Most marketers don’t segment their e-mail marketing campaigns because the tools currently available are still hard to use, according to the interim CEO of J.L. Halsey, Luis Rivera.
In an interview with Magilla Marketing last week, Rivera—who was named interim CEO of the eMarketing technology provider in January when then chief executive David Burt resigned for unspecified personal reasons—said his company aims to make segmenting a snap. He also diplomatically dodged the question of whether or not he wants the designation “interim” dropped from his title.
Rivera’s promotion—for the time being, at least—puts him on top of four widely dispersed companies J.L. Halsey is in the midst of integrating in an attempt to offer an all-in-one, self-service e-mail marketing, content management, and Web analytics tool.
J.L. Halsey acquired Santa Cruz, CA-based Web analytics firm ClickTracks and Ontario, Canada-based content-management software firm Hot Banana last August.
The acquisitions were aimed to augment J.L. Halsey’s e-mail technology firms: Berkeley, CA-based e-mail marketing software provider Lyris Technologies—acquired in May 2005—and e-mail software and hosted services provider EmalLabs, which it bought in October 2005.
“We’re transitioning these to operate as one company so we can give the end customer a product that they can use that is fully integrated,” said Rivera. “We intend to be self-service. We intend to be very easy and simple to use. We also want to be robust enough that if enterprises want to use it, they do.”
However, the transition doesn’t involve moving any of the sibling firms’ operations, he said.
“The good news is we’re a technology company,” he said. “You’re looking for the best talent wherever they happen to be. It’s great to have one central location, but if you can get better people by being in different parts of the world, I prefer to take that option.”
Rivera also indicated that J.L. Halsey’s acquisition binge is over. “At this point, our No. 1 task is to get these products integrated,” he said.
Rivera added that most so-called integrated offerings on the market today are simply partnerships announced mostly for the purpose of putting out press releases. “That’s not what we intend to do. It would have been very easy for us to say, ‘Hey guys we’ve got two e-mail businesses and a very large customer base’ and go to an analytics player and whoever else, and say, ‘Hey guys, let’s trade data back and fourth.’”
For example, EmailLabs has struck a slew of such partnerships. However, Rivera said: “They have integrations with just about everybody out there and I can tell you the amount of customers we have using those integrations are very few.”
Rivera added that most companies don’t segment their e-mail marketing campaigns because the tools currently available are too hard to use. “If companies did a better job of segmentation, they would improve their open rates,” he said. “You can change deliverability rates by changing who you use, but the changes are going to be, let’s say, 5%. What if I told you that by doing better segmentation, you could get a 30% increase? The reality is that people focus on the 5% they can get by switching vendors and the reason is that segmentation right now is too complex.”
He added: “If you truly believe that just by switching vendors you’re going to increase your open rates, then you’re with a really bad vendor.”
While the company has developed some integrated offerings from Hot Banana and ClickTracks, Rivera indicated that an integration of all of its technology into one product is still a ways off.
“I believe a person in marketing is going to want simplicity and is going to want to have one dashboard,” said Rivera. “We’re going to be working very hard over the next year to get that product out to market, but we want to get it right and until we do so, we’ll continue to put [smaller] integrations out there.”
When asked if he wants to have “interim” removed from his title, Rivera said: “I’ve never been somebody who worries about titles. I worry about what I can get done in the time that I have. I serve at the mercy of the board and I will be happy with whatever their decision is. If there is somebody out there who is better qualified, then my answer is: ‘Please, make it interim.’”
J.L. Halsey on Feb. 14 reported $9.5 million in revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 2006, a 53% increase over the same period a year ago. Sixty four percent of its revenue came from its hosted software business, while licensed software accounted for 22%, and maintenance and service fees accounted for 14%, the company reported.
J.L. Halsey also added 500 new clients during the quarter, according to its financial report.
