The email marketing provider has set up a channel program to provide its solution to partners, and are particularly interested in integrators who will build their email solution into a broader solution, to reach markets Campaigner would not otherwise be able to touch.

Campaigner, a small, e-mail marketing-focused division of j2 Global, whose other brands include FuseMail and Ziff-Davis, has added a channel component to its business and launched a channel partner program, through which partners will have access to their platform. They also announced the appointment of Sam Maalouf as their first channel sales manager.

“We have a fully SaaS-based platform, and while we compete to some degree in the small business space with companies like Constant Contact, we are stronger in the mid-market, among customers who really understand the value and features of e-mail marketing,” said EJ McGowan, general manager of Campaigner. “That’s really our sweet spot.”

Campaigner’s white label platform provides partners with an intuitive administration portal that is designed both to be easy to use and to support a broad range of functionality.

“We like to think we have some of the best features and functionality in the business,” McGowan said. “Accounts are easy to set up with management and billing. Advanced features include email automation, A/B split testing, API access, workflow engine and strong reporting features.”

McGowan also emphasized that support is a differentiator for them.

“We provide ‘Stevie Award’-winning support, which competitors generally aren’t able to offer,” McGowan said. “Our people actually answer the telephone. We also have the best deliverability in the industry, ensuring all customers conform to anti-spam laws in force in both the U.S. and Canada.”

Previously, Campaigner has had a primarily direct go-to-market model.

“We did have some service agencies as partners, people less interested in white labelling,” McGowan said. “This is the first time we are offering a fully white-branded product to the market.”

McGowan said they decided to add a full channel program as a result of seeing the channel results of companies they had acquired which had made a serious commitment to partners.

“Part of the strategy of j2Global is to grow through acquisition, and so we acquired other companies and noticed how some had been very successful in the channel space, which we really hadn’t been a part of,” McGowan said. “We asked ourselves how successful we could be, if we put in the effort to make a strong program for partners.”

McGowan said that while Campaigner has already acquired a couple hundred partners on an ad hoc basis and through acquisition, they want to build on that with focused partners who will use them as part of a broader solution.

“We want to recruit partners who can bring value add to e-mail marketing, not just engage in transactional emailing,” he said. “For example, partners who deal with the non-profit space, who build an integrated solution with their CRM and need an email marketing component, would be a good match for us. Another example is an integrator doing golf course management, who would use us to do something like tee time reservations. These are all people looking to embed email into a development platform they are building, who would reach a market we just wouldn’t ever reach.” Agencies are also a significant group of partners, and there is a big opportunity for franchises, McGowan said.