Webtrends seeks to raise the analytics bar with a new segmentation tool

A new customer segmentation module Webtrends Inc. plans to announce next week, Webtrends Segments, is designed to enable marketers to better target consumers based on their shopping behavior across multiple online and offline channels, the company says.

“For marketers who need to segment their customers and prospects, Webtrends Segments, built on Webtrends Visitor Data Mart, provides robust segmentation capabilities to drive more effective targeting and re-marketing efforts,” CEO Alex Yoder says.

Webtrends Segments is integrated with data warehousing technology from Teradata Corp., which stores and makes available to marketers consumer data across multiple online and offline channels, including a retailer’s own web site, social networking sites like Facebook, store point-of-sale systems, direct mail and paper catalogs.

Marketers can use this cross-channel consumer data to optimize all the methods they use to engage consumers, such as through web site merchandising, e-mail marketing and customer relationship management systems, the company says.

For brands that need to precisely segment their customers and prospects, Webtrends Segments promises to be an effective tool to drive more effective targeting and re-marketing campaigns, says Tom Butkevich, director of web analytics for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

John Lovett, a senior partner at consultants Web Analytics Demystified Inc., though he has yet to compare Webtrends Segments to other analytics tools, says that Webtrends appears to be digging more deeply into individual consumer behaviors and demographics. “It’s a sign that they’re taking the next step beyond looking at the basic metrics that many analytics tools can provide, to let marketers segment on a myriad of different parameters and not just on what the general population does on their web sites,” he said. “It’s a more advanced way to look at analytics to deliver consumers messages with more relevant products.”

Lovett adds that using analytics to target consumers on a one-to-one basis can be extremely difficult to do, as well as time-consuming and expensive. Nonetheless, one practical effect of having a tool like Webtrends Segments, he says, is that it could help marketers get better at targeting smaller segments of consumers with relevant information.