Cross-Platform Direct Marketing Firms to Merge

Cross-platform direct marketer Click Tactics has agreed to acquire Intrasight, a relationship marketing firm focused on the travel vertical, for an undisclosed sum.

The combined entity aims to offer both self-serve and “highly consultative” direct marketing programs with e-mail, direct mail, text messaging, and other components. Reached by phone yesterday, Click Tactics CEO Andrew Frawley said the goal is to build an “automated marketing database that is kept up to date in real time” and that allows customers to manually define the parameters of their own ad-hoc campaigns.

“Our clients can see exactly what’s going on or even participate just as our team does, because we share the same platform,” he said.

Frawley will remain CEO of the merged company, and Intrasight President Jeff Walters will become CMO while continuing to run the Intrasight division. Click Tactics will continue to be based in Waltham, MA, and Intrasight will remain in its Scottsdale, AZ, offices. The firms’ combined headcount is around 150.

Intrasight’s customer base is heavily focused on the travel industry; two thirds of its clients hail from that vertical. The rest come from consumer packaged goods, retail and assorted other categories. Click Tactics meanwhile has many enterprise clients, including Bank of America, Comcast, and Verizon.

The model is similar to those undertaken by database marketing powerhouses Axciom and Epsilon, though Frawley asserted his firm will push channel integration further than those agencies have.

“In most business and consumer marketing companies, the customer database and interactive delivery are in two different places,” he said. “What [Intrasight’s] Iris platform allows us to do is connect those things directly together.”

The company also announced new investments totaling $35 million, which paid for both the acquisition and ongoing development and operations.