Clearlink buys digital markete

Salt Lake City sales and marketing company Clearlink has beefed up its digital marketing capabilities with the acquisition of Portent Inc., a 22-year-old company based in Seattle. A release from Clearlink says of the acquisition: “The result is a new kind of full-service model that offers clients the best of both worlds: collaboration with an agency services team, plus performance-based marketing.”

Clearlink is owned by Sykes Enterprises Inc. of Tampa, Florida.

“We’ve been building this new organization with the goal of disrupting the model of the big, traditional agency,” said Ted Roxbury, chief marketing officer of Clearlink. “This acquisition accelerates our efforts to get there and better serve our clients.”

“We’re positioned now to take our expertise and challenge the biggest digital agencies,” said Portent CEO Ian Lurie. “We’ve got the people and resources to do that. And we can do something no one else does: truly pair our services with call tracking, sales and performance solutions.”

Portent will continue to operate independently. The agency will serve as Clearlink’s Seattle office. Ian Lurie, Portent’s CEO, will become Clearlink’s executive vice president of marketing services.

Established in 2003, Clearlink employs more than 1,600 marketing, sales and technology professionals in Utah and Arizona.