ClearSight Interactive - ClearAnalytics

Challenge
ClearSight Interactive is a rapidly expanding start-up that provides a comprehensive range of behavioral targeting solutions for Advertisers and Publishers. The company was founded with a bold intention to revolutionize the online advertising industry by bridging the divide between online and offline universe of consumer data. Having partnered with largest database marketing companies, such as Experian and I-Behavior, ClearSight then needed to develop industry-leading tools that would drastically improve conversions and sales of its potential clients through connecting consumers' online behavior with their offline profile data in a way that has never been done before.

ClearAnalytics is one of the three products comprising ClearSight Behavioral Targeting Suite. The product would be a campaign analysis tool that camps onto existing website analysis software packages. It would allow Advertisers to evaluate the effectiveness of their online ads through matching phone and in-store customer transactions back to 100 million identified online user profiles in order to track back the advertisements these customers viewed and provide real-time insight into which media placements had the greatest contribution toward offline conversion. Given SSD prior experience in cost-effective development of industry-leading behavioral analysis and business intelligence tools for AcquireWeb and DCASTechnologies companies, ClearSight partnered with SSD for the development of ClearAnalytics product as part of its ClearSight Behavioral Targeting Suite.

Result
Having combined the services of A-level professionals with the best outsourcing practices, prior domain expertise, extensive experience in full software development lifecycle of complex systems, and latest project management methodologies, SSD delivered ClearAnalytics at the world's lowest Eastern European rates for sophisticated outsourcing. Once ClearSight Behavioral Targeting Suite was unveiled to the public in its Alpha stage at Internet Retailer Conference in Boston, it was named one of the most robust and sophisticated behavioral targeting services offered, and has instantly attracted an impressive roster of inaugural clients and development partners. ClearSight top customers include such companies as Ask.com, Universal Pictures studio, LendingTree, Speedo USA, NewRetirement, American InterContinental University, and Colorado Technical University. ClearAnalytics provides the visibility that has been long sought after by Advertisers and their agencies into how effectively their online ads contribute to their total online and offline sales. By now, ClearSight has captured billions of consumer behaviors from both online and offline sources, positioning itself for rapid growth, high visibility, and fast success.

Action
SSD fully leveraged its extensive pool of highly-qualified technology professionals, prior domain expertise, as well as operational knowledge of outsourcing industry best practices in order to build enterprise-level product, lower development costs, and achieve short time-to-market for its client.

  • Assigned a dedicated project manager who coordinated gathering the requirements, designing the technical architecture, development, and Quality Assurance stages of ClearAnalytics product along with the other two products comprising ClearSight Behavioral Targeting Suite.
  • Involved the assistance of its experienced business analysts at the requirements gathering stage. Assisted ClearSight in preparing detailed product requirements and technical specifications, minimizing this way the number of future changes, and, therefore, slashing the total time-to-market for the product.
  • Applied best practices from IMB RUP (Rational Unified Process) project management methodology when creating project roadmap and schedule for ClearSight Behavioral Targeting Suite. Accounted for the possibility of on-the-fly requirements changes, and prepared the list of potential project threats and risks.
  • Assigned an engineering team with the right skill-set from its existing pool of IT professionals with 5-10 years of experience in business intelligence, e-commerce, and online advertising space.
  • Set up clear communication procedures that included daily voice communication with client-side stakeholders, including product managers, business analysts, and company founders.
  • Kept the client constantly informed about the emerging project threats and risks. Provided regular progress tracking, project status updates, and dependency assessments.
  • Established a centralized repository for change request management to make sure every client request, as well as every bug found by the Quality Assurance team, were taken care of in order of its priority with regard to the available time and resources.
  • Began systematic Quality Assurance tests early in the product development life-cycle to bring down the cost of issue resolution and to ensure the product is released on schedule.

Product Highlights
ClearAnalytics is a campaign analysis tool that camps onto existing website analysis software packages. It allows Advertisers to evaluate the effectiveness of their online ads through matching phone and in-store customer transactions back to 100 million identified online user profiles in order to track back the advertisements these customers viewed and provide real-time insight into which media placements have the greatest contribution toward offline conversions. ClearAnalytics' distinguishing features are:

  • Several different proprietary algorithms for matching back offline sales to online banner impressions
  • Easy integration of campaign tracking parameters with Google Analytics, Omniture, and Coremetrics
  • Support for integrated multi-channel marketing strategies across online, e-mail and direct mail channels
  • Possibility to pinpoint the most appropriate CPV metric goal
  • Proprietary algorithm for analyzing which media placements have the greatest contribution towards set goals
  • Possibility to determine whether it is creative or targeting that causes deflated performance
  • Detailed reports measuring the effectiveness of each media placement broken down by identified demographic, psychographic, and behavioral traits
  • Sophisticated tools for evaluating multiple touch points of various ad placements and measuring the branding value of banner ads
Technologies and Tools Used
- Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0/3.5, C#, ASP.NET 2.0, JavaScript; Microsoft Visual C++, MFC 7.0
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP3; Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services 2005
- Internet Information Server (IIS) 6.0; Microsoft ASP.NET solution for Web Farm; Windows NT Services
- .Net Facebook applications; HTTP traffic analytics; General ETL processes developing; Distributed & Multithreading data handling processes
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1
- Borland StarTeam 2008; Microsoft Project 2007