LONDON, UK: Dotdigital Group plc (AIM: DOTD), the leading SaaS provider of an all-in-one customer experience and data platform (CXDP), announced the acquisition of Fresh Relevance Limited, a vendor of cross-channel personalisation technology.

Dotdigital is paying a total consideration of £25.0 million, 100% payable on completion, with c.£18.9 million being satisfied in cash and c.£6.1 million by the issue of 6,862,683 new ordinary shares in Dotdigital at 88.698p, which are subject to a 12 month lock-in.

The cash portion of the consideration will be funded through the Group’s own cash reserves.  Post Acquisition, the Group will have a cash balance of £38.3m giving the flexibility to look at further strategic acquisition opportunities.

Fresh Relevance was founded in 2013 and operates from its offices in London and Southampton. The platform increases conversions and boosts revenues by using data to personalise customer experiences across web, email, mobile app, SMS and ads.

Capabilities include triggered emails, product recommendations, onsite popovers, dynamic content, behavioural and geotargeting, optimisation and customer data management. Fresh Relevance has more than 300 customers around the world spanning consumer and B2B ecommerce and travel. Customers include Rip Curl, Dreams, Hoseasons and Wowcher.

The acquisition brings highly complementary personalisation technology and website expertise to the Group, supporting marketers in delivering exceptional customer experiences across all customer touchpoints. Personalisation is a growing trend: 76% of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase from brands that personalise interactions, with websites often representing the final gateway to customer conversion.

This is reflected in the investment choices of marketers, with one third of marketers spending 50% or more of their budgets on personalisation and two thirds of North American and European eCommerce companies planning to invest more into it in the future.

Dotdigital Group and Fresh Relevance have a strong existing relationship and a proven track record of joint success. Having worked together in a partnership capacity for years, the two firms share a number of joint customers that utilise the existing technology integration.

As part of Dotdigital, Fresh Relevance will operate under its existing brand. The integration of Fresh Relevance into the Group will be overseen by Dotdigital’s newly appointed Chief Business Operations Officer, Helen Thomazin (a non-Board position), and Fresh Relevance CEO and co-founder, Mike Austin, who will join the Dotdigital leadership team (also non-Board).

As long-standing partners, Dotdigital and Fresh Relevance already have a level of integration where the technology works hand-in-hand to deliver memorable cross-channel experiences with hyper targeting and personalisation across all stages of a customer’s journey. Over the next 12 months, the Group will be leveraging the functionality of the Fresh Relevance platform and integrating this into the Dotdigital experience platform to enable a more seamless user experience for customers as part of its vision of launching a differentiated all-in-one CXDP.

This will create a higher value proposition and provide revenue expansion opportunities across both customer bases, as well as open up substantial new, higher value customer acquisition opportunities. Dotdigital will leverage Fresh Relevance’s capabilities and experience specifically in website journey orchestration, personalisation and optimisation, not just for known identifiable customers but also the 95%-98% of visitors that are anonymous.

The Acquisition will complete on admission of the equity shares to trading on AIM.

Milan Patel, Chief Executive Officer of Dotdigital, commented: “The acquisition of Fresh Relevance and its expertise in the realm of web significantly enhances our personalisation capabilities and provides opportunity for average revenue per user expansion. Its addition marks a leap forward in our CXDP growth journey, bringing together customer insights, cross-channel engagement, and on-site personalisation capabilities to provide marketers with the tools to exert greater influence across the customer journey.

Having worked together as partners for five years, we have been long-term admirers of Fresh Relevance and its talented staff. Our cultural alignment gives me confidence that customers old and new will reap the benefits of a more comprehensive offering that extends beyond traditional marketing channels.

On behalf of the Board and everyone at Dotdigital I would like to welcome Fresh Relevance to the organisation. I look forward to working closely with them to achieve our shared ambitions and drive increased value for the Group’s shareholders.”