Broadbase updates e-commerce analytics software suite

Broadbase Software Inc. on Monday released the latest version of its e-commerce analytics software suite, adding an application that will let companies make recommendations to Web site visitors about whom they have little or no personal information.

The Broadbase Real-Time Optimizer was added to version 4.5 of the E-Commerce Analytic Suite to help companies market their products to unknown customers.

It targets the more than 75 percent of Web site visitors who are "casual, unregistered browsers who you can't identify as belonging to a particular group or segment," said Brett Ehrlich, director of product marketing for the Menlo Park, Calif. based company.

"We take a limited amount of real-time data on the customer - which Web pages they're coming from, what time of day it is, keyword searches, their IP address - and bring that into a real-time recommendation system," Ehrlich said. "It's based on predictive behavioral models, but it's a self-learning engine, too."

Other real-time personalization techniques in use include collaborative filtering, which requires information from customers, and datamining-based models such as E.piphany's RightNow technology.

Ehrlich, though, said Broadbase's Real-Time Optimizer offered more control over what products or services are recommended to unidentified customers.