A new adaptive template update strategy was proposed to increase the stability of target tracking in complex background. When the template matching fails similarity analysis between new target area and the template based on segmentation and correlation was applied to find the matching failure causes. A weighted function based on the distance of each pixel to the template center was put forward. And the normalized cross-correlation algorithm was improved to solve the occlusion issue. Experimental results indicate that the template can be modified adaptively. When the target is occluded or the target size is changed, the new algorithm is steadier compared with fixed template algorithm and each-frame template update algorithm.