Yesmail Inc., a subsidiary of infoUSA, said yesterday that it brought acquisition services in-house through a shift within infoUSA's Donnelley Group companies that occurred at the start of the year.
Yesmail Acquisition Services was formerly the brokerage division of Walter Karl Interactive, which still operates its management division out of Walter Karl's Pearl River, NY, headquarters.
The transition let Yesmail and the acquisition team better serve their clients as well as take advantage of cross-sell opportunities, said Sarah Barber, vice president of acquisition services for Yesmail, who was part of the original Yesmail team.
InfoUSA, Omaha, NE, acquired Yesmail from CMGI Inc. in March 2003 and added it to its Donnelley Group. In early 2005 infoUSA purchased the retention-based e-mail technology firm @Once and rolled it into Yesmail later in the year.
Barber illustrated why the shift made sense.
“It's like we make ski poles and Yesmail makes skis, so since their clients are in need of skis they probably need poles, too,” she said. “It's a very complementary way of servicing the Yesmail clients as well as many of the Walter Karl Interactive clients who are coming to us more and more about being in need of an e-messaging platform.”
As Yesmail Acquisition Services, Barber and her team will continue providing customized online marketing strategies using Internet co-registration, e-mail list rental, banners, e-mail append and e-mail change of address.
“The decision was easy and makes sense,” Ed Mallin, president of the Donnelley Group, said in a statement. “We looked at the businesses and our customers' needs, and the synergies were there.”
