E-centives, Excite@Home Ink Marketing, Equity Deal

Promotions player e-centives on Thursday struck a wide-ranging multi-year marketing deal with Excite@Home ATHM, which also made an investment in the direct marketer.

The deal calls for e-centives to be integrated into the Excite portal, including placement on the homepage, in member services, in the online shopping pages.

At a time when online rewards programs are becoming a must-have feature, this agreement adds that functionality to Excite. The deal also gives Excite the ability to offer its advertisers these promotional opportunities.

“Our investment in e-centives is a direct result of their advanced e-commerce and promotions technologies,” says Mark Stevens, executive vice president, corporate and business development, Excite@Home.

“In addition to the clear benefits for Excite’s consumer members, our advertisers and merchant partners can now look to e-centives as a trigger for increased and more effective e-commerce success.”

The investment round, which brings the total venture funding for e-centives to $50 million, was led by the Seligman Technology Group and joined by Excite@Home, Moore Capital, and MacAndrews & Forbes Group. The specific amount contributed in this round, and Excite@Home’s part of that, were not disclosed.

Since launching in late 1998, e-centives has forged relationships with ZDNet, USATODAY.com, Tower Records, Egghead.com, and Cooking.com.