• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 1, 2013

Dunkin’ Donuts has tapped marketing services provider Epsilon to power DD Perks -- a loyalty program the donut maker plans to debut later this year. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Our partnership will allow Dunkin’ Donuts to increase their focus on the individual customer,” said Bryan Kennedy, CEO of Epsilon To do so, Epsilon will rely on its transactional and demographic marketing data, with which it services some 2,000 global clients worldwide.

“We are … looking for meaningful opportunities across a variety of touch points to reward our guests for their loyalty,” said John Costello, president of global marketing and innovation for Dunkin’ Brands.

Epsilon firmly rooted itself in permission-based email marketing with the acquisition of Bigfoot Interactive for $120 million in 2005.
 
In early 2006, Epsilon acquired DoubleClick's email business for an estimated $90 million. Later that year, it acquired Abacus, which manages databases for catalog companies, from DoubleClick for $435 million.           

More recently, Epsilon parent Alliance Data Systems bought digital marketing services agency Hyper Marketing for $460 million last November. Per the deal, Alliance Data Systems plans to combined Hyper Marketing with its Epsilon direct-to-consumer marketing business.

For Epsilon, Hyper Marketing was expected to add scale and digital capabilities to existing verticals, including consumer product goods, telecom, retail and financial services, as well as new verticals, such as energy, fitness, quick service restaurants, and technology. With Hyper Marketing, Alliance predicted that Epsilon’s 2013 revenue would reach $1.3 billion.

With more than 10,500 restaurants in 31 countries worldwide, Dunkin' Donuts' restaurants had global franchisee-reported sales of approximately $6.9 billion for the full-year 2012.