In a deal stemming from the multimillion-dollar investment from WPP's Kantar Group revealed earlier this year, its subsidiary Compete will make data available through Omniture's dashboard by the end of October, Stephen DiMarco, Compete's chief marketing officer, tells Online Media Daily.

Both Compete and Omniture have been working on integrating the data since the summer. Kantar's $25 million investment in Omniture serves as the foundation to build the dashboard that combines the data from both Omniture and Compete, DiMarco says.

"It's important to open up the data and share it across platforms," he says, explaining that Omniture will make it easy to integrate Compete data, as well as export its data into Compete dashboards. "Clients see the need to consolidate information and metrics."

The agreement is similar to the partnership Omniture unveiled with comScore in September that gives online advertisers a view into data-measuring performance and digital audiences. The agreement combines Web site analytics data with audience measurement data, respectively, to provide advertisers and publishers with a unified measurement tool.

"By no means are we rolling out the perfect dashboard in the first 30 days, but rather the beginnings based on what clients believe is important to them," DiMarco says. "It will allow them to compare Omniture metrics with competitors' metrics."

Hedging on the news, DiMarco says Compete could provide similar services offered by comScore today, such as data through pixel tags, which would give Omniture users another option so clients can choose what tags to use.

While other companies specialize in tags, Compete today focuses on panels. Tags measure and collect data from Web items that marketers have control over, such as their Web sites and advertisements. DiMarco calls it "cookie-level" data." Panels provide insight into consumer behavior that tags cannot provide, such as measuring competitive activity of visitors across Web sites. Compete measures consumer activity across more than 3 million Web sites, for example.

DiMarco says between 35% and 40% of WPP's revenue comes from research, rather than media buying or agencies' services. While Kantar typically takes a backseat to its company's brands, a branding campaign set to launch later this year should change that. The campaign will name all the individual companies within Kantar, such as Compete, TNS Custom Research, TNS Media Research, Dynamic Logic, and more.

Earlier this month, Compete released paid-search keyword breakouts, a recent enhancement to Compete PRO, its Web-based online measurement service. Paid-search breakouts display the keywords that competitors buy to drive site traffic, and the tool tracks organic keywords. Other enhancements are expected soon as the company ramps up data and research services.

Omniture did not confirm the agreement with Compete prior to this article posting, but a press release on the company's Web site acknowledges an investment from WPP's Kantar Group.

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