• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, July 28, 2010

I'm waiting for the custom audio welcome message that greets me as I return to my favorite Web site. Not yet, you say. Well, it's only a matter of time.

Amazon has been semi-customizing its Web site for years, depending on the visitor. And Webtrends released Optimize Profile Enhanced Targeting on Tuesday. The add-on to Optimize, which launched about a year ago, supports profile-enhanced targeting with help from the behavioral Segments in Visitor Data Mart, which debuted in April. The combined tool has been in the works since January.

Casey Carey, Webtrends vice president of products, says marketers want to move beyond standard reporting features and get into the minds of consumers who visit Web sites to provide targeted content. The data gained from tapping that experience can help companies provide additional services and email offerings. Customer insights drive positive actions, he says.

Those insights will drive investments in display and video advertising, and on Web sites. The majority of Web sites don't target content to site visitors despite the amount of information they have on them.

Yet Amazon has been doing it for years. Omniture, for example, offers a targeting Web site platform that taps historic data to customize content to returning visitors.

Some platforms use location, browser type, or language to change content. Optimize Profile Enhanced Targeting monitors behavior over time such as content viewed, merchandise bought, and frequency of visits to the site. Custom content geared toward specific goods and services can provide the key to increasing sales. Tie custom Web site content into retargeting and marketers could have a winning match.

Optimize Profile Enhanced Targeting captures historical visitor segments. The one-click integration imports the data into Optimize, where segments are associated with content to target specific high-value segments with relevant content and offers. The integration eliminates the need to recreate multiple segments in separate tools and allows companies to use the segments based on visitors across multiple media.

Webtrends looks to put algorithms and intelligence behind rules to serve offers and leveraging technology to serve up content across a variety of channels such as targeting display ads and generating custom emails. In the future the app will support other channels.