InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Accrue Vista is an add-on application for Accrue Insight, the main application that collects and stores data. Vista lets companies segment and monitor Web visitors to understand how often specific types of visitors visit a Web site, what parts of the site are most popular, how long visitors stay, and how much money they spend. The software also tracks the speed of visitors' modem connections and how that affects visits.

The vendor has also added Accrue BuyPath to Accrue Insight. This feature tracks customers' paths through the site, from their entry to completed transaction.

The Seattle Times has been using Accrue Insight for nearly a year to improve its site. This month, the online version of the newspaper plans to use Accrue Vista to get more details about its Web visitors. "We've been using Accrue Insight to track standard things, like how many pages, hits, and users," says John Soltys, senior Internet engineer at the newspaper, which averages 12 million page views a month. With Accrue Vista, Soltys will segment users, then identify behaviors of those groups. "If we determine that a certain segment is clicking on more ads, we could increase the rates of those ads," he says.

Accrue Vista is an online analytical processing tool that provides analysis on top of the customer data Accrue Insight collects and stores. It includes about 30 standard reports that provide details such as peak times for visitors, which visitor segments are most profitable, and where visitors were on the Web before coming to the site. The reports can be customized; for example, filters can be applied to determine top visitors in a certain time frame. Users can choose from 16 graphs to add to the reports, and the reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel.

Accrue Vista will ship this month; pricing is by subscription, starting at $1,000 per month. Accrue BuyPath will be available this month; it's a free upgrade for users of Accrue Insight 3.0.