Email and Web surfing have given way to smartphones and social networking. For businesses trying to keep up with who's on their site, and who's interested in their products, life gets only more complicated.
Webtrends aims to untangle that complexity. The downtown Portland company's roots date back two decades -- an eternity in the Internet age. It's the last big independent player in the specialized field of online analytics.
Large businesses turn to Webtrends to help them sort out the torrent of customer data that flows in and out of the Internet.
Webtrends
Business: Online analytics -- Webtrends helps businesses track activity on their websites and gauge interest in their products online and in social media.
History: Founded in 1993, sold to NetIQ in January 2001. Sold in 2005 to a group led by California private equity firm Francisco Partners.
Clients: A diverse list of big companies, including Aflac, Alcoa, AT&T, BMW, Ford, Hilton, Intel, Macy's, Microsoft, Reuters, UPS, Tektronix and Trader Joe's
Annual revenues: Around $100 million
Employees: 410, including 228 at Portland headquarters
Who's pondering a purchase? Who's shopping on a smartphone? What are they talking about on Twitter?"It's more fragmented than it ever has been," said Martin Doettling, Webtrends' new, California-based chief marketing officer.
Webtrends once specialized in collecting online data. Now it crunches the numbers, too, to help clients understand where to put their marketing dollars and how to reach their own customers.
"The real value is to help them understand what happens in which (sales) channel," Doettling said, "and where the real impact is."
A survey last year by industry analysts at Forrester Research found that 84 percent of big companies use Web analytics in some form, and Webtrends' client list reflects that.
It works with technology giants such as Dell and Intel, carmakers BMW and Ford, and retailers including Macy's and Trader Joe's.
Forrester rated Webtrends among the leaders in a market that has grown more competitive over the past two years as Adobe and IBM bought Webtrends' two biggest rivals -- Omniture and Coremetrics, where Doettling worked before he joined Webtrends last summer.
"Webtrends finds itself at a crossroads as it transitions from legacy web analytics provider to cutting-edge digital analytics platform," wrote Forrester analyst Joe Stanhope.
Webtrends, Stanhope wrote, needs to provide "firm guidance" to its clients on how to use the data it provides. Otherwise, they'll drown in it.
As they cope with all that information, Doettling said, marketers also need to figure out how to reach customers. A billboard? A Tweet? A banner ad on a website?
Webtrends' goal is to provide the tools to help marketers refine their strategy and reach a variety of customers in a variety of ways: "What do I need to do to put these levers into perfect harmony?"
Web analytics sounds esoteric. It's a field most consumers never see.
It's just the reverse, actually: Analytics are the tools that big companies use to watch you.
Most consumers are aware, at this point, that big computers are monitoring their online activity. That's a creepy feeling, nonetheless, and often unwelcome. It's a sentiment Webtrends is acutely aware of.
The company has a "chief privacy officer," tasked with policing how the company and its clients use data -- and keeping up with emerging regulations in Europe and elsewhere over how online marketers handle personal information online.
New privacy laws make the Internet even more complicated, according to Webtrends chief executive Alex Yoder. But it also gives his company another role to play: a guide to help clients know what's appropriate and what's illegal."It's critical that we're the most educated on those," Yoder said. "That definitely adds additional complexity and need for expertise in our business that wasn't required in the past."
Webtrends is one of a tiny handful of Internet companies in Oregon that survived the dot-com bust.
It actually sold itself at the height of the dot-com bubble to a Silicon Valley company, NetIQ, for $1 billion in stock. When the bubble burst, the deal's value plunged --to just $250 million by the time it closed.
San Francisco private equity firm Francisco Partners bought Webtrends for $94 million in 2005. It's grown steadily -- if not spectacularly -- in the intervening years.
Webtrends won't disclose its growth rate or sales figures, but suggested that its annual revenues are approximately $100 million.
That's small by tech industry standards but not in Oregon, where only a dozen technology companies hit that mark last year.
Private equity firms like Francisco Partners don't typically buy and hold technology companies, and after Omniture and Coremetrics sold, Webtrends employees said privately that they believed their company was on the block, too.
They expected a sale or public stock offering by the end of 2011.
Francisco Partners typically holds its investments for five or six years, according to partner Neil Garfinkel, a Webtrends board member.
Seven years after it bought into the Portland company, Garfinkel said his firm is in no hurry to get out.
"From our perspective, it's likely that the biggest growth opportunity the company has ever faced is in front of them," he said.
Webtrends' long history with online data provides special expertise, according to Garfinkel.
In the era of "Big Data," when marketers could get lost in a forest of information, Garfinkel said Webtrends' technology can be a guide.
"They have a suite of products that, in our view, positions them as a leader."
-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; phone: 503-294-7699
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2012/09/webtrends_sees_opportunity_in.html
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