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Like many a dot-com survivor these days, Al DiGuido, 51, is relishing a second chance to make his dream come true. His idea, which has been percolating for several years, is that a company should be able to go to a single source for all of its digital marketing services -- from creating targeted e-mail campaigns to optimizing Internet searches.

Fortunately for DiGuido, Investcorp Technology Partners shares his vision, and the private equity firm has put aside $100 million to develop a full-services digital marketing agency with him at the helm. The new company, called Zeta Interactive, was formed last month when e-mail services provider Zustek Corp. (which counts Time Inc. and LiveNation as customers) bought interactive marketing agency Adverb Media (which makes Sonar and other tools to measure the efficacy of online marketing campaigns).

DiGuido's first attempt to build a one-stop shop for digital marketing services began at the end of the last decade, when investors including Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson and Softbank Capital's Eric Hippeau asked him to lead a struggling e-mail marketing firm called Expression Engines. DiGuido had worked with Hippeau at Ziff Davis, where DiGuido was executive vice president and publisher of "Computer Shopper," and Hippeau had been CEO (and where, incidentally, I worked with both of them at "PC Magazine").

DiGuido built the e-mail company organically and through acquisitions, eventually renaming it Bigfoot Interactive Inc. In September 2005, Bigfoot was sold to Alliance Data Corp.'s Epsilon Interactive unit for $130 million, salvaging a financial return on the $50 million to $60 million investors had put into the company. In February 2006, Alliance expanded the Epsilon unit by buying DoubleClick Inc.'s e-mail division for $90 million.

By this time, DiGuido was CEO of Epsilon. But clashes with other executives about the direction of the unit, and more broadly regarding the evolution of digital marketing, led to his ouster in September 2006. "The issue was database versus interactive, and I lost the battle," DiGuido tells Tech Confidential.

Fired from Epsilon, he was "forced to go bask on a beach for a year" due to a noncompete clause in his Epsilon contract. It was a difficult period to be on the sidelines, says DiGuido, noting the flood of capital available for top startups.

Now installed as CEO of Zeta, DiGuido is competing with a slew of opponents in different arenas, including aQuantive Inc. (acquired by Microsoft Corp. for $6 billion earlier this year); Digitas Inc. (purchased by Publicis Groupe SA for $1.3 billion); the Nielsen Co. (BuzzMetrics); CheetahMail (an Experion company); and, of course, his "frienemy," Epsilon. - Mary Kathleen Flynn

For more on DiGuido's comeback see directmag.com

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