Episerver Acquires Optivo to Advance 'Contextually Relevant' Customer Interactions

Episerver continued its acquistition spree today with the purchase of Berlin-based optivo, which provides email and omnichannel marketing services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Episerver, a digital experience provider with headquarters in Nashua, N.H. and Stockholm, Sweden, said it plans to leverage optivo’s omnichannel campaign management capabilities to help its customers create and execute more contextually relevant customer interactions across channels.

In a statement, Mark Duffell, president and CEO of Episerver, said the optivo acquisition “elevates the customer journey to the next level to help organizations attract, engage, convert and care for customers in real-time.”

Opitvo Complements Peerius Technology

Just six weeks ago, Episerver acquired London-based omnichannel personalization vendor Peerius — a purchase it claimed provided it with the ability to personalize at scale “on an unprecedented level.”

It added Peerius’ smart personalization technology to the Episerver Digital Experience Cloud. The buy also enabled Episerver‘s vision of autonomous personalization, which supports users in real-time with predictive and adaptive analytics that apply machine learning to big data.

Episerver said today that it will capitalize on synergies between Peerius and optivo. Specifically, it expects optivo’s multidimensional segmentation and event triggering to complement Peerius’ machine learning-based predictive analytics and real-time decisioning.

Optivo’s omnichannel solutions and services are designed to help marketers to create, orchestrate, execute and measure campaigns based on a “rich and continual dialogue with customers” via channels including email, print, push, SMS, fax and web.

With more than 1,300 customers and 150 employees, optivo is one of the largest email marketing providers in Europe. Its customers include organizations like Accor, Air Berlin, Babbel, Best Western, Bosch, Deutsche Bahn, Henkel, HolidayCheck, InnoGames, Jack Wolfskin, Olympus, PAYBACK, QVC, TUI, WWF and Zooplus.

Advances Episerver Digital Experience Cloud to ‘Next Phase’

Episerver further expects optivo to enhance its omnichannel campaign management and email marketing capabilities and advance the capabilities of its content management, commerce, social and mobile marketing strengths to enable omnichannel immersive experiences.

Calling it the “essential next phase for the Episerver Digital Experience Cloud platform,” Duffell said optivo will give Episerver customers the ability to plan and execute their marketing and merchandising strategies more effectively and efficiently.

Episerver said the newly acquired company will continue to operate as Optivo, an Episerver company, while providing infrastructure for Episerver’s continued expansion into Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It added that optivo managing directors Rainer Brosch and Thomas Diezmann will remain in their current roles.

Brosch assumed the position of Managing Director in January. At the same time, the company expanded the role of Diezmann, who joined optivo in 2010 and became a Managing Director in 2013.

Optivo was founded in 2001 by Ulf Richter and Peter Romianowski, who have served the company in an advisory capacity since stepping down as managing directors earlier this year.