. Working with Fiserv CCS, the leading provider of information and relationship management services for the financial industry, DoubleClick does business with approximately 1.1 million consumers and 90,000 businesses nationwide. This institution will use Ensemble to manage its customer acquisition programs across multiple channels.

DoubleClick also signed two deals with Acxiom Corporation, a provider of customer and information management solutions. These deals include a leading provider of consumer loans, credit cards, auto financing and credit insurance, and one of the nation's largest issuers of private label and general-purpose credit cards, which will use Ensemble to manage its customer communication and its credit card acquisition direct mail and telemarketing activity. In addition, OnStar, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, will use Ensemble to manage its customer retention and upsell programs.

"Our success tells me that customers no longer look at their marketing in terms of silos of information," Cunningham said. "They're moving away from that. They want a centralized dashboard of information that allows them to see if they're hitting multiple channels and looking at their marketing efforts holistically."