Marketing software company Unica Corp. has acquired mobile email specialist Pivotal Veracity for approximately $17.8 million in cash to expand its mobile optimization platform.

Unica plans to use Pivotal Veracity?s toolkit to optimize the deliverability and reputation of its digital communications and expand its mobile-optimization platform. Unica said that email deliverability, which encompasses analysis and management of inbox placement, content rendering and reputation management, is a vitally important technology for marketers.

?We acquired Pivotal Veracity to improve our ability to get customers' messages to consumers' inboxes,? said Elana Anderson, vice president of products at Unica, Waltham, MA. ?Deliverability is a mission-critical technology for marketers and the entire email technology industry.

?Deliverability management technology, paired with technology that enables marketers to create the most relevant email possible, is the heart of email marketing,? she said. ?This acquisition makes us a highly differentiated email marketing technology provider.

?It?s a logical extension of our offerings.?

Unica Corp.?s set of enterprise marketing management and on-demand marketing services integrate and streamline all aspects of online and offline marketing.

Unica incorporates customer analytics and Web analytics, centralized decisioning, crosschannel execution and integrated marketing operations.

Unica?s 1,000-plus customers include Best Buy, Cisco, CVS, Dick?s Sporting Goods, EMC, FoxSports.com, Harrah?s, IBM, ING, Qualcomm, Sears, Telefónica, U.S. Cellular and Vodafone.

In 2008, Pivotal Veracity?s email service provider customers sent more than 15 billion marketing-related emails per month.

Pivotal Veracity?s customers include Cabela?s, Cisco, Classmates.com, Digitas, Nestlé, Progressive Insurance, Rapp Collins and Sears.

Pivotal acquisition
Unica said that the addition of Pivotal Veracity?s technology will further its objective to provide the most comprehensive software-as-a-service and enterprise software suite to marketers and marketing services partners.

?Pivotal Veracity?s flagship products are already embedded into Unica eMessage 8 and Interactive Marketing OnDemand, providing customers with excellent visibility into email delivery success,? Ms. Anderson said.

?This acquisition gives us the ability to more easily enhance our email solutions,? she said.

Pivotal Veracity claims that it has a history of generating significant operating profit margins.

The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact to Unica?s revenue in fiscal year 2010.

Pivotal Veracity?s cofounders, Deirdre Baird and Michelle Eichner, will join Unica and guide the company?s efforts in email marketing and deliverability, with a focus on mobile optimization and rendering.

?With the acquisition, we gain visibility to how email renders on mobile devices, helping businesses define and deliver effective, personalized email marketing programs across all types of browsers, email clients and mobile devices,? Ms. Anderson said.

?And continued depth in mobile delivery management is a reasonable extension,? she said.