At tonight's welcome reception for the Search Insider Summit, I was pleased to see a good mix of new and familiar faces. The beauty of this event truly is the intimacy and the networking was in full effect right off the bat. There was one interaction that stood out for me, though. As I was catching up with fellow Search Insider columnist, Gord Hotchkiss, a loyal reader came up and told him how big a fan she was of his and how awestruck she was in the presence of her hero. Now, of course, who doesn't feel that way …

Email service provider ExactTarget, which has withdrawn its application to go public, said Wednesday that three venture capital firms have infused it with $70 million in capital. The company, which had four executives attending the Summit, said the funds amount to “a similar level” of funding to what it expected to raise in its initial public offering, which it announced it was pursuing in December 2007. The three investors are Battery Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Mantagu Newhall. ExactTarget said this week that it added more than 250 new clients and upped sales by 40% in the first …

A previous post referred to the release later this month of a “2009 Email List Growth Study,” which will offer some survey results on best practices to build an email database. The study was conducted by ExactTarget, the Email Marketers’ Club and the Center for Media Design at Ball State University. Those interested in obtaining a copy can visit: http://email.exacttarget.com/lp/lp.aspx?id=3356

Some conference attendees listening to a local ESPN radio station this morning may have heard an ad for a competitor. The spot for email service provider (ESP) Constant Constant promised businesses to “help … generate the almighty referrals” and plugged a trial offer. The publicly traded ESP has been running the campaign since last September and management has suggested it is helping grab new customers, which it said grew 54% in 2008 to 253,400. But its CEO Gail Goodman said on an earnings call last fall that “the majority of the campaign’s impact is expected to be seen in …

Marketers place a lifetime value on a customer on an email list based on their purchasing activity. For Netflix, it could be $9. At US Airways, maybe $2. But now with social networking booming, a question emerges: How to place a similar value on a person who is an active participant on a company's Facebook or MySpace page (or a similar venue, maybe Twitter). And marketers are now in hot pursuit. They agree that a person who simply visits the page and is a static follower is of minimal value. But people who can be tagged as influencers, …