Campaign Monitor Buys GetFeedback To Expand Into Surveys And Open A U.S. Office

Email marketing firm Campaign Monitor raised a surprise $250 million funding round earlier this year and then nabbed Alex Bard, who headed up Saleforce’s Service Cloud business unit, as its CEO in September, so it’s fair to say that the Australian company has grand plans cooking.

The next chapter for the company, which is actually ten years old so probably not even really a startup any longer, has become all the more apparent today after it acquired U.S. online survey startup GetFeedback in an undisclosed deal.

Campaign Monitor has over 120,000 customers — including the likes of Apple, Facebook, and Intel — and Bard told me in an interview that surveys have been among the top requests from brands for some time. In acquiring GetFeedback, Campaign Monitor will be able to offer a range of survey-related services, but the union will run far deeper than that, Bard explained.

Though it has more than 100 employees worldwide and North America is where most customers are located, Campaign Monitor is anchored out of its founding office in Sydney, Australia. This acquisition deal will change that as GetFeedback’s San Francisco office will become Campaign Monitor’s new North America headquarters, giving it a platform to expand its sales and marketing efforts in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

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Salesforce Alumni Reunited

Beyond the office and additional suite of services, Campaign Monitor is also getting itself a CMO, with GetFeedback founder and CEO Kraig Swensrud stepping into the role.

Swensrud is actually another former Salesforce executive — he was previously the enterprise giant’s CMO — and his relationship with Bard is a pivotal part of this coming together. Both Bard and Swensrud told me that they are really excited about working together again; Bard said Swensrud was one of the first people he reached out to following his arrival at Campaign Monitor and the deal quickly became a reality from that early point of interaction.

While there is clearly great synergy for Campaign Monitor here, Swensrud said the deal is also logical for GetFeedback, which counts Nike and The North Face among its “thousands” of customers.

I started GetFeedback as a modern online survey platform that creates visually rich, branded experiences that work on any device. Our customers have been asking for email features for some time.. [but] building out email is tough, we wouldn’t do it on our own. Campaign Monitor shares our philosophy and core DNA, making them the ideal partner for our extension,” he said.

When I put to them that the deal sounds more like a merger than an acquisition, both Bard and Swensrud laughed, acknowledging the synergies and shared chemistry between both the companies and the two former Salesforce colleagues.

Initially Independent But Integrated Services

But, merger jokes aside, Campaign Monitor is the parent company here. GetFeedback will retain its brand and service/URL initially, though Swensrud said that they will “see what makes the most sense for our combined customer base” in the future.

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Both services have been compatible for some time, but the first deep integration between the two will arrive during the first quarter of next year and will “allow the user experience to flow seamlessly” between both products, Bard said.

With new funding, a new CEO and a new focus all set up, is Campaign Monitor headed for a public listing any time soon?

Bard isn’t getting into specific details, other than that he believes an office in San Francisco, new talent and a focus on building products for customers means plenty of growth potential for the company.

“We’ll have a lot of opportunities over the next five years,” he explained. “We’re seeing private companies accrue more value before going public than ever before, however, and that gives us some options for the future.”