Technology Leaders Dynamic Alert

BACKGROUND: Founded in 1998, Motorcycle Superstore has thrived throughout the last decade and is now number 295 on Internet Retailer’s top 500 list of retail Web sites. Motorcycle Superstore offers large online selection of motorcycle gear, apparel, parts and accessories.

PLATFORMS: Dynamic Alert from Technology Leaders is a software as a service (SaaS) product, so there is no platform or overhead for Motorcycle Superstore to deploy or maintain. The integration and interaction with our WebTrends reports is seamless and transparent.

PROBLEM SOLVED: After implementing Dynamic Alert, we began receiving email alerts when an important change occurred in our Web site user behavior or site availability. Because the software provides an on-demand service that works in conjunction with our existing WebTrends implementation, it was quick and easy to set up, and we began seeing benefits right away. For example, in one of the first alerts we received, we saw that the WebTrends tagging had been broken on the cart add page when some development was carried out. This would have taken a good deal of time to become apparent in the analytics reports, but it showed up immediately in Alert. Also, Alert was often reporting on the line item of “other,” which revealed the problems of table limiting and how this was hindering the analytics reports. One feature I find extremely useful is the ability to access my WebTrends reports directly from the Dynamic Alert emails. Not only seeing the import news, but also finding the report for more detailed information saves an incredible amount of time.

PRODUCT FUNCTIONALITY: We process more than 100,000 data points each day using WebTrends. Dynamic Alert helps us focus on the key data, rather than spending valuable time looking for it. Every day, each member of my team receives an email from Dynamic Alert with line items the product found newsworthy. At a glance, we can see the effect a campaign has had, if there is an issue with page tagging and new areas of interest as defined by certain keyword searches.

STRENGTHS: The product is extremely easy and intuitive to use; once it’s set up it runs without interaction. Because it develops thresholding dynamically, it never needs adjustment or revising. We spend our time using the information the tool delivers and not fiddling with the tool itself.

WEAKNESSES: Currently, the tool only works with WebTrends. We’d like to see it work with some of the other analytics tools on the market.

SELECTION CRITERIA: There really is no other product like this on the market today. The folks at Technology Leaders came up with a very simple solution to the long-time Web analytics industry problem of data overload.

DELIVERABLES: Alert sends real-time automated emails to us when key reports have deviated from their statistical mean. This information is more than just a report, it provides us with the news about our site without ever needing to search through reports. We use this information to understand and maintain areas such as: Are ad campaigns showing significant improvements (or failures)? Are certain pages suddenly seeing more traffic, and if so, why? Have some search engines begun to show the site more (or less) favorably? Have users encountered a new roadblock in the check-out process? Has tagging been altered or lost on certain key pages?

VENDOR SUPPORT: Technology Leaders is an outstanding company, and Motorcycle Superstore has been working with them for more than a year. All of the implementation was done by their engineers, and they spent time showing us how to use the product. The level of communication and responsiveness is very high.

DOCUMENTATION: Because Dynamic Alert is an application that augments our WebTrends reports and the implementation is performed entirely by Technology Leaders, there is no need for documentation on how to implement or use the product. Technology Leaders is working on developing best practices guides and white papers that will help newcomers to the industry understand the power of Dynamic Alert. There is a very helpful FAQ page directly linked to the Alert interface.