The new Audience Analytics tool, which goes live today, lets publishers determine a reader’s sex, which age group they belong to, what motivates them and what they are looking for using VisualDNA’s image-based survey system.

Apart from short, simple prompts, surveys are completely visual. Respondents are presented with a grid of images, and click on whichever one best represents their feelings on a subject.

To create a reader profile using Audience Analytics, a publisher must create a URL that leads the site visitor to a page where they take a quiz to determine their make-up.

Profiles are split into six segments: gadget lover, sofisticat, nester, explorer, adrenaline seeker and fashionista. Each segment contains demographic information, a word cloud containing key phrases and an image bank showing their leisure, lifestyle, travel and branding preferences.

In the gadget lover segment, for example, key words are ‘computers’, ‘gaming’ and ‘electronics’.

VisualDNA says that by using the profiling tool publishers can tailor editorial content to suit their audience and generate extra revenue through targeted advertising.

“For the average publisher, the sort of analytics products that are available are the likes of Google Analytics, which does a brilliant job telling you about page views and visitor numbers but doesn’t tell you anything about users,” said CEO Alex Willcock (pictured). “The intention is to give publishers a greater degree of transparency as to who is visiting their site.”