Vocus buys iContract

cloud-based marketing and PR software, has acquired iContact, a company that provides e-mail marketing services for small and medium-sized businesses, Tech Crunch writes.

The total acquisition price is $169 million.

iContact's e-mail marketing software automates the process of creating, sending and tracking e-mail communications for businesses. iContact, which has raised over $50 million to date, also allows users to track e-mail campaign effectiveness, accessing data around opens, clicks and more.

Under the deal, Vocus plans to buy iContact for $91 million in cash, $9 million in common stock, and $79 million in redeemable convertible preferred stock, ZDNet reports.

The iContact technology will allow Vocus to add e-mail and social media management to the Vocus service, which focuses on search marketing and social marketing.

The iContact platform is supposed to be integrated into the Vocus offering; iContact's roughly 70 000 customers will have the option of keeping their standalone product subscription or upgrading to an even more integrated SME marketing suite.

iContact was founded in 2003 by Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton while they were students at the University of North Carolina, Small Biz Trends notes.