Merkle Ranks Among Top Firms in New Advertising Age Agency Report 2009

COLUMBIA, Md. – Merkle (www.merkleinc.com), one of the nation’s largest and fastest growing database marketing agencies, announced its top rankings in a new report from Advertising Age magazine. The Agency Report 2009 ranks Merkle among the nation’s top 10 Direct Marketing Agencies, in the top 25 U.S. Marketing Services Agencies and among the top 30 Agency Companies worldwide. With a 16.8% growth rate from 2007, Merkle holds the distinction of being the fastest growing direct marketing agency in the Top 20. The rankings were published in the April 27 issue of Advertising Age magazine (www.adage.com). The magazine’s annual report ranks marketing and advertising companies according to their 2008 revenue.

Merkle’s 2008 revenue totaled over $211 million. This revenue places Merkle in the number six slot – up from number seven last year – on Advertising Age’s Top Direct Marketing Agencies list. Merkle also ranks number 22 – up from 27 last year – among the Top U.S. Agencies From All Disciplines. Among the World’s Top 50 Agency Companies, Merkle holds position 27, which is up from 29 last year. The rankings place Merkle as a leader among many of the world’s most recognized agencies.

Merkle President and CEO, David Williams, said, “We are extremely pleased to see Merkle take top positions in this year’s Ad Age Agency Report. Marketing agencies, and the clients that they serve, are experiencing a challenging economic climate unlike any we have seen in decades. To directly address these challenges, we are continuing our focus on innovation and are actively working with our clients to build and execute comprehensive and data-driven integrated customer marketing programs.”

The 65th annual Advertising Age Agency Report, published April 27, 2009, was produced by the Ad Age DataCenter. The report appeared in Ad Age’s print edition and on AdAge.com. It includes rankings of more than 900 advertising, marketing-services and media agencies based on 2008 revenue.

About Merkle

Merkle is one of the nation’s largest and fastest growing database marketing agencies. For more than 20 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. By combining a complete range of marketing, technical, analytical and creative disciplines, Merkle works with clients to design, execute and evaluate Integrated Customer Marketing™ programs. With more than 1,000 employees, the privately held corporation is headquartered near Baltimore in Columbia, Maryland with additional offices in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Little Rock, Philadelphia, Seattle and Hagerstown, Md. For more information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkleinc.com.