Impower Inc. is expected to make its first acquisition today, buying Datamark Technologies, a provider of electronic gift card and customer loyalty programs.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Princeton, NJ, company said the addition of Datamark Technologies would expand its portfolio of services that let marketers acquire customers and leverage those relationships online and offline. It also lets Impower provide marketers with programs for customer development that link point-of-purchase and Internet transactions.
According to Eric Zilling, co-founder and chief strategic officer at Impower, the company will offer a technology developed by Datamark that lets marketers place a value on a plastic card that can be redeemed at the checkout counter or over the Internet.
“The technology enables marketers to redeposit value onto the card remotely, based on data in their database,” Zilling said. “They can flip the plastic card into a loyalty card.”
Datamark Technologies has about 5 million names in its database, he said. The company's clients include J.Crew and Brooks Brothers.
Zilling also said that using the technology would allow Impower to track customers both online and offline.
“Coupon offers work very well online,” he said. “We can track how many people click on a message and read a promotion. But it's more difficult to track if they actually go into a store and buy something because of the online promotion.”
