The two main e-mail change-of-address services, ActiveNames and Return Path, yesterday announced executive and board appointments intended to add well-known direct marketing names to their respective rosters.
ActiveNames, New York, yesterday named three industry officials to its advisory board: Regina Brady, vice president of partners and strategic development at FloNetwork; John Hunsicker, chief operating officer at Fingerhut E-commerce; and Ben Isaacson, executive director at the Association for Interactive Media.
ActiveNames seeks to become the online version of the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address service, providing businesses with e-mail address updates for their customers while giving consumers the ability to control which companies and individuals receive their new e-mail address. The company said it created the advisory board to counsel ActiveNames as it evolves in the e-mail and direct marketing industries.
Earlier this week, Return Path, a New York competitor, named former Abacus Direct executive David Paulus as its new vice president of sales. In this position, Paulus will oversee Return Path's network of clients and reseller partners.
Paulus previously served as vice president of new market development at Abacus Direct, a division of DoubleClick. While there, he developed and launched the reseller channel for the Abacus database and headed its sales and marketing efforts.
Return Path calls itself a universal e-mail management and change-of-address service. Like its rival ActiveNames, Return Path offers businesses updated e-mail addresses for their customers and better management of their e-mail lists. It also gives consumers a place to manage their commercial e-mail relationships. Return Path recently received funding from DoubleClick and two venture capital firms.
