SlideShare targets marketers with presentation-tracking tool

SlideShare, the online presentation property of professional social network LinkedIn, today released a new feature called Send Tracker to help presentation makers determine which of their slides are the most effective.

LinkedIn purchased SlideShare in May 2012. The online deck-hosting tool, only partially integrated with LinkedIn, accounts for 39 million monthly unique visitors, or 25 percent of LinkedIn's total monthly unique audience. SlideShare is also at the center of the public company's strategy to become a hub for professional content.

Send Tracker, a new tool for users who pay to use SlideShare, is specifically tailored toward marketers, salespeople, and academics who want to understand a lead's or student's activity with a particular deck, LinkedIn Director of Business Development Ross Mayfield told CNET.

Presentation owners can use the Send Tracker dashboard to send a link to a contact and get notified when that person opens the email and clicks on the presentation. The dashboard then highlights a summary of all activity and provides links to detailed reports on each generated tracker. The individual tracker pages show exactly where a person started or finished viewing slides, if he or she made repeat visits, and how much time was spent on each slide.

SlideShare's paid product starts at $19 per month, but the service is offering all application users the option to test Send Tracker free of charge on a single presentation.