AdmitOne’s new tool to make subscription-based sites more profitable

AdmitOne has built a security business with a technology, called keystroke dynamics, that can recognize who’s logging into an account by the pattern of the person’s typing.
Now it’s launching an analytics business that promises to boost business opportunities for its clients by measuring 200 different metrics when someone is logged in.
The heart of the Scout Analytics service still focuses on keystroke dynamics. It can tell, for instance, if multiple people are sharing a single subscription account and if they need to be told to pay for multiple subscriptions, says Matt Shanahan, senior vice president at AdmitOne.
Online subscriptions to information services is a $109 billion business, according to market researcher Outsell. More than 7,000 companies in 12 market segments use subscriptions as their primary business model to sell more than 25,000 products.
Scout Analytics, which the company has been testing since November, can pick up more than just whether or not people are sharing subscriptions. It can, for instance, tell (in a way that protects your privacy) whether you log on from home or via a laptop from a variety of locations. It tells how frequently you log in, what devices you use to do so, and what you do while logged on. If you’re engaged in a free trial, it can predict whether you’re using the service so much that you’re likely to become a permanent user. If your subscription renewal data is coming up and you start downloading as much information as possible, that’s evidence that you’re getting ready to defect to a rival or just end your subscription.
All of this data can help companies recover revenue at a time when the recession is making every penny count.
Consider a typical service provider’s business. The companies spend so much on marketing to acquire new customers that it often takes 18 months to 24 months  of subscription fees to make the subscriber profitable. So it’s more important to retain or upsell customers that the company already has.
Security Analytics can automatically detect patterns in usage and predict whether a subscriber will be receptive to an upgrade to a more expensive service.
Clients can subscribe to Security Analytics and log in to its web site to get access to data. Security Analytics can also send alerts to sales people to suggest what to do about certain subscribers.
The tests so far are promising. A Security Analytics customer in the real estate subscription business found it could realize a 15 percent rise in membership numbers after using Scout Analytics for 90 days. Thanks to the keystroke dynamics detection of multiple users on a single account and the subsequent interaction with the subscribers, there’s a 30 percent reduction in the number of Internet addresses logging into the service.
In return, Scout Analytics charges a percentage of the revenue gain that results from its service. Shanahan said customers are going live with pilot tests in certain segments, such as financial services, in the coming weeks. Rivals include Cybersource, Omniture, Marin Software and Salesforce.com. But none of those companies has the benefit of the keystroke dynamics technology.