DoubleClick Inc. yesterday established an online direct marketing division called DoubleClick Direct that will provide full service online direct marketing and customer acquisition services.
The division, which is part of DoubleClick's Media group, is headed by Bill Wise, vice president of business development for the group. He will report to Jeffrey Silverman, vice president and general manager of DoubleClick North America Media.
Clients of the division include Capital One, Sprint and Columbia House.
Wise said the goal of the new division is to position DoubleClick as a “one stop shop” for direct marketers' online and offline campaigns. The company plans to involve its Abacus Direct division, DARTmail platform and Boomerang targeting technology in DoubleClick Direct campaigns.
“We want to educate more direct marketers about online marketing,” Wise said. “We want them to realize the online marketing is a complement to direct mail. We'll also focus on building e-mail lists. E-mail is a great acquisition tool and a great CRM tool.”
Wise said he expects the main competition for DoubleClick Direct to be the large portals such as Yahoo, which often have excess ad inventory.
“We expect to go up against a bunch of the major portals that have some remnant space they are trying to monetize,” Wise said.
