Constant Contact Inc., a provider of online marketing services through avenues including e-mail and social media, yesterday bought SinglePlatform, a distributor of business information across a network of publishing sites. Constant Contact says it paid about $65 million in cash for the company.
SinglePlatform places listings of retailers and other businesses on a network of 48 content sites including The New York Times, social shopping app foursquare, and business search sites YellowPages.com and UrbanSpoon.com. SinglePlatform says its network of sites reach a total of more than 200 million consumers.
Constant Contact said SinglePlatform, which expects to soon add another 79 content sites to its network for a total of 127, will soon provide free basic business listings distributed through its content site network. It will also continue offering for an annual fee of $495 its Digital Storefront product, which allows clients to embellish their listings with content such as restaurant menus, product definitions and images, and retail pricing.
SinglePlatform has more than 10,000 paying customers and about 600,000 listings on its network, a spokesman says.
SinglePlatform, which was privately owned, will contribute about $1 million in revenue to Constant Contact this year and more than $10 million next year, Constant Contact says. Constant Contact says it will provide more details on these projections in its second quarter earnings call. Constant Contact reported $214.4 million in revenue for 2011 and $55.9 million for the first quarter of 2012.
Under terms of the acquisition, which closed June 12, Constant Contact has agreed to pay an additional $10 million to $30 million if SinglePlatform meets certain revenue objectives over the next two years.
Also in connection with the acquisition, Constant Contact has granted $5 million toward cash and equity compensation as part of an employee retention program. It has granted about 170,000 restricted stock units to five newly hired non-executive employees, and it has granted options to purchase 34,900 shares of common stock to 54 non-executive employees.
Wiley Cerilli, who was CEO of SinglePlatform before the acquisition, is now vice president and general manager of SinglePlatform, reporting to Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman. Constant Contact has awarded Cerilli about 50,000 units of restricted stock.
Constant Contact has 10 e-mail marketing services clients in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide and 32 in the Internet Retailer Second 500 Guide.