Hot On The Trail More and more online retailers are using a variety of tools to help them track their customers. Here's how you can, too.

Web-site statistics are no small matter to Diana and GreggShapiro, owners of All The Right Gifts Inc. (http://www.alltherightgifts.com)in Woodland Hills, California. The gift-selection company runs anonline shopping directory to help customers find gifts quickly.

Without reliable site statistics, the couple wouldn't beable to track the site's 500 daily visitors, who peruse ataffiliate sites (sites where All The Right Gifts gets a portion ofany sales revenue generated from its referral) that sell giftsranging from flowers and CDs to airline tickets. The data tells thecouple which areas of the site visitors are viewing and whichsearch engines were used to reach the site--essential elements formanaging the online directory.

"The data helps us figure out which search engines aregenerating the best referrals and what keywords customers arekeying in to find us," says Gregg. "Then we use thisinformation to concentrate our marketing efforts in the best waypossible."

Melissa Campanelli is a technology writer in Brooklyn, NewYork, who has covered technology for Mobile Computing &Communications and Sales & Marketing Managementmagazines. You can reach her at mcampanelli@earthlink.net..

Tracking Hits

There are myriad ways to keep track of users who visit your Website. The easiest way is through a counter, which simply talliesthe number of hits a Web site receives. This information is notvery helpful because a hit is usually defined as a file access bythe server, and unless special filters have been set up, this meansany file access. "One person could access the home page10 times and generate 10 hits, or 10 unique people could access thepage and generate 10 hits," says Gary Valle, a computerconsultant based in Canoga Park, California.

A better way to track and generate information about asite's visitors is with log analysis software. This type ofsoftware--typically available directly from manufacturers or as avalue-added service offered by your ISP--generates graphicalreports of user behavior and tells you which areas on your sitevisitors like, how they got there, how traffic affects serverperformance and even the site's return on investment.

The number of unique (or individual) visitors is determined byanalyzing the number of unique IP addresses--a number thatidentifies a computer's connection to the site's servereach time a user visits a site. Using log analysis software,it's also possible to determine total page views (the number ofpages accessed by each visitor) and unique page views (the numberof unique pages accessed by each visitor), as well as the number oftimes a visitor logged onto the site each week.

The Shapiros gather and manage data by logging on to a specialWeb site set up for them by their Web hosting company,Atlanta-based Interactive Media Corp. (IMC) Online. IMC Online(http://www.imconline.net)uses a log analysis program called Statistics Server 4.2, publishedby MediaHouse Software Inc. (http://www.mediahouse.com). Thissoftware allows the Shapiros to obtain real-time statistics abouttheir visitors 24 hours a day as well as reports that can bee-mailed or viewed online. For $25 per month, the Shapiros receivetheir regular Web-hosting services and access to this useful sitedata.

Another good log analysis tool is WebTrends Log Analyzer, fromWebTrends Corp. (http://www.webtrends.com). LikeStatistics Server, this program allows you to analyze your sitetraffic in real time. You can obtain detailed graphical reports ofuser behavior, such as which areas on your site visitors like best,how they get to your site and how your company intranet is beingused. When purchased directly, this software costs only $399(street), but you'll need some technical expertise tounderstand this product fully.

The Shapiros use the visitor information to modify theirsite's focus. "One month, we noticed a lot of people weretyping `automobile' and `airline tickets' into our searchengine, so we changed the focus of some of our Top 10 giftsuggestions to reflect this," says Diana. "We alsochanged our home page. It now includes information aboutautomobiles, clothing and travel. Basically, we can change it toreflect what most of our customers are looking for."

Don't Just Sit There

All The Right Gifts is taking what is considered a passiveapproach to tracking its site's visitors. The passive methodtracks users behind the scenes via IP-address-tracking mechanismsor through cookies, computer programs that automatically downloadto a user's Web browser to track his or her every move. Anactive approach, on the other hand, requires users to fill outforms with personal information.

Many small businesses are using sophisticated analysis toolsthat combine passive and active approaches. Instead of offeringinformation based on IP addresses alone--nameless, facelesspeople--products on the market today can combine your database ofcustomer information with tracking mechanisms and data miningsoftware. Besides figuring out where specific visitors come from,where they go when they leave, where they browse and how long theystay in each section of a Web site, these products can also buildpersonal profiles based on browsing and purchasing patterns andalert a company to unusual activities or sudden spikes indemand.

One company that offers a robust tool like this--and isreceiving many requests from smaller companies--is net.GenesisCorp. (http://www.netgenesis.com). Thecompany offers an online analytic and decision support applicationcalled net.Analysis 4.0., which correlates information about Website behavior and other business data to improve strategicdecision-making about marketing your products online.

Here's how net.Analysis works. Once you gather user IDs witha mechanism on your site--such as a form customers fill out withtheir names and e-mail addresses--the tool allows you to trackthese specific customers every time they return to your site. Themain advantage of this program is that it tracks the actual visitor(for example, joe@xyz.net) rather than the user ID (the"cookie" generated by the user's browser, which couldbe shared by any number of people). It's possible to follow howlong they stayed on the site and how many pages they viewed duringeach visit. Perhaps even more important, the information can beused to create a visitor database, whose information can be used tosend targeted e-mail marketing campaigns to specific visitors.

The software and consulting services required for net.Analysiscost between $12,000 and $15,000. The company also offers alower-cost consulting service for which net.Genesis analyzes aportion of the data determines who your best customers are. Thisanalysis costs about $5,000.

You can get even more detailed information about users by addingpersonalization methods such as collaborative filtering. Thisallows you to gather material about visitors by tracking theirpreferences and combining them with those of similar users viewingthe site. Then you can offer product or service recommendations andlaunch marketing campaigns targeted to specific users based on thefindings. Net Perceptions (http://www.netperceptions.com)is one company that offers real-time personalization services,including slick collaborative filtering solutions. For example,users can rate content as they click, and the content they view onthe Web site is adjusted after they rate the site.

This is a very high-end tool with a high price tag to match. Butas small businesses start realizing the importance of taking stepsto understand their Web visitors better, and manufacturers begin totarget this vast market, prices will likely come down.

In general, despite privacy concerns, e-surveillance is beingviewed as an essential weapon for any company doing business on theInternet today. In fact, some believe success and failure could bedetermined by the companies that best monitor the online activitiesof their customers and business partners.

Hot Disks

Toon it in: Try Andover.Net's GIFWorks, a new onlinetool that allows users to select, process and create animationonline for free. Since all designing and coloring, shading and fileimporting is done on Andover.Net servers and with a familiarWindows-like interface, there's no complicated softwareinstallation, and new animation can be created in seconds. Theapplication is available for Macintosh, Linux, Unix and PCplatforms and only requires Internet access. Visit http://www.andover.net to find outmore.

Add some spunk:NetStudio 2000 ($89) from NetStudio Corp.is designed to help novice users create a variety of elements fortheir Web sites, including buttons, button bars, banners,backgrounds and logos. At the heart of the program are itspredesigned, easily customized templates and basic tools forimage-editing to adjust brightness and contrast, and to sharpen andblur. The product requires 16MB RAM (32MB for Windows NT 4.0), 30MBhard drive space and Windows 95/98/NT 4.0. For more information,visit http://www.netstudio.com

All in one: Find all you need to get started ine-commerce--including catalog and order management features andsecure credit card payment processing--from Actinic SoftwareLLC's Catalog 3.0. Businesses can buy Catalog 3.0 to installand run on their Web servers, or they can look for an ISP ore-commerce host provider that offers it in storefront creation. Theproduct, which costs $399, requires an ISP account and a Web sitewith user-written CGI capabilities, 16MB RAM, 30MB hard-drive spaceand Windows 95/98/NT 4.0. Visit http://www.actinic.com for moreinformation.

Contact Sources

All The Right Gifts Inc., (818) 884-6462

netGenesis Corp., (617) 577-9800, http://www.netgen.com

Valley Programming Service Inc., (818) 992-5134, http://www.valpro.com

WebTrends Corp., (503) 294-7025, http://www.webtrends.com