It’s been a busy week for Deutsche Post. The German postal giant hadn’t been making too many waves in the world of startups, but it has now announced the acquisition of email marketing firm optivo for an undisclosed sum. Friday’s news follows on from its partnership with Gini, announced earlier this week, as part of its efforts to digitize mail. Expect that process to extend not only to bank statements and insurance documents, but also to all that promotional material that ends up in your letterbox.
Optivo offers advertisers technical solutions and services to advertisers. Its offerings include newsletter and mail campaigns as well as expertise in other channels, such as social media, SMS/mobile and even fax. It currently has more than 850 customers from a diverse range of industries and Deutsche Post said the acquisition would strengthen its position as a neutral technology provider in online marketing.
And there’s no doubt online advertising space is a hugely lucrative and important one for Deutsche Post. Board member Jürgen Gerdes said: “Optivo perfectly complements our technology solutions in the online advertising market. Since 2010, we have been gradually building the online marketing space. Our goal: We want to be the first stop for the advertising industry as a neutral technology service provider.”
Optivo was founded in Berlin in 2001, and its broadmail software can send up to 20 million emails an hour and can be integrated into existing system environments such as web analytics and CRM solutions. CEO Ulf Richter said: “Deutsche Post, as a constant in the online advertising market, is the ideal partner to position our innovative technology more broadly. Moreover, we benefit from the international structure of the group.”
That will be especially true for a cross-media approach to marketing, and Gerdes added: “The future of marketing lies in intelligent combined campaigns, that optimal bring the respective strengths of online and offline media together.”
The company will become a 100 percent subsidiary of Deutsche Post but will continue to operate autonomously with the existing management and employees, who currently number 85. Optivo joins the likes of nugg.ed and intelliAd Media in Deutsche Post’s marketing endeavours.