SAS Debuts Web AnalyticsSAS Debuts Web Analytics

Business intelligence vendor SAS on Tuesday rolled out SAS Web Analytics, software that combines data from customer-facing systems with advanced Web site analysis.

Web Analytics will help companies identify their customers, understand their preferences, and then deliver on those preferences, said SAS.

The new package is integrated with SAS 9 analytics and can work with other SAS BI solutions, such as SAS Marketing Automation 4. Using data mining techniques, it can spot customer purchasing patterns, then blend the online channel data with the rest of the customer's information.

Web Analytics allows enterprise users to segment customers, for instance, then apply customized rules to link specific offers with those customer segments. Buyers who visit a site frequently, for example, can be offered special promotional prices.

Other metrics slice and dice customer behavior, such as how they got to the site, what information they're after, and when and where in the site they drop out or get lost.

“With Web Analytics, we're now able to verify the success of online banner advertising, and independently determine whether we're getting value for our money,” said Martin Robl, the project leader of portal analytics at the Austria-based OMV, a oil and gas firm in Central and Eastern Europe, in a statement.