Industry Update October 2007

As a marketer in the ever-changing online world, it’s increasingly important to stay current on the changes in the industry that may undoubtedly affect your approach to analytics and online marketing optimization. As you may have noticed, there has been a lot of excitement brewing in the analytics industry recently so I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss some of these recent happenings including:

• Industry Consolidation
• Web Analytics Vendor Developments
• Industry Events

Industry Consolidation

Visual Science Acquired: Most recently, October 25, 2007, Omniture Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR), announced plans to acquire Visual Sciences (NASDAQ: VSCN). This is of particular interest as this will give Omniture a dominate market position as they have just acquired their largest competitor. The strategy behind this is very interesting to consider on a few fronts.

• HBX customer base: The HBX portion of the Visual Sciences’ business is very synergistic with the Omniture business model and should produce efficiencies for both companies as these clients are migrated into on a common platform. It should also present significant up-sell opportunities for Omniture within this large account base. In the short term, this will pose a significant migration challenge as clients are converted into a single technology platform.
• Platform 5 / Visual Site: This is most interesting part of the acquisition as this is truly the crown jewel of Visual Sciences. This technology platform will fill a gap within Omniture’s offering for certain enterprise clients that require a software based web analytics solution as well as open up many additional opportunities within multi-channel analytics and business intelligence as potential growth opportunities for the future.
• Valuation: The valuation as announced yesterday $394M was at a very small premium on the current market cap of Visual Sciences which presented a unique opportunity for Omniture to grow its foot print within the industry significantly at an attractive valuation.

Offermatica Acquired: Last month Omniture (NASDAQ:OMTR) also announced the acquisition of Offermatica, provider of testing and optimization solutions. This in combination with Omniture’s earlier acquisition of TouchClarity and now Visual Sciences is evidence of Omniture’s plans to offer a more comprehensive product suite, expand their client base and present a very complete marketing optimization solution to its clients.

Optimost Acquired: Last week Interwoven, Inc (NASDAQ: IWOV), provider of global content management solutions announced its acquisition of Optimost, provider of testing and optimization solutions. According to Optimost.com, the combination of their solutions “will complete the interactive marketing cycle: create, target, deliver, test, analyze, and optimize.”

In all cases, we should expect to see some interesting developments in their technology as their access to resources and clientele expands.

Web Analytics Vendor Developments

Urchin Software Beta Announced: It has been a long time coming but the release of a private beta version of Urchin Software, which will be available to existing customers through authorized partners, was announced last week. Dependent on the outcome of the beta testing, the official launch date of the final version is yet to be determined. At that time, Urchin will provide a migration tool for current Urchin 5 users. Those users will also receive a discount towards the purchase of the upgrade, which will again only be available through Google Analytics Authorized Consultants. This is exciting news as Google’s dedication to their on demand tool, Google Analytics, has been evident since the acquisition of Urchin, but now we are seeing evidence of their dedication to the improvement of the Urchin tool as well.

Microsoft Project Gatineau Beta Announced: Microsoft recently announced the beta for Project Gatineau, Microsoft’s analytics tool which was spawned from Microsoft’s acquisition of DeepMetrix last year. Microsoft first demoed the new tool in the US at eMetrics DC last week. Of particular interest is the ability to merge demographic data for visitors with Microsoft Passport profiles. Although the number of beta testers will be limited, you can still sign up for the invite waiting list. We haven’t seen a giant with the resources of Microsoft actively participating in the analytics space since the unveiling of Google Analytics; interesting developments are sure to come as a result.

WebTrends Score Available: WebTrends new engagement measurement tool, WebTrends Score is now available. One of the major benefits of this tool is that it will allow the marketer to easily quantify the value of a visitor when a monetary measurement is not available. It works by scoring visitors against your pre-determined rule sets that are most important to your business model. The higher the level of engagement, the higher the score the visitor receives, making it easier to make more informed decisions and create actionable segments within your visitors.

Industry Events

October has been an extremely busy month for industry events. Since I’m sure very few of our readers were able to attend all of them; I’ll provide a brief re-cap of the events that our team was able to attend.

The Optimization Summit: Presented by Optimost, The Optimization Summit was hosted in San Francisco earlier this month. Highlights of the event included The Optimization Awards, where users of the Optimost testing and optimization solution are rewarded for their creativity and ingenuity; winners included companies such as Delta Airlines and Quicken Loans. Over 150 interactive marketers gathered at this event where Stratigent’s Bill Bruno moderated a session in which attendees and panelists shared innovative ideas on leveraging web analytics to drive testing and optimization.

WebTrends Engage 2007: In alignment with the release of WebTrends Score, the theme of the event was the importance of measuring consumer engagement and obtaining a 360 view of your visitors. One particular highlight was the customer presentations which gave insight into what real users are doing with the product including Barclays, Scandinavian Airlines, and ConAgra. Another fun highlight of the event included a live demonstration from EepyBird, the guys made famous for their explosive Diet Coke and Mentos demonstrations on youtube.com. They were brought to the event to demonstrate an increasing trend towards consumer generated marketing as evidenced by a 5% increase in Diet Coke sales worldwide when their video, which to date has had over 3 million views, was introduced on youtube.com. Additionally, the high level of interest at Stratigent’s presentation on web analytics strategy demonstrated that attendees are looking to increase their sophistication with web analytics and integrate other online marketing tools to get a broader view of their visitors.

VisCon / Active Insights: Visual Sciences east coast user conference also took place this month. The event began with 2 days of VisCon, followed by 2 days of ActiveInsights, more in-depth educational sessions. Stratigent’s Jennifer Veesenmeyer and Bill Bruno were fortunate enough to gain additional insight at the event by participating as presenters for both VisCon and ActiveInsights. It was also a proud moment for Stratigent when Visual made the announcement that Stratigent is the first company to earn Visual Sciences Certified Partner distinction. Even more exciting were the client success stories regarding how they are leveraging the tool to perform more advanced reporting and analysis. Additionally, there was a strong showing of partners in the exhibit area, allowing Visual’s clients to meet service providers and vendors of complimentary tools. Above all, one of the most exciting highlights was that Visual Sciences has a unified development team for the HBX and Platform 5 applications which will lead to great advancements in both products.

Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit: As one of the most popular online marketing industry events, Emetrics continues to grow in size. This month the crowd in DC reached 600+ attendees. While the presentation tracks were exciting with the aforementioned news from Google, Microsoft and numerous updates from industry practicioners; we did notice an overarching trend. This year many presenters demonstrated the results of their analytics initiatives as opposed to presenting theories and future plans for optimization. It is exciting to see the shift, indicating that more and more industry practicioners have reached the point where they have been able to apply industry best practices into their organization and are seeing real results. The feedback from Stratigent’s Jennifer Veesenmeyer’s presentation on “R.E.A.L. Reporting” also indicated that practicioners are beginning to take analytics reporting one step further to make reports more engaging and insightful. The general feel of the conference is one of optimism as attendees are eager to increase their online marketing sophistication.

Online Marketing Summit (OMS): Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to mention one event which has not yet taken place. The Online Marketing Summit (OMS) which will take place early next spring in San Diego is a unique event you should consider adding to your calendar as it is an educational forum for interactive marketers. The format of the event greatly facilitates interactions between attendees allowing them to not only learn from the presenters but to also learn a great deal from their colleagues in the industry. Stratigent’s Bill Bruno will also be on hand to lead a “Web Analytics Empowerment” workshop, teaching attendees how to get the most value out of analytics initiatives.