CHICAGO, IL -- (INTERNET WIRE) -- 06/20/2001 -- YesMail™, a premier direct email marketing solutions provider owned by CMGI, announced today that it has named BrightStreet as a coupon technology partner. BrightStreet is a leading operating system for powering promotions on the Internet. Through the partnership, YesMail will offer BrightStreet's promotion and couponing solutions to its clients, supporting marketers' customer acquisition and retention initiatives, which are designed to increase customer conversion and revenue.

By combining BrightStreet's robust Internet couponing solutions with YesMail's targeted lists and expert campaign management capabilities, YesMail enables marketers to effectively deliver coupons to targeted audiences via email, one of the most efficient direct marketing channels available. Through YesMail membership and management of other branded lists, YesMail maintains 25 million permission-based email contacts, in addition to brokering over 110 million names through third-party permission email lists.

"Increasingly, we're seeing consumers merge their online and offline shopping experiences, using email and the Internet as a resource for making purchase decisions," said YesMail Chief Executive Officer David Menzel. "This combination of YesMail's permission-based email expertise and BrightStreet's couponing technology enables marketers to reach out to consumers with specific offers that are tailored to their interests and can be used wherever they want to shop."

The BrightStreet technology enables marketers to deliver secure, measurable coupons, discounts, free samples, and repeat-purchase loyalty programs via the Internet. Together, YesMail and BrightStreet can track consumer behavior from click-through rates to actual tracking of in-store purchases. The BrightStreet technology automatically tracks coupon view and print activity, and reports individual consumer purchases made in stores, measuring individual consumer acceptance of promotional offers. Marketers are able to capture this consumer behavior data, and use it to refine customer segmentation, feed customer relationship management solutions and monitor the lifetime value of their consumers. Marketers are also able to limit the number of coupons each individual can access, as well as the total number of coupons that can be redeemed through the campaign.

"Permission email is an ideal match for BrightStreet's couponing technology," said BrightStreet Chief Executive Officer Scott Wills. "Permission email campaigns can be rolled out quickly and cost-effectively, and, because they are targeted to consumers who already have expressed interest in receiving marketing materials, drive responses beyond that of traditional promotional platforms. And through our combined ability to track customer click-through rates and individual consumer purchases, YesMail clients will build an accurate understanding of who their best consumers are, and what drives them to purchase products."

YesMail supports the complete customer conversion cycle from campaign strategy development, targeted message creation, website support, and data collection and transfer. YesMail will work with marketers to develop coupon email promotions as part of their overall campaign strategy and deployment, using the BrightStreet technology to set up the coupon, survey and thanks pages for its clients. YesMail will begin offering the BrightStreet couponing solutions immediately.