DoubleClick Gets "Radical" Rich Media Partner
On the heels of its FloNetwork acquisition, the industry giant taps e-mail firm RadicalMail.
After making efforts to beef up the technology behind its email services, online ad network and technology giant DoubleClick aims to round out its email suite using rich media from Radical Communications.
Marina Del Rey, Calif.-based Radical Communication’s system enables marketers to insert streaming audio and video into their emails. The streaming rich media features — or RadicalMail — can include video playback, newsletter signup, or e-commerce transactions, and don’t require preinstalled media players or plug-ins. Streaming the content — as opposed to attaching or embedding it — reduces download time for users, and bandwidth costs for advertisers.
While rich media has its advantages — such as making offers compelling with video, audio and interactivity — there are limitations on the technologies behind it. Since RadicalMail uses HTML-based email, it can’t be viewed by all email recipients. Also, because the technology streams content and video to the user, the capacity for viewing the messages is hampered if a recipient is offline.
Nevertheless, it’s a big distribution win for Radical, whose offering will be integrated into DoubleClick’s hosted email platform.
“We’re excited that DoubleClick has chosen to integrate our technology into their product offering,” said Bruce Stein, Radical Communication’s chairman and chief executive. “Together, we are engaging consumers across the spectrum of Internet applications.”
As for DoubleClick, the move comes as only the latest effort by the Alley-based industry titan to broaden its email capabilities. Last week saw the firm’s completion of its acquisition of Toronto-based email delivery and database management firm FloNetwork, for about $28.4 million.
The FloNetwork acquisition expanded DoubleClick’s client base and its technology offerings: in addition to its in-house delivery platform, DARTmail, the company will offer email marketing services through FloNetwork. In the future, DoubleClick said it would integrate the two platforms.
Now, following that back-end-oriented acquisition, Monday’s partnership adds beefed-up content features to take advantage of DoubleClick’s broadened platform offerings.
DoubleClick has long been considered something of a laggard in the email space, and in keeping with recent moves, Monday’s partnership brings the firm’s expanding email capabilities on par with smaller competitors in its field. Radical, for instance, has existing deals with DoubleClick competitors 24/7 Media and L90.
“More and more email customers are looking to incorporate rich media technology into their email marketing campaigns,” said DoubleClick email list services general manager Nancy Joyce. “Through this partnership, we are able to provide marketers with expanded email functionality.”
