Hybrid Engagement vendor Cognism acquired email signature marketing firm Mailtastic in a seven-figure cash and stock deal.  The acquisition provides Cognism with an additional marketing channel – professional email signatures that reflect the latest corporate messaging and branding.  Mailtastic centralizes corporate signature blocks, with adjustments by market, outbound language, and job function.  Employees can select between multiple signature options based upon the recipient.

Mailtastic supports G Suite, Office 365, Outlook, Exchange, Apple Mail, and Gmail, with signatures optimized by the device.  Mailtastic is GDPR compliant with European server locations.  Mailtastic features include centralized campaign management, campaign analytics, event planning, and click notifications.

“The acquisition will enable Cognism to empower go-to-market teams with a whole new channel for their outreach and lead generation efforts,” posted Mailtastic Marketing Manager Verena Vogt.  “For Mailtastic, the acquisition represents an exciting opportunity to offer accelerated internationalisation, extensive product expansion, and the creation of joint products and services that will define the next era of B2B revenue growth solutions.”

The full Mailtastic team of ten is joining Cognism, including its founders Tao Bauer, Peer Wierzbitzki, and Andreas Schröder.

Mailtastic was founded in 2015 and grew its customer base to 350 enterprises, mostly in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH).  The acquisition provides an additional go-to-market channel, an EU office in Mainz, and a set of Central European enterprise clients into which Cognism services may be cross-sold.  Cognism will open a second UK office in Manchester that will focus on Mailtastic sales, with plans to open a second North American office towards the end of the year, possibly in Canada.

Mailtastic is profitable and has a 67% annual growth rate.  The firm has no sales team, with selling conducted by one of its founders; thus, applying Cognism’s successful go-to-market approach should support rapid revenue expansion.  Cognism’s sales approach is to hire recent University grads as SDRs and then train them in Cognism’s sales tools for prospecting, ICP/TAM analysis, and outbound sales engagement.  Reps also leverage global company and contact profiles that include over 20 million direct dial and mobile numbers.

Mailtastic has a negative churn rate.  CEO James Isilay indicated that the DACH market is slower to purchase technology, but also less likely to switch vendors than the UK or US markets.  Once licensed to the enterprise, seat growth takes place organically as firms look to control email block branding and messaging.  Furthermore, the DACH market provides a stable base for cross-selling Cognism services.  Beyond GDPR, Mailtastic signature management is a compliance requirement in regulated UK and German industries.

Cognism has been a Mailtastic client for the past year, enjoying a 10% rise in click-through rates and a 25% increase in webinar conversions.

The initial post-acquisition focus will be on cross-training the companies and deploying a Mailtastic sales team trained in Cognism sales tools and processes.  In Q3, Mailtastic will be integrated with several MAPs and SEPs.

“These are uncertain times and we want to ensure our clients have every tool at their disposal to develop new ways to prospect when budgets are being cut and certain channels, like outdoor advertising and live events, just aren’t an option.  Email signature marketing is massively underused and it will play a key role as more people work from home and engage others through their screens.

Cognism is focused on expanding in Europe and bolstering our position as a global go-to-market champion.  To achieve this, our fantastic team has worked tirelessly to help clients build strong, repeatable lead generation strategies that can benefit from both inbound and outbound methodologies and, by integrating Mailtastic, we’re strengthening this offering further.  Cognism provides clients with the data they need to send emails, the tools required to automate and action them, and now it will be providing a way for customers to expand their reach with every email their employees send.  By continuing to expand the Cognism offering, customers are able to build powerful go-to-market strategies that will enable their go-to-market teams to find and deliver new revenue, faster.”

Cognism CEO James Isilay

Cognism combines B2B DaaS services, sales intelligence, ICP / TAM tools, prospecting, email templates, and outbound cadences.  Mailtastic provides them with additional email customization tools.

The Mailtastic acquisition is similar to the Terminus purchase of Sigstr late last year.  Both firms offer a strong feature – management of email signatures – that would likely be difficult to justify as a standalone MarTech license in the current economic environment.  However, both add significant value alongside the ABM capabilities of their new parents.

Isilay indicated that the firm successfully transitioned to WFH.  Sales and renewals in the exhibition and recruitment markets declined, but the firm used its ICP tools to adjust its targeting and its new business generation is back to pre-pandemic levels.  COVID-related churn has died down, and revenue is growing strongly again, with $8.5 million in projected ARR by the end of May.