Unica Corporation to Protect Consumers' Privacy

Unica Corporation (Lincoln, MA), a provider of award-winning analytical CRM and marketing automation solutions, announced the industry's first privacy initiative dedicated to helping companies automate best privacy practices. New privacy enabling features embedded throughout Unica's modular, cross-channel marketing solution, the Affinium Suite, help companies protect customers' privacy while offering the benefits of personalized marketing and services.

Affinium's privacy enabling capabilities help companies limit access to and visibility of customer information, implement email best practices and honor customer preferences throughout the marketing process. The automated features enable Unica customers to build sound marketing and privacy practices into their day-to-day operations more easily while reducing human error. Unica's privacy enabling capabilities are built into each module of its software-including Affinium Model, Affinium Campaign, Affinium eMessage, Affinium Interact and Affinium Report.

"Privacy is an important business issue that can impact a company's bottom line and slow the growth of e-commerce," stated Yuchun Lee, Unica co-founder and CEO. "In a recent survey of online users conducted by Market Facts Interactive, 74.5% of consumers said they are concerned about their personal information being distributed online. In addition, there are currently more than 100 privacy bills pending at both the federal and state levels and more than seven industry groups working for industry self-regulation-many requiring mandatory privacy compliance for their members. Developing and implementing sound privacy practices is important not only for consumer relations, but also for a company's relationship with its employees and investors, who are also affected by a company's privacy practices."

The privacy capabilities built into Affinium allow for the right balance of personalization and privacy in executing targeted marketing campaigns. In Affinium Campaign, consumer credit information can be attached to anonymous IDs instead of real names and Personally Identifiable Information, or PII, can be hidden from non-authorized employees. Affinium Model develops accurate models that enable targeted offers to reduce contact frequency and avoid customer fatigue while improving overall response rates. In addition, campaigns can be easily structured to incorporate opt-in and opt-out preferences, giving customers more power over the type of interactions they receive.

Affinium Interact provides a secure communication protocol between all touch points while enabling compliance with privacy laws that require companies to make profile information available to each customer. Real-time opt-out processing, e-mail footer verification, re-usable text blocks, and email preview features offered through Affinium eMessage enable personalized interactions while supporting email best practices.

"Privacy is one of the most important issues for e-marketing and CRM today," said Scott Nelson, vice president and Research Director for Gartner Group. "Good marketing has always required a customer-focused approach, including a respect for customer privacy. It's a positive step for the industry that a company, like Unica, has embedded privacy enabling features throughout its software to make privacy protection easier for companies. In time, CRM best practices will require that all CRM software solutions offer features to enable privacy management."

"Unica helps companies understand their customers and interact with them on a personalized basis," added Kim Humphreys, Director of Marketing for WebTone, a member of the Unica Alliance Program. "Both WebTone and Unica realize that strong customer relationships require trust between consumers and companies. Unica's new privacy enabling features, coupled with WebTone's enhanced contact management capabilities, help companies build trust with their customers, paving the way for deeper, more profitable customer relationships."

Ferreting out and resolving privacy issues can prove to be an enormous task for a company of any size. Human error, inaccurate and inconsistent processes, and inadequate systems pose large challenges. As industry leaders in automating privacy, Unica is making it easier for companies to reassure customers that their personal information will be protected. In addition, Unica's privacy efforts help companies meet voluntary guidelines set by organizations such as the Association of Interactive Media (AIM) and support government sponsored compliance standards.

"One of AIM's primary roles is to promote consumer and business confidence in e-commerce and in new technologies, especially those related to privacy, security and public trust," said Ben Isaacson, Executive Director, AIM. "Affinium is an excellent example of how advances in real-time personalization, while enabling user privacy, will encourage the future growth of interactive marketing."

"The decision to enhance our software to enable greater automation of privacy polices was customer driven and reinforced by feedback from the market," added Yuchun Lee. "We have received valuable education from our partners in the Unica Alliance Program and guidance from influential industry trade groups such as the Direct Marketing Association, the Association for Interactive Media, the Internet Alliance and the Personalization Consortium. Building a bond of trust with customers will allow our clients to deliver more targeted personalized interactions that will solidify customer loyalty and trust."

Contact Angela Morrione, KHJ Public Relations, 617-886-0355 x150, amorrione@khjpr.com.