InformationWeek

February 12, 2001

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Products Let Online Marketers Zero In On Customers

Hook Media to roll out analytical data warehouse; Engage launches two marketing apps

By Eileen Colkin (ecolkin@cmp.com)

More on online advertising:

TechWeb Finance: Online Advertising: Better Than You Might Think (1/23/01)

Reuters: Dot-Com Ad Slump Hits Asia (1/15/01)

TechWeb: Free ISPs Fight Over Dwindling Ad Space (1/08/01)

he recent failures of Internet-based marketing strategies have put pressure on vendors servicing that industry to give marketers more precise, integrated advertising tools. Hook Media Inc. and Engage Inc. are revamping their businesses and offering technology they say will better serve the changing and still uncertain market.

Hook Media this week will roll out its Artemis project, a $10 million data warehouse it says will analyze data collected from individual page impressions. "We literally bet the whole company on this," says Evan Grossman, Hook's senior VP and director of operations.

Artemis is a data warehouse that tracks customer movement using cookies across ad servers hosted by companies such as DoubleClick Inc. The software, which can pull data from any server, then turns out data marts that summarize campaign effectiveness based on sites, geography, timing, and creative content so marketers can place ads more strategically. Pricing hasn't been decided, but Hook will charge per impressions analyzed, data stored in the warehouse, and for custom services. "The value for advertisers isn't in the data, it's in the knowledge that comes out of the data," says Forrester Research analyst Jim Nail, adding that this is the first offering to provide such in-depth insight into consumer behavior.

Engage has been working to re-establish itself after a bout of financial instability. The company has launched two marketing applications. The Customer Retention Suite, priced starting at $60,000, helps improve loyalty and increase repeat visits by letting marketers create a database of site-based behavior profiles and use the information to target specific customers with specific messages. The Promotion Suite, which starts at $400,000, is designed to let marketers integrate the creative content of online ads with their other ad media to create a consistent brand.

Still, Engage may have to work to get customers to buy into the new suite. John Dodd, a manager at Cox Target Media, the parent company of direct-mail-coupon distributor Val-Pak, has been using the content server--which is part of the new package--and says it's saved him a lot of time and money. But Dodd hasn't yet committed to the full suite.

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