Press Releases

Elderhostel Uses Coremetrics to AnalyzeVisitor Behavior and Optimize Site Experience

Leading Global Travel Company Will Use LIVE Profiles to Boost ROI and
Drive Precision Marketing on Its Rapidly Growing Web Site

San Mateo, Calif. – August 22, 2005 – Coremetrics™, the leading provider of hosted Web analytics and precision marketing solutions, today announced that educational travel company Elderhostel Inc. has implemented Coremetrics to track and analyze comprehensive customer and visitor behavior for the www.elderhostel.org Web site. Founded in 1975, Elderhostel is the world's largest not-for-profit educational travel organization for people 55 and over.

Elderhostel switched to Coremetrics from another major Web analytics vendor due to Coremetrics' unmatched ability to capture, store and analyze a detailed picture of customer behavior in LIVE Profiles. Elderhostel's Web site represents 20% of its overall sales today, but is expected to grow to 25% by the end of 2006. Elderhostel needed a robust, data-driven tool to drive optimization across its entire range of online marketing campaigns.

"With Coremetrics, we finally have a powerful measurement tool at our fingertips that will allow us to optimize the customer experience at our site," said Peter Spiers, vice president of communications and marketing at Elderhostel. "Our visitors are sophisticated Internet users, so fine-tuning design and navigation on our site based on their behavior will make the shopping process more efficient and, in turn, generate a substantial increase in online sales."

Visitors to www.elderhostel.org search for programs, enroll in programs, and participate in an active online community. Elderhostel will use Coremetrics to improve shopping cart abandonment rate, optimize site search, improve the enrollment process for its travel programs, and provide targeted email campaigns to its customers. Before implementing Coremetrics, Elderhostel was only able to collect static data about site visits.

"We weren't able to delve deeply into the data as a way to improve our marketing," said Mr. Spiers. "Using Coremetrics is a huge change for the better, because now we can collect profile-based, instead of session-based, data. This actionable, comprehensive data will enable us to transform our site from a reporting tool to a key marketing tool."

Shortly after implementing Coremetrics, Elderhostel was able to pin down several hot spots on its site that could benefit from changes. For one, Elderhostel believed visitors were leaving the site on the credit card page of the program enrollment process. But in fact, many users were abandoning the sign-up process long before that—on the password page. Elderhostel now knows that providing a simpler way for users who have forgotten their passwords to access the site will drive a significant increase in conversions. Elderhostel also plans to use Coremetrics to develop targeted, highly relevant email campaigns for site visitors.

Elderhostel provides exceptional learning adventures to nearly 200,000 older adults each year. Elderhostel offers over 10,000 programs a year in more than 90 countries. Participants come from every walk of life to learn together, to exchange ideas, and to explore the world.

About Coremetrics
Coremetrics is the leading provider of on-demand Web analytics and precision marketing solutions, offering the industry's only Web analytics platform that captures and stores all customer and visitor clickstream activity to build LIVE (Lifetime Individual Visitor Experience) Profiles. Representing the single most accurate and comprehensive source of online customer data, LIVE Profiles serve as the foundation for all successful eBusiness initiatives. Leading online brands rely on Coremetrics LIVE Profiles to monitor and optimize the performance of multiple marketing campaigns, improve cross-sell and multichannel initiatives, and precisely target customers through intelligent marketing campaigns. Coremetrics services more than 450 brands and has delivered over $250 million in documented ROI in the past two years. The company is privately held with funding from Accel Partners and Highland Capital Partners and is headquartered in San Mateo , California with offices in Austin , Texas and London , England . To learn more about Coremetrics, visit www.coremetrics.com or call 877-721-CORE.

Coremetrics has strongly supported online privacy since its inception. To learn more, visit www.coremetrics.com/privacy.

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