After meeting a small but enthusiastic group of Web Analytics practitioners at 3 Guizhou Ren in Soho last night, I am even more excited about Web Analytics in China, and being part of the ecosystem. Some of this has to do with this blog, some with the the great people I met, some with progress in the industry. But step by step.
Blog
- After posting about the event (too late), I got contacted by several people within a day, showing interest in the event. It seems someone is reading this Blog after all. Or better but, finally I can put a name for some of the people who read this blog. I promise to let you know early next time around
Peoplew
- Every attendee was deeply knowledgeable and enthusiastic about Web Analytics and optimization. Judging by the quality of people involved in Web Analyitcs we are going to see some intriguing insight soon.
- Quantity of attendees is still an issue. While I loved every minute of the 3 hours we spent last night, I knew everyone by name before the meeting already. Where are the Incognito web analysts out there? Where was Google? Where were other local and international vendors? I am working on these issues and hope to bring in more people for the next event in January
Industry development
- Advertisers get more experienced in web marketing. While we still need spend significant efforts on education, 6 months we seem to be a good rule of thumb to get a client up to speed
- Web Analytics and the challenges involved vary widely based on campaign objectives. While lead generation campaigns are straight forward, and e-commerce campaign have clear KPI’s too (show me the money), awareness and preference campaigns are challenging measure effectively online.
- Landing page optimization is an often overlooked but central part of every campaign. Agencies and advertisers are smarting up.
- Media vendors and advertisers are moving away from cost per day to cost per click… slowly but noticeably. It starts with remnant inventory monetization, but is spreading to high quality inventory.
I hope this overview provides a good idea about the quality of the discussion and gives my readers a good incentive to turn up next time around.
Happy Weekend,
Florian
Following the Web Analytics Wednesday tradition, with a local twist, we will hold a Web Analytics Thursday dinner tonight at 3 Guizhou Ren (?????) SoHo (Venue | Map | Building 7, Jianwai SoHo). Leave a comment or drop me a line if you want to attend. Do the same if you can’t attend but want to join next time.
I hope to see you tonight.
When new members join our team I give them a set of free resources to build up their web analytics skills. The list is ever expanding, so feel free to add your perspective in the comments section. I hope this is helpful to you.
Ranked in no particular order
- Avinash Kaushiks Blog “Occams Razor” is a great source of insight and inspiration for anyone in the industry. With its pratical advice, from strategic to operational, this blog ranks as my number one web analytics web destination.
- WAA Yahoo Group: The Web Analytics Association runs a great Yahoo group that provides the best Q&A platform available. Questions are answered by an enthusiastic and helpful community of practice. I often found the feedback cycle in the group faster than getting in touch with internal experts or vendor support.
- Vendor manuals: RTFM (Read the F*#$king manual) goes a common saying in tech support. The same is true for any Web Analytics tool you use. Understanding how key metrics are measured in your tool and what each metric means is critical to making informed decisions (no there is no standard)
- Vendor trainings & white papers: Most analytics vendors provide a strong library of trainings and white papers for their clients. Use them. New users are often presented with the user interface and the instruction “give it a try”. Starting with a vendor’s online training, followed up with your own best practice training is certainly a better way.
- Stephane Hamel’s blog Immeria.net provides specific advice for Omniture users that I often find invaluable. Identify the key practitioners for your tools online and offline. Read their blogs, books etc. and….
- Get involved in the community. Comment on blogs, ask & answer questions on the Yahoo Group, participate in your local Web Analytics Wednesday. We are just starting out our own event in Beijing. Join the dialog and grow with us.
While everybody and their grandmother is talking about "New Marketing" or "4E’s", our own work with on viral marketing and "engaging online experiences" has triggered me to think about the impact these concepts will have on online media spending.
When brands focus their marketing efforts on "joining the conversation" with users, and "first understand, then be understood" (which certainly makes sense in China, too). Who will pay the bills of the loudspeakers (read portals) of todays online ecosystem?
While I do not believe that this business will go away any time soon, I do see a significant reallocation of online marketing budget in 2008 and beyond, from banner advertising to more integrated long term efforts that include syndicated content, in depth media cooperation and interactivity (e.g. blog, bbs, chat, votes, competitions etc). With the rising tide of online ad spending in China, many a Kuai will flow down this Sina/Sohu river. But in two or three years what looks like a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end, will look more like the bridge over the aptly named river.
Now if you have enough of my poorly written allegories you can check what Jeff Davis over at the Guardian has to say on the topic. I will toil on to find more effective ways to analyze and optimize the online effort of our clients in this brave new world. A short hint: It really helps if you can add your own tracking codes on your media partners site (at least the part they customize for you).
And will I do this, can anyone explain to me how advertising will be different from PR when all we do is build a conversation? Anyone? Kaiser?
In what could be a watershed event for Web Analytics in China, Baidu has made Tongyi, a self developed Web Analytics Tool, available to members of it Baidu Union ad network (Hat tip to TagEdge for the news). As I have argued before in "Why Google (and Baidu) need a Web Analytics Evangelist in China)", Web Analytics is one of the most effective tools for search engines to demonstrate the superior targeting and conversion that can be achieved through a well run SEM campaign.
Readers of this this blog already know the lamentable state of web analytics in China, where 160 odd million internet users were served by ZERO web analytics vendors (counting commercial WA vendors that have offices in China). And While Google Analytics is used selectively, there is no analytics community to speak off, judging by the discussions during the recent Ad:tech Beijing, and my lasted swing through the local Blogosphere.
I trust that Baidu’s move in the area will spur the development in 4 ways
- Expose small and medium local sites to web analytics for the first time and encourage them to run their site in a more data driven way.
- Encourage Google to toot the horn of its superior tool (please correct me if you have seen more of Tongyi than me) harder and invest more in teaching Chinese users how to use it.
- Persuade specialized web analytics vendors that there is a market in China for their products after all and a market entry is in order. (at least once the corporate strategy team is getting over its M&A fever)
- Following (1), inspire a group of local developers to build a "Chinese Omniture, Webtrends, Clicktracks, _insert successful US vendor here_.
Stay tuned for more on how this story evolves.
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