• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 22, 2011

Tealium will launch a browser plug-in with analytics that enable brands to manage ad tags directly from a Web browser, as opposed to logging into a Web-based portal to make changes, the company told MediaPost. The tag management platform -- Tealium iQ -- rolled out to clients earlier this month.  

Ali Behnam and Mike Anderson, a couple of San Diego-based former executives from Web analytics company WebSideStory, founded the company as a Web analytics consulting firm in 2008 for companies such as Cisco and DreamWorks, but began the transition into tag management earlier this year.

Through several acquisitions, WebSideStory ended up in the hands of Adobe through Omniture. Tealium will compete with companies such as TagMan, headquartered in London and New York. Both Tealium and TagMan provide one "universal" container that enables companies to manage many ad tags.

The Tealium platform allows the integration and management of all digital marketing solutions, such as Facebook and Google Analytics, from a dashboard. Until now, most tag management platforms required IT support and knowledge of JavaScript, but Tealium iQ allows marketers to manage all the tasks of tagging Web pages themselves.

Onestop Internet, which manages end-to-end ecommerce solutions on Web sites for the apparel industry, began using the Tealium iQ for its client's sites. That means managing the entire marketing channel, such as tagging, attribution and tracking.

"We can stick 20 or 30 tags in one ad server call, so the logic is done in Tealium's server system and it doesn't slow the page load time, which is more saleable and manageable," said Jeremy Hermanns, Onestop vice president of performance marketing. "I manage a team of people and resources, about 30-something clients. The biggest benefit to me was reducing the amount of hours and effort to install tags. It's allowed us to do something in one day that used to take many."

Universal tag containers allow Web site pages to load at least twice as fast, sometimes as much as a ratio of 3:1, Hermanns said. Studies reveal that universal containers help pages with ad tags to load more rapidly, eliminating the risk of visitors abandoning the site.

The Tealium IQ platform lets marketers add, remove or modify Web page tags, which collect data, measure the results and drive search engine optimization in Web-based marketing. Through the platform, the company supports about 25% of its 60 clients such as Mizuno, a Japanese sports manufacturer similar to Nike, an unnamed European auto manufacturer and a news organization. Customers also include Nicole Miller, FingerHut, and Paul Frank. The remaining clients will go live by the end of September.

The new features range from the ability to speed and scale implementations through support from Limelight Networks, to segment attribution credit to affiliate partners that generate sales. Tealium recorded a 3 to 1 improvement in response time during testing using Limelight.

In an earlier version of the Tealium IQ platform, if a customer visited two different affiliate network sites, it was difficult to distinguish the one that resulted in the consumer purchase. Now companies using Tealium IQ can set rules or even give credit to more than one affiliate for generating interest in the site.

The platform also provides advanced conditional rules and allows users to determine how page tags are loaded. For example, it will only load Google AdWords page tags if the traffic originated from Google AdWords. This is another example of how it provides greater ease and flexibility. It also supports "Do Not Track" features in browsers such as Firefox.