DoubleClick buys database firm

DoubleClick on Tuesday said it bought CSC Advanced Database Solutions and formed a new unit devoted to database management to beef up its online marketing services.

The ad management and services company, based in New York, acquired privately held CSC to handle large customer-relations databases for its Net advertising clients. With the sale, DoubleClick has acquired CSC's roughly 100 employees and 100 customers.

Financial terms of the deal, which was made in cash, were not disclosed.

"Data management is an important and logical extension to our business," DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan said in a statement. It "builds upon DoubleClick's commitment to make marketing work better, by giving clients a single full service solutions provider for all of their marketing technology and data needs."

Since the dot-com bust, DoubleClick has shut down its online ad network in favor of building up its marketing analytics and ad and e-mail delivery tools. By acquiring CSC, DoubleClick continues to focus on back-end technology that helps companies manage their data and deliver marketing campaigns online and via e-mail.

Schaumburg, Ill.-based CSC, founded in 1981, provides technology to manage customer-marketing databases. That includes matching up information on customer purchases offline and online, as well as customized analytics tools to target buyers based on their shopping habits. The company, ranked as one of the top 10 database marketing services by Forrester Research in 2003, handles customers in retail, financial services and publishing.

Until now, DoubleClick has built small data management solutions for some of its customers. But with CSC, it will be able to handle customer databases of between 10 million and 15 million households.