Expedia Expands Global E-mail Marketing with e-Dialog

LONDON & LEXINGTON, Mass.--Expedia, Inc. and e-Dialog, the e-mail marketing services and solutions provider, today announced an expansion of their partnership to include e-mail newsletter and marketing activities in Australia, New Zealand and India.

The expansion into the Asia Pacific (APAC) region follows a successful working relationship between Expedia and e-Dialog in the U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands since November 2007 and will aid Expedia in its goal to optimise marketing communications and maximise revenue and growth potential in the APAC region.

Gurmej Bahia, head of CRM programme development at Expedia, said, “At Expedia we work in an environment that involves multiple brands (including Expedia and Hotels.com) and markets. In order for us to continue to deliver the high levels of service and growth that Expedia is known for, it was essential that our e-mail marketing was highly personalised and targeted. The cross-sell opportunities that e-Dialog’s campaigns have afforded us have enabled us to realise certain business objectives and have made a positive impact on our customers’ experience. We hope to replicate this success with the new launches in the APAC region.”

Expedia and e-Dialog originally joined forces in 2007 to automate Expedia’s e-mail marketing across all of its points of sale, focusing specifically on targeted cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. To meet these objectives, during the tenure of the partnership e-Dialog has optimised Expedia’s e-mail marketing activities through specific targeting tactics and trigger-based campaigns.

In Europe, this has included weekly trigger-based newsletters developed for each individual geography and populated with deals and offers specific to that market. In addition, triggers automatically populated each mail with dynamic content for other Expedia services – such as hotel bookings and car hire – according to pre-assigned criteria of consumers’ click-through and browsing behaviour on the Expedia and Hotels.com Web sites.

Both Expedia and e-Dialog are able to track the effectiveness of these newsletter and marketing campaigns through delivery, open and click rate reports. This in-depth monitoring enables Expedia to look at what customers have clicked on but have not completed a purchase on, and means it can continue to deliver more personalised content and targeted offers to customers in future newsletters.

Simone Barratt, managing director, e-Dialog U.K. Ltd. commented: “It has been a delight to work with a company that truly understands the value of personalised e-mail communication. We have always believed that it is important to deliver a service to the individual and not simply base our communications on broad understandings of demographics. Expedia shares these values and has a genuine commitment to its customers. We look forward to further expanding our relationship with the company.”

EDITORS NOTES:

About Expedia, Inc.

Expedia, Inc. is the world’s leading online travel company, empowering business and leisure travelers with the tools and information they need to easily research, plan, book and experience travel. Expedia, Inc. also provides in-destination concierge service and activity desks for travelers. The Expedia, Inc. portfolio of brands includes: Expedia.com®, hotels.com®, Hotwire®, Egencia™ (formerly Expedia Corporate Travel), TripAdvisor®, Expedia Local Expert™, Classic Vacations® and eLong™. Expedia, Inc.’s companies operate more than 70 global points of sale in more than 40 countries, with sites in North America, South America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Expedia, Inc. is a component of the S&P 500 index. Expedia, Inc. partners with loyalty programme Nectar in the U.K. enabling its customers to collect 200 Nectar points on stand alone flight, hotel or car hire bookings and 1000 points on package purchases through www.expedia.co.uk. For more information, visit http://www.expediainc.com/ (NASDAQ: EXPE).

About e-Dialog

Established in 1997, e-Dialog is a proven provider of intelligent e-mail marketing solutions. Through a unique combination of strategic services and relevance enabling technologies, e-Dialog empowers marketers to take meaningful action on their data in order to deliver contextually targeted communications to customers. Some of the world’s most recognized brands, including AirTran Airways, American Eagle Outfitters, Avis, Boots, BMG Music Service, British Airways, CBS, Hewlett Packard EMEA, Nintendo, the NFL, Reuters, the Royal Bank of Scotland group of companies, and The TJX Companies, have partnered with e-Dialog to enhance their permission-based e-mail marketing efforts and maximize long-term customer value.

e-Dialog is one of the only e-mail service providers consistently recognized by top analyst firms for both outstanding service and first-class technology. In September 2006, e-Dialog was the first e-mail service provider to achieve certification for ISO 27001:2005, the global information security standard. e-Dialog, with offices in Boston, London, New York, and Seattle, is a wholly owned subsidiary of GSI Commerce Inc. (Nasdaq: GSIC). For more information, visit www.e-dialog.com.