Experian‘s marketing services division generated organic revenue growth of 10% in the first quarter of fiscal 2012. The unit was the company’s fastest-growing segment, said CFO Paul Brooks on a conference call. Overall organic revenue at the Nottingham, UK-based company increased 6% year-over-year in Q1, which ended June 30.
Peg Smith, EVP of investor relations at Experian, noted that CheetahMail is the biggest unit in marketing services and growing at double-digit rates in every market.
“There is big demand for digital. Marketers realize how measureable email and mobile marketing are and they realize they can see that return on investment very quickly,” she said. “Some of the direct mail investment has moved to digital…But offline marketing services is still in single-digit growth. It’s very pleasing for us to put up 3% to 4% growth on traditional direct mail programs. We’re not giving up on offline.”
The division’s organic revenue growth in fiscal Q1 is in line with Experian’s year-end report, which revealed that the marketing services division generated $791 million in fiscal 2011, an increase of 14% compared with the prior year. North America marketing services revenue represented $367 million of that total, an 11% increase compared with fiscal 2010.
The company did not reveal revenue increases by dollar amount.
The division bounced back in fiscal 2011 from a weak fiscal 2010, during which its US revenues dropped 8%, and total revenues dipped 3% to $731 million. The company won business from Dow Jones, Electronic Arts, RadioShack, Western Union and YellowBook in fiscal 2011 and retained accounts with Neiman Marcus, Wal-Mart and Williams-Sonoma.
The marketing services division has 1,200 employees in 43 global offices.
