Cliff Allen's Bio

Cliff Allen began his computer industry career in 1973 when he left the broadcast industry to start his own software company serving the advertising industry with statistical analysis software used to analyze audience rating data.

After selling his first company, Mr. Allen worked for United Computing Systems and General Electric Information Services Co. in technical, sales, and marketing positions. His accomplishments include:

• Developed engineering and graphics display software for use in analyzing sub-surface oil deposits
• Designed and managed the product introduction of the Petroleum Industry Database that combines current data on all aspects of the petroleum industry with an integrated statistical analysis package
• Managed the development and deployment of GE's early Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) offering

Mr. Allen later established a high-tech advertising/PR firm in 1986 to provide marketing communications services to companies selling software, hardware, electronics, data communications, and telecommunications products. His firm's high-tech clients included Microsoft, IBM, FiberLAN, T3 Technologies, Digital Recorders, and Interpath.

His Internet experience began in 1989 when his firm was one of the first marketing consulting companies using the Internet. In 1995 the company's line of Web personalization products was released. In 1999 his company released one of the first personalized e-mail products.

Mr. Allen's most recent book is One-to-One Web Marketing, 2nd Edition (John Wiley & Sons) that he co-authored with Deborah Kania and Beth Yaeckel. The book includes chapters on personalization, databases, and related topics. He writes articles about Web marketing on topics related to personalization, e-mail marketing, marketing databases, and data mining. He has written a weekly column on Precision Marketing for ClickZ.com, as well as articles for other marketing publications.

Today, Mr. Allen advises companies on creating an online marketing strategy for their marketing communications and sales activities that will increase their marketing ROI.