News

Elite SEM Inc, which is backed by Mountaingate Capital, has acquired Email Aptitude, a specialist CRM and email marketing agency. No financial terms were disclosed.

PRESS RELEASE

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Award-winning digital marketing agency Elite SEM Inc. announced that it recently acquired Email Aptitude, a specialist CRM & Email Marketing agency. This marks Elite SEM’s second acquisition since partnering with Mountaingate Capital in 2017. From discovery through acquisition, and now with a stronger emphasis on retention and reactivation, Elite’s services span all stages of an integrated marketing strategy and through the entire customer journey, allowing clients to effectively and strategically evaluate digital marketing spend and increase cross-channel performance.

Email Aptitude is an ESP-agnostic agency focused on full-service email program management, advanced email strategy, CRM, and creative services. A team of more than 85 email marketing experts, known for shattering performance records for clients through game-changing strategy and full-service program management, will merge under the Elite SEM umbrella. Email Aptitude brings an award-winning creative team that will enable Elite to offer comprehensive creative services for all digital channels.

Email Aptitude has grown and managed email programs for some of the fastest-growing startups and global enterprise brands, including Pura Vida Bracelets, Peter Millar, Halston, Diff, Brooks Running, MVMT, and Frederick’s of Hollywood. Email Aptitude was named to the Inc. 5000 as the #1 fastest growing email agency in the country; #22 on the Bay Area Fast 100; and honored as #17 on the AdAge Top 50 Best Places to Work in the US.

Prior to and since the acquisition, shared clients such as Eddie Bauer, Bombas, and Francesca’s, where both agency teams collaborate on data, have seen a lift in performance across managed channels and services. The combined company now employs more than 330 digital marketers covering every performance digital media channel in support of clients’ efforts to achieve their customer acquisition, engagement, and e-commerce business objectives.

In commenting on the acquisition, Forest Bronzan, Founding CEO of Email Aptitude and now EVP of CRM & Email Marketing at Elite, stated, “Joining Elite’s best-in-class integrated media offerings and bringing Email Aptitude’s award-winning Creative, CRM, and Email expertise enables us to provide even more value and innovation to our clients. Brands demand channel expertise, and I’m thrilled to be a part of Elite’s experts-only approach to offer clients a powerful and truly unique agency experience.”

“As audiences become more interconnected across various media channels, it’s vital that these channels speak to one another, sharing data and findings. This acquisition is an important step in realizing our expert-only approach to providing full digital marketing services,” said Zach Morrison, President of Elite SEM. “Forest has built an outstanding business with an extremely accomplished group of senior leaders, and we’re delighted to have them as our partners moving forward.”

Elite SEM is an award-winning digital marketing agency founded on search and focused on holistic performance-driven digital marketing. Elite’s expertise spans Paid Search, SEO, Shopping & Feed, Paid Social, Display Advertising, Amazon & Marketplaces, Affiliate Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), CRM, Email Marketing, and Creative Services – collectively supported by Integrated Media Strategy and Analytics/Marketing Science teams. From discovery through acquisition, and now with a stronger emphasis on retention and reactivation, Elite’s services span all stages of an integrated marketing strategy and through the entire customer journey allowing leading industry brands to effectively and strategically evaluate digital marketing spend and increase cross-channel performance. Clients include: Bombas, Timex, the San Antonio Spurs, USA Today, The Sak Brand Group, GrandLife Hotels, U.S. Polo Assn., Francesca’s, Einstein Bagels, Tommy Bahama, Melissa & Doug, Hugo Boss, Freshly, Theory, Aaptiv, and Terminix. For more information on Elite SEM, please visit http://elitesem.com/.

Mountaingate Capital is a private equity firm based in Denver that specializes in building and empowering lower middle market companies with strong growth potential and engaged leadership teams. The firm was launched by a team of partners with deep investment expertise in four distinct market sectors: marketing services, business/industrial services, specialty distribution and specialty manufacturing, including medical devices. Mountaingate’s focus on organic growth coupled with its proven customer-centric buy-and-build approach for add-on acquisitions and shared equity ownership with management creates more value for the end customer, while forging stronger, more collaborative, and more successful investment partnerships with management teams.

In 2017, Mountaingate announced the close of its first fund with $395 million in capital commitments. Mountaingate targets investments in new platform companies typically with $5 million to $25 million of EBITDA. For more information on Mountaingate, please visit http://mountaingate.com/.