When Teletext, the UK content provider, launched its £2 million (€3.3m) online marketing campaign at the beginning of 2002, it did something unusual: it unplugged its expensive web analytics software and replaced it with Intellitracker.

Founded in 2000, Intellitracker pulls together end-user data in 'real time' and presents it to customers in a business report format, complete with tables and graphs. The twist is in the delivery mechanism: Intellitracker is offered on an application service provider (ASP) basis.

This helps organisations to respond more quickly to end-user activity than they can with traditional log file analysis tools, says Mark Wilding, client services director and co-founder of Intellitracker.

The company's core service is Intellitracker Visitor Reporting System (IVRS), which is run remotely from the company's data centre in London. IVRS includes a broad range of services, including customer lifecycle analysis (to improve retention and conversion rates), site auditing (to provide advertisers with data about web site traffic), and online marketing campaign tracking.

The brains of IVRS is its 'browser tagging' software. A small piece of Java software code is placed on every page on a web site, which can be done in a few hours across multiple web sites, says Wilding.

This enables sites to track end-user activity such as data requests or 'click-throughs' on online advertisements. IVRS also details where a visitor to a web site came from – information that is vital for judging the efficiency of an email or advertising campaign run on another site.

Intellitracker has about 10 "serious" customers in Europe, boasts Wilding, including online auction specialist QXL Ricardo, IT publishing house VNU and mobile communications giant Nokia. "These are typically six-figure contracts."

This is important because Intellitracker is lightly funded. So far, the three founders have put about £2 million (€2.3m) of their own money into the company. Additional funding will be required for Intellitracker if it is to expand beyond the UK. It will also have to overcome a great deal of suspicion towards ASPs among IT decision makers. This could prove to be a bigger barrier to Intellitracker's growth than its competitors, which include Red Sheriff, Clickstream and WebTrends.

However, this should not detract from the promising start Intellitracker has made during the current IT spending downturn.