An Ottawa software manufacturing company founded in the late 1990s is moving to larger offices closer to the downtown core as it prepares to increase its workforce in the capital region by up to 50 per cent.
Campaigner, a subscription-based email and SMS marketing platform currently owned by US digital media company Ziff Davis, is set to vacate its current headquarters on Gurdwara Road in the south end this summer.
The company, which has about 100 local employees, plans to move to its new Westboro office in August, a 10,700-square-foot space at 319 McCray Ave. that also houses fellow tech company Pythian.
Alaa Gedeon, Campaigner's top local executive, said the organisation plans to grow its Ottawa workforce by about 10 per cent annually over the next three to five years as demand continues to grow for its software-as-a-service products, which compete with the likes of Mailchimp.
“That's the plan unless we hit some kind of macroeconomic problem,” Gedeon told Techopia on Monday.
Founded in 1999, Campaigner was part of Protus IP Solutions, an Ottawa-based SaaS company that specializes in communications tools.
Protas was acquired by California-based digital media and technology company j2 Global Communications for $213 million in 2010. After j2 Global spun off its cloud computing business in 2021, it renamed the remaining entity after Ziff Davis, the New York digital media company that j2 acquired in 2012.
The Nasdaq-listed company reported revenue of about $1.4 billion in 2023. Ziff Davis doesn't disclose revenue for its individual entities, but Gedeon said Campaigner has seen healthy growth over the past few years and expects that trend to continue.
Gedeon noted that as a U.S.-based company, Ziff Davis gets a “natural discount” when hiring employees north of the border thanks to the weak Canadian dollar.
This gives a market like Ottawa a distinct advantage over U.S. tech hubs where skilled labor costs are higher, he explained.
“We're a technology company first and foremost, and we think there's a lot of talent in this city,” Gedeon added.
Campaigner had been searching for new property for more than a year to accommodate its growing workforce, as employees worked primarily from home during the pandemic but have since started coming into the office more frequently.
Like many tech companies, Campaigner responded to widespread talent shortages during the pandemic by hiring as many skilled workers as it could find across the country.
But the new office marks a shift in strategy, as Campaigner will now target locally-based talent first and hire remote workers “only when necessary,” explained Kevin Vaudrey, the company's senior director of sales and marketing.
Vaudrey said the MacRae Avenue location will have more private offices, meeting rooms and co-working spaces than the company's current headquarters.
And nearby amenities like restaurants and outdoor patios “will encourage people to spend a little more time in the office and be a little more social while they're working,” he added.
Vaudrey said he believes the move will be largely well-received as it expands Campaigner's Ottawa-based workforce.
“We're not going to be one of those companies that says, 'You have no choice unless you go back to the office five days a week,'” he said. “We acknowledge that things have changed, but our employees have told us they miss being in the office.”
Gedeon said locating a store in Westboro made sense for the company because it's relatively centrally located, making it an easy commute for most of Campaigner's employees.
“We didn't want it to only appeal to employees who live in a certain part of the city,” he explained.
“Historically, a lot of tech companies have been located in Kanata. And for people who live in the east end or downtown, commuting into Kanata isn't an easy task. We wanted to make sure our new office was easily accessible from different areas of the city.”
