• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 9, 2008

A year after joining WebTrends as chief marketing officer from Coca-Cola, Tim Kopp has left the Web analytics firm for the same position at e-mail marketer ExactTarget.

Kopp is the latest high-level executive to exit WebTrends following a management shake-up two month ago that saw the departure of then-CEO Greg Drew and two other senior managers. Drew was replaced on an interim basis by board member Bruce Coleman.

WebTrends spokesman Matthew Langie said Kopp had left the company in December, and had been replaced on an interim basis by Kathleen Brush, who has worked previously with Coleman at companies including Stamps.com. WebTrends is actively searching for both a new CEO and CMO, said Langie.

He reiterated that the management changes stemmed from efforts to accelerate the company's growth. Web analytics rival Omniture has consolidated its position atop the industry in the last year through a string of acquisitions including the $394 million purchase of Visual Sciences (formerly WebSideStory).

New competitors like Google and Microsoft are also altering the landscape by introducing their own do-it-yourself Web analytics solutions.

A December study by IDC estimated the Web analytics software market in 2006 at almost $400 million, representing a 25% growth rate. The research firm projected a 16% annual growth rate for the industry over the next five years. The report noted that the growth rates of leading vendors including Omniture, WebTrends and Coremetrics "far exceeded the growth rates of most of the software industry."

Kopp, who joined WebTrends a year ago as CMO after leading interactive marketing efforts at Coke and an eight-year stint at Procter & Gamble, did not return calls Tuesday about his move to ExactTarget.

In a statement issued yesterday announcing the appointments of Kopp as CMO and Doug Hooton as vice president for client services, company CEO Scott Dorsey said: "Adding talented marketing and services professionals like Tim and Doug further positions us to deliver on this promise and help customers achieve exceptional results."

One factor in Kopp's jump to ExactTarget may be the company's plans to go public later this year. The company last month filed with the SEC to raise up to $86.3 million in an initial public offering. Founded in 2000, ExactTarget said in its IPO prospectus that it has approximately 2,800 e-mail marketing clients including Careerbuilder.com, Expedia, Florida Power and Light, and Gannett Co.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company reported earnings of $2.1 million on revenue of $34.2 million, compared to $1.8 million on sales of $22 million in the year-earlier period. For its fiscal year 2006, ExactTarget reported earnings of $6.4 million on revenue of $31.2 million.

Kopp was not listed in the IPO prospectus filed Dec. 14.