Fireclick and Mercado Software partner to deliver comprehensive analytics for online commerce

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, March 15, 2004

Mercado Software and Fireclick, Inc. have announced a partnership to co-market their respective offerings for online retailers, Mercado's Commerce Search & Navigation (CSN) and Fireclick's Netflame Web analysis service. These complementary offerings combine state of the art search and browse metrics, Web site analytics, and performance measurements. Together, CSN and Netflame provide leading online retailers with the information and tools they need to enhance the online shopping experience.

Mercado and Fireclick also announced today that Tower Records is already benefiting from this combined offering. "Using CSN and Netflame, Tower gets a complete picture of how customers are interacting with our Web site, including search, browse, promotions, product pages and checkout. This valuable information helps us fine-tune our Web site, merchandising campaigns and our product offering," said Kevin Ertell, Senior Vice President of Online Operations at Tower Records.

Mercado's CSN is a comprehensive search, navigation and merchandising solution for online commerce. The CSN package features Mercado's Web services-based core search and navigation technology, SearchStream Analysis reporting for insight into search and browse behavior, a Commerce Management Console (CMC) designed to give merchandising managers more control, a wide range of retail-specific dictionaries to improve search quality, and the UniClass automated classification and attribute extraction tool to enhance underlying data quality. With CSN, online retailers have all the elements necessary to combine superior search and browse capabilities with merchandising rules to bring featured, relevant products to the shopper's attention. Mercado's SearchStream Analysis provides key metrics on search and browse actions and the results returned.

Fireclick's Netflame provides a consolidated view of all site activity, including detailed ROI for all marketing campaigns--paid search, e-mail, banners, etc. The Netflame service helps online businesses increase revenue and reduce costs by providing critical metrics about visitor behavior, marketing campaigns, and conversion analysis. Netflame's reporting tools provide powerful, yet easy-to-understand, actionable information in real time for better operational decisions. Netflame's standard features include the Site Explorer browser plug-in for visualizing click-through rates superimposed directly on the site, the Fireclick Reporter for one-click export into pre-defined Microsoft Excel workbooks, and the Fireclick Index for a direct comparison of e-commerce results to other leading online retailers. All Netflame features are included in one basic monthly fee.

"Fireclick's partnership with Mercado Software provides an excellent opportunity to offer online retailers the information and tools they require to stay competitive," said Ram Srinivasan, President and CEO of Fireclick. "Our mutual customers will benefit from superior search and browse capabilities combined with the most comprehensive set of real-time, actionable information about visitor behavior, marketing campaigns, and online merchandising. "

"We are pleased to partner with Fireclick to complement our powerful search, browse and merchandising solution with the most innovative Web analytics solution for online retailers," said Menachem Cohen, CEO of Mercado Software. "Tower Records is the first of many joint customers that we anticipate will leverage the strong synergy between CSN and Netflame."