Merkle, the nation's largest and fastest-growing independent customer relationship marketing agency, and [x+1], the online targeting platform leader, announced today a strategic partnership that will allow marketers to bring the performance of integrated customer-centric campaigns to a new level.

In the initial phase of the partnership, [x+1]'s powerful audience targeting platform will be integrated with Merkle's proporietarty data, technology and analytics capabilities to enable Digital Media Optimization TM, which will allow marketers to effectively capture, utilize and integrate insights from online display advertising. As it progresses in scope and functionality,the combined offering will enable a new level of marketing effectiveness by integrating functions across the enterprise, while delivering increased customer lifetime value and profitability.

The combined strength of Merkle and [x+1] will allow marketers to transform what was often incomplete and unusable data into a powerful business intelligence tool for optimiszing online channels like any other direct response media. Together, the two companies will provide marketers with a truly integrated, analytics-based multichannel approach to customer acquisition.

"We're extremely pleased to join with Merkle to help major organizations experience true performance marketing," said Stephano Kim, President and COO of [x+1]. "Together, we will allow marketers to identify and target high-quality prospects and profitable customers. This high-precision audience segmenting process will make their multi-channel campaigns more efficient and effective than ever."

"Marketers need data-driven insights across all of their programs that will alow them to optimize their marketing spend," said Craig Dempster, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Merkle. "Under the first step of our partnership with [x+1], marketers will have a solution that ratchets up display advertising's effectiveness by identifying the most profitable, likely-to-buy customers. Merkle's data, technology and analytical strengths, combined with [x+1]'s leading audience targeting capabilities, will guarantee the delivery of highly personalized, optimized messaging at a price that will ensure optimal cost per acquisition (CPA) rates."