Web Analytics in China

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

Florian Pihs — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:34:44 GMT

Chinalytics,

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

-Florian

Learn more:
https://www.linkedin.com/e/isd/302443151/KLZk68mD/

Web Analytics Wednesday with Banru (Recap)

Florian Pihs — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:19:01 GMT

Just found a note to myself from last month. It said "If you don't write up the event review immediately, you will never do it." So here we go, no bad consciousness this month.
As usually a colorful band of web analyst as sympathizers met up at Club Camp for a merry get together. This time we had the honor to host a presentation by Song Jie, CEO of Banru a local web analytics vendor. They position their product Web -IA as a direct competitor as direct competitor to the likes of WebTrends and Omniture, so this promised to be an interesting presentation.

Presentation on Web-IA
This summary will necessary a bit limited since your truly is not as good in Chinese as he should be. What you read here is often only possible through the kind support of WAW attended who help with the translation.

Web IA started as early as 2001 to provide basic analytics solutions.
Multiple versions of their products compete is several market segments from medium to high end. In the high end Song Jie believed their feature set outstrips Omniture. While I believe this to be a very aggressive claim, their impressive client list seems an evidence of their local success. Song Jie especially highlighed their partnership with Microsofts service operation, who implemented Web-IA at several corporate clients.
While none of the attendees was a user of the product, we could agree that have a strong engineering team in town is a strong competitive advantage. Song Jie commented that their tech support team is able to provide custom reports within 24h after a client request.
Web IA is based on a web interface, and does sport direct data warehouse access, for custom reports their rely on their tech support and engineering team.
Web IA can be integrated with various BI tools. While it lacks standard API's, their engineering team has several standard implementations that can be customized to client needs.

Attendees
With about 19 attendees the event size is stabilizing. Interestingly enough the attendees rotate quite a lot. We have a core group of 7 - 9 people who are there every time and some 25 - 30 people who join once in a while. Another interesting trend is the growth of attendees that are not web analysts but advertisers. I see this as an encouraging trend, although the discussion are more detailed with fellow analysts

Discussion
This time discussion were a bit short, due to the late start of the event. After some brainstorming we agreed to change the format a bit. Instead of a formal dinner set up, we will sent the food up in a buffet arrangement, so we walk around and talk to each other. That should facilitate communication and discussion.

Please use the comment section for detailed feedback and idea what we can do better. If you want to join our illustrious line up of speakers, please also drop me a not. We are very interested in case studies and sample analytics reports. Vendors are also welcome to present their products.

So long and until next month.
Florian

Speaker for tomorrow's Web Analytics Wednesday

Florian Pihs — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:50:31 GMT

With the help of Wu Yong we locked down a speaker for tomorrow's WAW. Ms. Song is the CEO of the local Web Analytics vendor "Banuo" (litereal translation), whose product Web-Ia runs on several large telecom sites in China. I am sure we are going to have an exciting evening comparing features and learning about their business.

Come join the Web Analytics community in Beijing

Florian Pihs — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:07:45 GMT

Time is flying and its July already. Germany lost the Eurocup to Spain but life goes on. What better way to get over the final blues (or the post party hangover) than meeting friends, colleagues and other smart people at this weeks Wednesday's Web Analytics Wednesday.
While we haven't decided on a topic yet (volunteers anyone?) I am sure we will have another interesting and thought inspiring event at Club Camp. Please drop by and bring your colleagues and other interested folk as well.

Time and location as follows:

Time: Wednesday June July 2nd / 8PM - 10PM
Location: Club Camp (near Workers Stadium) more detail and a map at Dianping

Please RSVP
- by commenting on this post
- or on the Web Analytics Wednesday Website

See you on Wednesday.

Do you wan't to be one the forefront of web analytics in China? Come work for me!

Florian Pihs — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:26:29 GMT

After a long break I am beak with a request for your help. We are currently looking to beef up our Web Analytics team and have compiled the job description below for a senior analyst (with a big hand from Aviansh's sample job description). Please reach out to me if you are interested at florian-dot-pihs-at-ap-dot-mccann-dot-com. If your know someone who is interested please kindly get us in touch. If you don't fulfill all the requirements yet (but aspire to), reach me anyway, we need some analysts and junior analysts as well. Please leave any questions in the comment section of this post.

Typical Deliverables:

Weekly, monthly reports (excel, BI tools, click stream analytics).
Website behavior and customer experience analysis.
Data consolidation and validation.
Coordinating tags, tracking parameter implementations.
Business requirements synthesized from multiple sources including product managers, development teams, and functional group members.
Documentation relating to existing processes and suggestion / presentations for improving those processes.
Effective and persuasive presentations (verbal and written) for project teams and business leaders.

Knowledge / Background / Experience:

Bachelor’s degree (MBA preferred).
Analytics Preferably one to two years of working with standard click stream analysis tools: Omniture, Click Tracks, WebTrends, HBX, Core Metrics etc.
Experience in advanced web analytics methodologies such as experimentation and testing, competitive analysis, surveys and market research.
Experience in one or more roles in an online e-commerce or online support environments.
Expertise with Business Intelligence tools, such as Brio, Business Objects, Micro Strategy, Cognos etc with experience writing and tuning SQL queries in a online or offline environment preferred.
Three to five years of experience in using the Microsoft Office suite with very strong Excel skills.
Excellent communication skills and ability to interact with all levels of end users and technical resources.
Exposure to project management skills, business process redesign principles, tools and techniques a plus.

Team / Leadership Skills:
Works effectively both independently and as a member of a cross functional team.
Uses sound judgment to identify issues and escalates when appropriate.
Contributes to improvements in processes (technical or business) used by analysts.
Drives focused decisions within specific areas and is a key contributor to decisions beyond specific scope of role.
Ability to identify key needs or gaps and provide leadership to close those gaps.
Resolves disagreements and conflicts constructively, knows when to involve others.
Learns from mistakes, takes action to apply the lessons and provides peer and team wide feedback for those in immediate area of focus.
Identifies and communicates specific personal growth goals for self.

Technical / Functional Skills:

Understands relevant technology applications in their area.
Using strong analytical skills provides insights as well as recommendations for changes
Identifies and drives requirements trade-offs by proposing solutions to BU/FU leadership.
Handles multiple tasks, switches priorities and focuses as needed.
Exhibits high degree of pro-activeness in analyzing customer behavior using available data to influence changes on the website.
Understands the complex web ecosystems and best practices and applies this knowledge to their work.
Collaborates on creation of project plan and tasks for the team.

All new Web Analytics Wednesday coming up this Wednesday featuring WebTrends (Location Changed)

Florian Pihs — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:03:13 GMT

While I still haven't managed to write up the last event, (shame on me) the next WAW is just around the corned! This time we have Mr. Li Guangyin speaking to introduce WebTrends. Guangyin has been with Ronghai Consulting, WebTrends' China distributor for more than 5 years and recently started his own independent Web Analytics practice. He is one of the most experience WebTrends implementers in town and I am already excited to pick his brain on some of the WebTrends issues that have been bugging us.

Time and location as follows:

Time: Wednesday June 4th / 8PM - 10PM
Location: Club Camp (near Workers Stadium) San Ge Guizhou Ren more detail and a map at Dianping

Please RSVP on the Web Analytics Wednesday Website or by commenting on this post.

See you on Wednesday

Gartner Web Analytics Maturity Model

Florian Pihs — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:48:20 GMT

In his a recent post Stephane Hamel linked to an interesting Gartner slide about their "Web Analytics Maturity Model". It seems a I am a bit late to the party, since the slide was presented at eMetrics 2007 in San Francisco.

Regardless, its an interesting view of the evolution of web analytics. Where do your efforts fall? Most of what I see in China is squarely in level 1. Some leaders are implementing level 2 or 3 activities, but I have not seen any web analytics implementations here that would fall into Gartner's "CRM" or "Corporate Performance Measurement" level.
While we could ague about which activity should go into which level (I would argue well defined personas should go into level 4), I see the main value of this graph in showing us what else can be done outside our current scope of work. Thought provoking stuff.

The third party online metrics controversy - part 2

Florian Pihs — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:38:02 GMT

Reader Tai Te, posted an interesting comment on the "The third party online metrics controversy" post, that I used to argue that 3rd party metrics are unnecessary to plan online marketing campaigns and and to evaluate campaigns success. This post generated a lot of interest due to Kaiser Kuo's mention his the Digitalwatch blog.

Tai Te writes:

"That's all useful to see if your ad WAS effective but it doesn't help much when it comes to guessing if your ad WILL BE effective."

I highlight this comment because it echos common concerns about using web analytics metrics for campaigns planning and evaluation.
I can agree with this criticism for "one off" campaigns. It becomes mute though when you regularly or continuously run campaigns (which is the case for most online advertisers) since you can build on experience. It also leads to best practices that accommodate media testing and continuous media optimization.
Testing and ongoing optimizations are critical for other reasons too. While reliable 3rd party metrics will be able to tell you the number of impressions and clicks you can expect for your campaign given a dollar number and media, these metrics will not allow you to predict the results of the campaign.
Real campaign results (outcomes) depend on actions users take on your landing page (e.g. buy, register, play video, learn more etc.) I would argue that its these outcomes you should optimize your media buying for.

Actionable web analytics - Web Analytics Wednesday Beijing - Join this Wednesday

Florian Pihs — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:57:38 GMT

After returning from the May holiday, its time to talk web analytics again. This time I am going to take 15 min of your time to talk about "actionable web analytics". Or how to build a web analytics process that provides actionable insights. Of course I will be looking for your input and your insights as well.

Time: Wednesday May 7th/ 8PM - 10PM
Location: Club Camp (near Workers Stadium) www.dianping.com/shop/2341681

Please RSVP on the Web Analytics Wednesday Website or by replying to this post.

You input needed for Web Analytics Wednesday in May

Florian Pihs — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:43:30 GMT

During the last WAW event we agreed to meet more regularly, on a monthly schedule. I recommend the first Wednesday each month. In May this would be May 7th. Right after the May holiday. Considering the increasing size of our group, I will follow Wu Yong guidance to keep the location stable. So with no further ado I give the stage to my readers. Where would you arrange a Web Analytics Wednesday in Beijing? We need

A room for 15 to 20 people on 2 tables
Good food at reasonable prices (<RMB 80 person incl. drinks) preferably lower
Internet access
Somewhere in Chaoyang

Comments are open and highly appreciated.

Blog in Chinese!

Sidney Song — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:39:19 GMT

Many friends ask for a Chinese blog about Web Analytics for our community. And we got one at Sohu blog. But after several months, the experience was not as good as we expected because we can't use any analytics tool to track the traffic and optimize the content accordingly.
So, it seems a better way out is to have a place for our own and no need to depend on any BSP. That's what we do this time.
Now, after several days efforts, we got it - a new blog:
http://www.chinawebanalytics.cn

Yes, the web server space and domain name are brand new, but what we want to do hasn't changed -

Introduce basic concepts of web analytics, (as China is still in its WA infancy)
translate articles of this blog and other best oversea knowledge to Chinese practitioners, (you will see articles of Florian, Avinash, Eric T. Peterson and other good writers for web analytics.)
make more friends, (please pay attention to the event notice, especially WAW notice)
and build up our community.

So, please fovorite the URL above, visit the blog and give us comments. I will appreciate that.
Thanks Florian, and all our friends. See you there!

Read This!

Florian Pihs — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:27:41 GMT

My colleague Song Xing (Sidney) is gearing up to translate not only my posts, but also posts of global web analytics thought leaders on his blog. If you prefer to read about analytics in Chinese, go there! Also tell your less English inclined friends about this great resources. Its a big step forward in our industry.
To take a look at what other thought leader write about analytics in English, take a look at my blogroll in the sidebar or subscribe to my shared items feed. Or as a comprehensive references, buy

Avinash's book "Web Analytics: One hour a day", which provides much more than the title suggest
and Eric T. Peterson's "The big Book of KPI's" which remains an amazing reference.

While both "guru's" are engaged in a vigorous debate about how "hard" or "easy" web analytics is, I recommend you to read them both. They offer amazing insights and have been my guide on this interesting ride since the beginning.

Web Analytics in Asia - Panel @ Verge

Florian Pihs — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:16:29 GMT

Kaiser Kuo at Digitalwatch has an interesting write up of the Metrics and Measurement Panel at Verge. While there focus is all of Asia, there is certainly a lot of meat there about China (did someone say red meat?) Take a look at check it out.

Web Analytics Wednesday in Beijing Recap

Florian Pihs — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:03:23 GMT

Thanks everyone for joining last week’s Web Analytics Wednesday. It was the largest and most diverse WAW in Beijing so far. The community is growing and you are the core. Rock on! Special thanks to Zhou Yang from Google for presenting on Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer and to Eric Peterson and the folks at Web Analytics Demystified for generously sponsoring the event.

People

With 13 participants this was the largest WAW to date in Beijing (30% growth QoQ :)). The room was bursting at its seams, so we are looking for a larger location next time. In addition to the usual suspects (folks from MRM Worldwide, OgilvyOne and DMG: Thanks for your loyalty), new faces came from Ronghai Consulting and major Chinese SOE’s like Air China and China Netcom. It was also the first meeting to be conducted mainly in Chinese. I am particularly pleased with this development (while I can't understand every word being said). I see it as a evidence that we finally start to reach the local practitioners. Most of praise goes to Wu Yong, a leading local WebTrends expert, who has an amazing talent reaching local users.

Presentations (Google Analytics / Google Website Optimizer)

Google’s Zhou Yang shared two insightful presentations with a captivated audience and graciously agreed to share the decks with me. I have uploaded the files to a brand new WAW Beijing Google Group. Check it out.

Zhou Yang with captivated audience. (Next time we need Sidney to take pictures again)

Discussion

While the early discussion focused on experience sharing about these two Google tools, we also had a more far reaching discussion on communicating analytics findings and reconciling data from multiple tools.

Google Analytics

Pro’s

Free of charge
Easy to use interface. New users (and many web analysts in China are new) show a very steep landing curve with GA. After less than a week they are able to get all relevant report while packages like WebTrends’ and Omniture’s can take more than a month to feel comfortable in.
Strong functionality, can cover 98% of all web analytics needs in China right now
Data sharing setting allow complete privacy for the data.

Con’s
Tracking servers are hosted in the US, channeling server calls to the US might impact data quality. The extend of the problem is not clear, but Zhou Yang assured that it is not a major issue. Google will also work to set up a tracking server in China, to insure that users feel more confident.
GA uses a JS bases tracking strategy and a hosted application (like most state of the art solutions). For many local users that is an issue, since they want to control their analytics data themselves. Many users therefore use server log bases tools (mainly Webtrends). Google log file solution (Urchin), can address this need, but is widely unknown.

Use cases

Most members of the audience are users of "corporate" web analytics tools like Omniture Sitecatalyst, WebTrends and IndexTools.
GA only used in non standard cases, where the processes of implementing the corporate solution is too time consuming.

Website Optimizer

There was strong interest in the capabilities of GWO.
None of the audience members are active users of GWO or any other A/B or Multivariate testing tools. I attribute that to the early stage of web analytics in China. Clients often don't buy the value of testing and find it a waste of money. More advocacy and training is needed to get the ball rolling.
Clickmaps provided by current analytics solutions are most often used to make decisions on landing page design

Communicating Analytics

Communicating what web analytics is, and what it can do for decision makers is an even larger challenge than implementing tools. We discussed some strategies to solve this problem, but none of use could say is as eloquently as Avinash in his recent post on the topic. Read it!

Using multiple analytics solutions on one site

One interesting question was about data discrepancies when using multiple tools on one site. I commented numbers from different tools are different and may never be exactly the same. The key question though is if both tools are showing the same trends. If so, you can take action. More the data consolidation from Avinash and Eric T. Peterson.

To learn more about these and other web analytics topics, please join the next event. I am confident we can get together again in early May.

Chinese version of this blog (中文的博客)

During the discussion it became clear that it the community is looking for a Chinese language platform to discuss about Web Analytics. That seems to be a good time to bring the Chinese version of this blog out of stealth mode. My colleague Song Xing has been so nice to translate my post into Chinese on his blog . Please go there for your fill of web analytics news and analysis in Chinese. I will also add a link to Song Xing’s blog directly at the top of my sidebar.

Have I missed anything, did I ignore the Chinese part of the discussion? Tell me in the comments section.

The third party online metrics controversy

Florian Pihs — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:24:29 GMT

One of the questions that regularly comes up in my discussions with friends like Kaiser Kuo and Bill Bishop, is the lack of reliable 3rd party data for web traffic in China. Their beef is that data from sources like Alexa and iResearch is unreliable and open to abuse.
My answer is usually quite simple: It really doesn't matter that much for advertisers. An effectively implemented web analytics program will provide all the data that is needed for a comprehensive online advertising optimization effort.

Your media plan will tell you how much you spend on each media and each banner.
Campaign tagging will tell you how many visits came form each banner and each media. It enables you to calculate cost per landing page visit (CPV).
Goal tracking and conversion tracking will tell you how many visit from what banner actually ended in the desired end action on your site. This enables you to calculate the cost per end action (CPA).

These data sets enable effective optimization of media spending, without relying on any data from the publisher or the ad tracking vendor. All data is owned by the advertiser.

For campaigns that emphasize brand awareness, CPV is a good key performance indicator (KPI). It tells you how many times your ad has been seen by a visitor to the publishers site that found it interesting enough to click on and interested enough in your content to actually wait until your landing page was loaded.

I find optimizing for CPV more effective than optimizing for CPM (Cost per 1K impressions) or CPC (cost per click).
CPM is sub optimal, because an ad impression just means the banner has been loaded from the ad server (or the tracking pixel has been loaded from the tracking server to be exact). It does not mean that the ad has actually been seen or that, if it was seen, had any impact on the observer.
CPC is sub optimal because in China many clicks on banners seem to be accidental and users will abort the loading process once they notice that are actually leaving the publisher's site

For campaigns with a specific end action (or a set of specific end actions) as campaign goal, CPA is the most relevant metric, since it allows you to directly link your ad spend with the desired return.

There are two drawbacks to this approach

It required continuous testing and regular optimization. (which you should do anyway)
It does not help investors or VC's, since their main interest in tracking publishers traffic is gauging revenue potential by projecting its revenue potential. Well, maybe it helps to talk to advertiser who actually spend money on the site. The advertisers ROI could be a metric to understand if a publisher has the potential to grow its ad revenue.

Google Analytics talk in Shanghai

Florian Pihs — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:55:56 GMT

Those of you that cannot attend our Web Analytics Wednesday event next Thursday, do not despair. The folks from LexAd are running a Google Analytics workshop in Shanghai on April 22nd and May 27th. This is not the first time they do that, just the first time I notice Thanks Sidney for pointing this out! If any one of my readers has attended their workshop before, please let me know how it went. The comment section is the perfect place

Web Analytics Wednesday in Beijing (China) next Thursday

Florian Pihs — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:06:50 GMT

Given the great interest in the WebTrends drinks / dinner event, I am happy to announce the next Web Analytics Wednesday (on a Thursday) for Thursday April 3rd / 8PM - 10PM. Sponsored by Web Analytics Demystified Inc., I have invited Google's Zhou Yang to present a quick introduction to Google Analytics (15 min) to start off the discussion. Given the great interest in tools, I am planning future sessions for WebTrends, Omniture, SinoTechMedia and other vendors in upcoming months. Please do recommend other vendors you are aware of, I am happy to add more to the list.

Time: Thursday April 3rd / 8PM - 10PM
Location: South Beauty (Dong Zhi Men branch)

Please RSVP on the Web Analytics Wednesday website or by commenting to this post.

WebTrends Dinner Recap

Florian Pihs — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:16:40 GMT

In the most well attended web analytics event in Beijing yet, our group of local Web Analytics practitioners met WebTrends' Sean Browning and Colby Cavanaugh in Bed Bar to talk about WebTrends activities in China.
While this post cannot do justice to the rich discussions going on during the event (you have to BE THERE to get the full flavor), I will try to summarize to key points here, as a quick reference to all those who attended as well as for those of you who could not join (but hopefully drop by next time).

Attendees

Our honored guests from WebTrends (including Ronghai Consulting, their local reseller)
Agencies: MRM Worldwide, Ogilvy One, DMG
Clients and Entrepreneurs: Nokia China Interface Lab, Jonathan Zhou, Olandio (ex Baidu)

Topics

WebTrends China Strategy: WebTrends is managing its global expansion through a regional partner network. Sean and Colby's reason to visit Beijing was a regional North Asia parter event, hosted by Ronghai. WebTrends sees this as a key advantage to drive a fast global roll-out with localized service, quick response times and fast adoption of local business practices. It certainly seems to have worked in China, judging from the client list on Ronghai's website (which interestingly uses Google Analytics, instead of WebTrends) and my experience with their response times and unique set of trainings and services.
WebTrends & Double byte characters: One support questions that kept popping up was WebTrends' support for double byte characters. We had discussions with our clients that indicated WebTrends might have problems tracking pages that have certain double byte characters in their page title. Neither Ronghai nor the WebTrends team could report mayor tracking issues (apart from some display issues in the interface). Some problems might occur based on customized JavaScripts used for certain clients. As with Omniture SiteCatalyst, customization can be a blessing and a curse. We will be looking into that.
Clients in China: While Ronghai's client list is impressive (incl. China Mobile, China Telecom, Air China, China Merchants Bank), proving that Web Analytics is much more prevalent than I imagined, actual use of the tool is still limited. Most clients do have a reporting infrastructure in place, but rarely optimize their site or advertising based on analytics insights.
Companies that are not clients (surprisingly): Non of the larger local e-commerce players or portals in currently a WebTrends client (nor could I detect any other standard solution using WASP). Most of the large sites use custom made solutions based on server logs and Oracle databases. Maybe I should not be surprised, neither Yahoo, nor Google nor MSN use standard tools.
WebTrends is a strong supporter of Web Analytics Wednesday's. With Eric Peterson being a WebTrends alumni, thats hardly surprising. The next question through is, when will WebTrends take of Web Analytics Demystified's role as WAW Beijing sponsor? I will keep you posted on this one
Last but not least, WebTrends is going coming back to China. Rest assured that I will let you know more details, when the time comes.

Please do let me know if I missed a key point of the discussion, or got something wrong (it has been known to happen). The comment section is the best place for that.

WebTrends in China (part II)

Florian Pihs — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:49:01 GMT

About two weeks ago I blogged a question about WebTrends in China, and following up on that questions opened a whole new perspective on web analytics in China for me. It turned out that Webtrends indeed has be present in China since 2000, as stated in this press release. Ronghai Consulting is distributing its solution in China and providing training for its local accounts. This is the kind of blow to my world view that I like to see more often! There is actual web analytics life outside the small agency planet I exist on. Unbeknown to your ignorant correspondent, Ronghai has licensed WebTrends to several large state owned enterprises like China Mobile and China Telecoms (HQ and regional telecoms). Since the company focussed on reselling software, all of these installations are local installations, in contrast to the SAAS / On Demand services WebTrends like to sell these days. This modus operandi might actually benefit data accuracy, since the data does not need to travel to the WebTrends servers outside the great firewall.
Another interesting story is the training Ronghai provides for WebTrends, charging local rates (RMB 1K/day/person, less for groups) including

WebTrends installation
WebTrends SDC Java script tagging skills
Campaign tracking configuration skills

This seems to be a good benchmark for Omniture and Baidu in their effort to broaden he base of web analytics users in China. It is also a great reminder to me to continue honing my radar for web analytics activity in China.

WebTrends in Beijing

Florian Pihs — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:32:48 GMT

Web Analytics is becoming serious business in Beijing these days. After I hosted Omniture for a dinner last month, me and Wu Yong (ex. Ronghai Consulting) will host drinks with WebTrends next Tuesday. Please join the fun at Bed Bar. (http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/listings/nightlife/bars/has/bed-bar/). Please do RSVP by replying to this post or sending me an email, so we can reserve a private room that fits everyone. Please feel free to bring everybody else you know to be interested in Web Analytics and WebTrends.

Best,
Florian