IBM will roll out a cloud Web analytics and marketing suite as it wraps together assets from the Coremetrics and Unica acquisitions.
The suite, dubbed the IBM Coremetrics Web Analytics and Digital Marketing Optimization Suite, falls under IBM’s commerce vertical. Along with analytics, IBM sees commerce as a big growth market.
Big Blue is looking to help enterprises better navigate commerce channels, online marketing campaigns and promotional activities via social media and mobile applications. The aim is to collect intelligence across multiple devices and platforms to better close sales.
In many respects, IBM is merely moving up the retail IT stack. IBM is already strong with numerous retailers in data centers and point of sale equipment. Coremetrics was also strong in retail. Unica has a broader reach into healthcare and other verticals.
Analytics via mostly acquired properties appears to be a natural extension for IBM as commerce goes mobile. According to IBM’s aggregated data from 2,000 customers 1 in 5 sales begins on a mobile device.
IBM’s smarter commerce initiative revolves around buying, marketing, selling and servicing customers. With the launch of its Web analytics and marketing suite the integration of the marketing pieces are complete. Craig Hayman, general manager of industry solutions at IBM, said that the company is “getting going to substantive updates” on other core components to deliver as a service. IBM’s strategy looks to integrate the parts of acquisitions such as Unica, Sterling Commerce and Coremetrics, wrap services around them and better target enterprises and midmarket companies selling to consumers.
Among the key features of IBM’s analytics and marketing suite:
- There are automated market segmentation modules that make use of multichannel data and offline information.
- Product recommendations via all online channels such as social, mobile and email.
- A/B testing for search engine marketers.
- Industry data as well as company specific key performance indicators. Aggregated data is sent to customers every 4 minutes, said Hayward.
Pricing starts at $1,750 per month and increases based on the customer’s Web site traffic and any additional capabilities such as automated advertising, retargeting and advanced personalization. That price includes an unlimited number of users at a company.
