• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 16, 2009

Webtrends' plan to deliver upgrades to its analytic reporting app each quarter has led the company to release an iPhone application and real-time alerts. The features delivered Monday were built on the notion that business moves too rapidly to make decisions based on hour-old data.

Analytics 9 has been updated to assist marketers to reap the benefits from ad campaigns running across the real-time Web. Prior to this release, major data updates would push out about every 12 hours, sometimes 24 hours.

"True real-time data from analytics really was non-existent until this release," says Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, vice president of marketing at Webtrends. He adds that some processes can provide stats within two minutes, and says that "sounds like real-time to me."

But analysts say real-time data isn't new. Real-time page visits and page views have been available. It's only when marketers can tie that data to real-time alerts that it becomes most useful.

Custom and configurable alerts based on key metrics that give marketers a ping when numbers drop or rise above preset metrics can help to reduce campaign costs. In Analytics 9, marketers can set to get alerts via Twitter direct messages, SMS, email, RSS feeds, and through an iPhone application.

The iPhone application does more than pull in a Web page configuring a report that fits in the window, Kaykas-Wolff explains. The idea is to run the business off the data collected in Webtrends on the iPhone, he says. The application also takes advantage of iPhone push notifications to deliver alerts. It's the combination of real-time data and alerts that makes the improvements important.

Analytics 9 also can help marketers identify when readers pass certain thresholds. "You can start to make changes to the way you program primary traffic sources," Kaykas-Wolff says. "That's a valuable tool to have as a publisher, because you will want to sell more advertising. When you start to get more readers, you want to make sure you maximize the value of your advertising."

Forrester Research Senior Analyst John Lovett says Unica, Coremetrics and Omniture provide near-real-time metrics, such as visits and page views. They typically can provide data within a few hours, but they are not making big promises. It takes a little longer when it requires processing an event, such as goals or funnel analysis, he says.

"Adding alerts to real-time data will let marketers take immediate action," Lovett says. "It doesn't do any good if marketers get the information hours later. Having the information in real-time is an immense benefit."

And while the real-time alerts are useful, Google recently began offering alerts in Google Analytics, too.