Google Analytics in China
Posted by Florian Pihs at 1/20/2008 2:55 PM and is filed under Analytics Packages,Web Analytics Wednesday,Google Analytics 
Among the Analytics tool we are using, Google Analytics is certainly the most popular in China (Based on the noise in the local blogosphere and my own random test with Stephane Hamel's great WASP tool) It is certainly the only company with a presence in the online market with the world's largest internet population (Isn't it ironic, considering how much money is invested in acquisitions these days?).
So I took the opportunity late December to drop by the GooglePlex here in Beijing to say hello to the team. Currently Yang Zhou is handing all the Google Analytics support for Greater China. While she is doing a great job, it seems the priority allocated to GAnalytics in China is still very low. With a reporting line to the AdWords team, only one dediated resource and no budget for outreach efforts at all, this is a very low profile presence. It seems noone at Google read my post Why Google (and Baidu) needs a Web Analytics evangelist in China. While I cannot blame them for not being a this particular club, they miss a large opportunity to trump Baidu in a market that they clearly have a long way to go in. I understand that that AdSense and AdWords are the revenue drivers, but showing advertisers the ROI of their search investment is clearly the best way to get more money out of their pocket. Our data clearly shows higher conversion, more engagement and great ROI for Search Advertising in general and Google in particular. Analytics is the key to these insights, and education and evangelism are sorely need. So Avinash, how about coming out here and sharing some of that Google Analytics goodness?
P.S.: Google's Yang Zhou promised to join as many Web Analytics Wednesdays as she can. So why don't you drop by and join us next Thursday if you want to meet her?
So I took the opportunity late December to drop by the GooglePlex here in Beijing to say hello to the team. Currently Yang Zhou is handing all the Google Analytics support for Greater China. While she is doing a great job, it seems the priority allocated to GAnalytics in China is still very low. With a reporting line to the AdWords team, only one dediated resource and no budget for outreach efforts at all, this is a very low profile presence. It seems noone at Google read my post Why Google (and Baidu) needs a Web Analytics evangelist in China. While I cannot blame them for not being a this particular club, they miss a large opportunity to trump Baidu in a market that they clearly have a long way to go in. I understand that that AdSense and AdWords are the revenue drivers, but showing advertisers the ROI of their search investment is clearly the best way to get more money out of their pocket. Our data clearly shows higher conversion, more engagement and great ROI for Search Advertising in general and Google in particular. Analytics is the key to these insights, and education and evangelism are sorely need. So Avinash, how about coming out here and sharing some of that Google Analytics goodness?
P.S.: Google's Yang Zhou promised to join as many Web Analytics Wednesdays as she can. So why don't you drop by and join us next Thursday if you want to meet her?
Thanks for the shout Florian! Note that the next version of WASP will include detection of Baidu, then it will be interesting to see the evolution of both tools in this important market.
Cheers,
Stephane
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Thanks Stephane, I am very curious on how this will play out. Let me know once you get any data.
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I have a very deep impression for your great enthusiasm for the web analytics in china. And so do I. Also thanks for your comment to Google Analytics in China. Actually we have more and more people to support China Google Analytics users and also we definitely believe the advertising effect is the most important thing for our advertisers and also believe Google Analytics will help them a lot. This is why Google Analytics was imported in Google AdWords.
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Florian: I join the others in commending your passion for our humble little world of web analytics. We need to clone you and spread you around the world!! : )
You are exceedingly kind to invite me to come visit. I share your passion for the opportunity in Asia and I hope that the stars and the moon will line up to permit a APAC evangelism trip!
Thanks,
Avinash.
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Thanks Avinash, Let me know when this lucky constellation arrives.
I will lobby Yang Zhou here in China to do some Google internal "communication". China has a long history of aligning (red) stars so lets see I remain optimistic :).
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Hi All,
Does anyone know if there are any Google analytics tracking servers in China? We were heavy users of Analytics up until late last year when we realised that we were getting a 1-2 second performance it on many pages because of the tracking script. Has anyone had any similar experiences? Does anyone know if it's improved?
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Hi Daniel, That is an interesting question. During our Web Analytics Wednesday event I checked with Zhou Yang, Google's Analytics support person on this question. Her feedback was that currently all GA tracking servers are hosted in the US.
One alternative would be using Urchin, Google's analytics server. You will need to pay for a license and run your own tracking server.
Another way to speed up tracking is hosting the ga.js or urchin.js locally. This way the browser doesn't need to load any content but the tracking pixel from Google's servers. More details hereand here
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I read somewhere that in China, users can not see any google's cached page. Is it true?
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Yes, you are right. Google's cached pages are not accessible in China. Baidu's cache in contrast is. A little bit of an uneven playing field here, if you ask me. The theory is that users could use Google's cache to circumvent the China's "net nanny".
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This is a great look in to Google Analytics in China ... it makes me consider the amount of traffic that could possibly be generated by targeting the Chinese readership ...
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Thanks Edward for your comments. I have been thinking the exact same thing. Actually you can find Chinese versions of my posts at http://www.chinawebanalytics.cn/. My colleague Song Xing, kindly translates my posts into Chinese.
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