Omniture, an Oren, Utah-based Web analytics ASP, last week announced that its revenue increased 350 percent from 2001 to 2002. The company also reported that it has been profitable and cash-flow positive for several months.
Financial stability after the dotcom shakeout is becoming a key selling point, according Josh James, CEO of Omniture. “Customers of analytic providers need to have confidence in a provider’s ability to service their needs over a long period of time. This translates not only to the sophistication of the technology itself, but also into the financial viability of the company.”
“Not all Web analytics companies can make a go of it,” said Guy Creese, research director of Internet Analytics at the Aberdeen Group. “Omniture’s story is quite different, and the company deserves kudos for growing and making money in today’s difficult economic climate.”
Omniture entered the Web analytics industry with SiteCatalyst in 1996 and was an ASP before people started to use the term, James told ASPnews. “We read about ASPs in some of the trade magazines and said, ‘that’s what we’ve doing.’
Last week, the company released version 9.0 of SiteCatalyst. The new version includes three features that the company claims are new to the Web analytics industry:
- VISTA (Visitor Identification, Segmentation and Transformation
Architecture) is designed to create real-time segmentation of online
data. For example, Omniture reports, a segment can be designed to display data
only about visitors who made a purchase. The company says that by better understanding how data differs
from one segment to another, customers can better focus their development efforts and improve site
performance and profitability. - True Fall-out Reporting is designed to provide conversion and
fall-out reporting between user-defined checkpoints. By understanding the flow
of traffic through these checkpoints, Omniture said its customers will
have a greater understanding of how their users get from one point to
another without limiting the analysis to a
predefined process. - A/B Comparison Framework is a testing process that compares site performance across different segments, versions of
Web sites or time frames. By displaying data side-by-side and
calculating the percent change, Omniture said, the time required to gauge the
effectiveness of incremental design changes is greatly reduced.
Omniture’s client includes AOL Time Warner, Gannett, Microsoft, Maytag Corporation, Half.com, Media News Group and VeriSign.
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