Designer Linens Outlet Moves to WebTrends First-Party Cookie Solution and Dramatically Improves Accuracy; Stratigent to Detail Accuracy and Optimization Efforts Leading to Big Gains During WebTrends 2005 Web Analytics Success Tour

Business Wire, Oct 17, 2005

PORTLAND, Ore. -- WebTrends Inc., the global web analytics leader, today announced that Designer Linens Outlet, www.designerlinen.com, has experienced dramatic improvements in accuracy after migrating to WebTrends' patent-pending first-party cookie solution. Just one month after implementing the solution, Designer Linens Outlet saw cookie rejection decrease dramatically, from nearly 18 percent of visitors not accepting third-party cookies to only 0.5 percent of visitors rejecting the new first-party cookies.

As a result, the company is not only better able to identify more unique visitors, but their return visitor count immediately increased by 10.2 percent. This gives the online retailer a considerably more accurate method of attributing revenue to the appropriate campaigns and better visibility into latent, or deferred, conversions from returning visitors. By adopting WebTrends' best practices approach, which uses the customer's own first-party cookie, Designer Linens Outlet is better equipped to track visitors over time, enabling them to confidently leverage rich, historical information for visitor segmentation and lifetime value analysis.

Designer Linens Outlet enlisted Stratigent, LLC, a WebTrends Insight Network (W.I.N.) partner and leading web analytics consultancy, to optimize its site. Stratigent coupled the insight from WebTrends 7 On Demand with its own consulting services in order to test and implement changes to optimize business performance. With the combined solution, Designer Linens Outlet pinpointed underperforming marketing campaigns and reallocated marketing spend to maximize ROI, which ultimately led to a 3.5 percent increase in overall sales and a 23.7 percent reduction in its marketing costs. A few of the specific improvements Designer Linens was able to achieve were as follows:

--A more than four-fold increase in online newsletter sign-ups.

--A 20.1 percent increase in its shopping cart conversion rate.

--A 97.3 percent reduction in the number of visitors not accepting cookies.

"Designer Linens Outlet was one of our first customers to take advantage of WebTrends unique, no-cost approach to implementing first-party cookies in a hosted service and the results are impressive," said Josh Manion, CEO of Stratigent LLC. "By giving customers access to accurate and rich visitor history, WebTrends will dramatically improve their ability to evaluate the latent effects of their marketing campaigns and use this data for long-term optimization of their marketing investments."

Manion will detail these successes and more during the 2005 Web Analytics Success Tour over the next two weeks. To learn more about cities and dates where the complementary educational seminars will be held, visit http://www.webtrends.com/Seminars.> "Designer Linens Outlet joins the more than five hundred customers who are noticing significant improvements in accuracy as a result of switching to our patent-pending, no-cost first-party cookie management solution," said Greg Drew, CEO and president of WebTrends Inc. "Our W.I.N. partners, such as Stratigent, provide a valuable service to our mutual customers, as their experience in optimizing web initiatives and their expertise in leveraging the full power of WebTrends 7 can dramatically accelerate customers' time-to-results."

About Stratigent, LLC

Stratigent provides fully customized web analytics consulting and applies information derived from multiple data sources to influence business decisions, website design and online marketing programs. Stratigent provides a wide range of web analytics consulting services including data analysis, scientific testing and optimization, and tool optimization and customization. For more information visit www.stratigent.com.

About WebTrends

Thousands of web-smart organizations worldwide, including more than half of the Fortune and Global 500, rely on WebTrends to improve their web site conversions and optimize their marketing performance for maximum return on investment. As the worldwide market leader for web analytics, WebTrends has become the trusted standard not only for award-winning technology, but also for a full range of consulting services and unmatched industry expertise. By delivering accurate and actionable metrics through both on-demand and software options, WebTrends ensures that its customers are positioned for both immediate and long-term success with a solution that can adapt to ever-changing business and technical requirements. For more information, visit www.WebTrends.com.

WebTrends and WebTrends On Demand are trademarks or registered trademarks of WebTrends Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.