Chinalytics Longmarch Blog

Web Analytics Wednesday logo

Web Analytics Wednesday is maturing and its very rewarding to see the number of attendees and speakers grow in Beijing and around China. This week will mark a new milestone, as it will be the first event I cannot attend and host in person. On the one hand I am sad not to be able to join and meet all the great analysts who come, on the other had I am excited to see that the event goes on, even if the demands of my job keep me from joining.

This week our guest from DCCI, an up and coming local market research firm, will share their perspective on the Web Analytics market and its importance in understanding the customer journey and brand touch points. You can find some examples of their research and opinion online.

• Hu Yanping blog post on “9 Web analysis and optimization development trends”
• DCCI sample on audience insights:  “2009 Nokia brand contact points and customer journey”

Address:

Pullman’s Steak (details and map)
Gong Ti Dong Lu Zhongguo Hong Jie Bing 2 Hao,109
Phone: +86 10 8587 1055

Agenda:

Call to Action!

Join DCCI’s Hu Yanping and Fu Zhihua  as well as 40 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn about web analytics, meet cool people and have an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along as well.

We will have a buffet dinner and soft drinks available for our guests. Be prepared to spend RMB 50 for the evening if you register in advance, and RMB 100 if you visit us without registration. As usual, the knowledge you get in exchange is invaluable.

We are looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday Nov. 11th

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• Beijing Web Analytics Wednesday: 99click CEO Experience Sharing (longmarch.chinalytics.com)

Web Analytics Wednesday logo

Both Sindey Song at Chinawebanlytics.com and I have extensively written about the importance of bounce rate as a success metric in Web Analytics (see here and here). This Wednesday we will hear from  Mr. Ma Tianyun, President & CEO of 99click, one of the most popular local Web Analytics tool providers, about their perspective on the importance of bounce rate.

His presentation will cover the following topics:

• Web Analytics Industry trends
• Site analysis, key performance indicators and best practices
• How to interpret bounce rate as well as exit rate and the usage of both metric to improve the effectiveness of web marketing

Speaker Introduction:

Mr. Ma Tianyun: CEO Business Assistant Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd (also referred to as 99click)

In 1998 Ma Tianyun received  a Ph.D. at Yale University. After graduating, he joined Oracle Corporation in the United States with a focus on data analysis, software development and management. There Mr. Ma mastered Internet software development and system development, built his technology knowledge and skills and became familiar with the Internet industry. In 2004, Mr. Ma Tianyun joined the Tsinghua Technology Park and founded Business Assistant Technology  Ltd. (hereinafter referred to 99click), and has been focused on Internet marketing, data analysis and application of research in the field.

Please join me and 40 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn about web analytics, meet cool people and have an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along.

We will have a buffet dinner and soft drinks available for our guests. Be prepared to spend RMB 50 for the evening if you register in advance, and RMB 100 if you visit us without registration. As usual, the knowledge you get in exchange is invaluable.

Address:

Pullman’s Steak (details and map)

Gong Ti Dong Lu Zhongguo Hong Jie Bing 2 Hao,109

Phone: +86 10 8587 1055

Agenda:

19:45 – Door open / Buffet open

20:15 – 20:45 Presentation

20:45 – 21:00 Q&A Session

21:00 – 22:00 Networking

Sidney and I are looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday October 14th

- Sponsored by -

When I was still in working in market research, I used to tell clients “If you see the US as an Internet country, you have to see China as a mobile country”. While that is somewhat less true today, when we have more than 330 million Internet users, the dominant from of communication is China is still the mobile phone.
The macro story these days then is the convergence of these two worlds, Internet and Mobile. Mobile Internet is growing increasingly popular. CNNIC is already reporting 155 million mobile internet users.

With such a large number of users, companies are turning their focus on providing mobile internet solutions to their audience. With this increased importance comes a focus on ROI, measurement and analytics. We will explore these topics in detail in this month’s Web Analytics Wednesday. One of the key difference between the fixed and mobile Internet in China is the important role carriers play in the mobile ecosystem. China Mobile, this weeks sponsor and its competitors, control a significant part of the data for mobile analytics. We will use this weeks event to explore their role more deeply and provide input into their considerations for mobile analytics.

We will start the day with a quick intro about WAW globally and in Beijing and then Dr. Zhenwu Tao of the China Mobile Research Institute will introduce their work and thought about mobile analytics. This will be followed by an expert panel on mobile analytics with representatives from China Mobile, Mobile Analytics vendors, Mobile advertising agencies, media agencies and advertisers. Please see the whole agenda below.

Agenda:

China Mobile;s sponsorship allows us to host this month’s event free of charge. We will have some snacks and soft drinks available, without the usual buffet dinner.

Please join me and 60 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn about mobile analytics, meet cool people and have
an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along.

I am looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday September 2nd

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• Mobile Ad Spend to Rise, But Still Leave Room to Grow (gigaom.com)
• China’s Internet Population Hits 338 Million (blogs.wsj.com)

Image via Wikipedia

If you are based in Shanghai, you cannot miss the inaugural Shanghai Web Analytics  Wednesday. Kudos to the team around Min Guo and thanks to the sponsors at Uptake and CIC. Great job.

Time & Date: 7pm, July 15, 2009 (3rd Wed.)

Speaker: Dave Zheng,  Chief Analyst at Newegg.com (US)

Topic: Web Analytics in E-commerce and KPIs
Dave will share how to apply web analytics in e-commence, and the importance of web analytics in operation. He will also focus on the discussion of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of ecommence industry from his experience in Newegg.com.

For more details, please visit http://www.shanghaiwebanalytics.com

The Shanghai WAW has been a long time coming. Tracy and Xu Hai first started talking about it on this blog in March 2008 in the comment thread of a post talking about a Beijing WAW event. There was some momentum but it fizzled a bit when we could not find a lead organizers.

The second wave stated when Uptake’s Elliot Ng joined a Beijing WAW in March this year and offered to sponsor a Shanghai WAW. That got the ball rolling again and after fits and starts it is done.

I feel like a proud godfather. Thanks to all who make this happen. The Beijing team is proud of you!

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• Will the real Shanghai Web Analytics organizer please stand up? (longmarch.chinalytics.com)

Yesterday I had the pleasure to host the July WAW here in Beijing with John Wang, Product Manager at Sinotech Group sharing Sinotech’s perspective on Web Analytics and Social Media Analytics. Thanks John for sharing.

While John had only a couple of slides, it was slide 8 (the SinoBuzz dashboard) that caught most attention and started a discussion that lasted almost half an hour. Thanks John for being a great sport answering all the questions in detail (especially the more pesky ones from Paul Denlinger )

Some take aways from the presentation and the discussion:

• The Social Media tracking field is getting crowded, with pioneer CIC, BBS aggregator Daqi, Ogilvy One’s OBuzz and now Sinotech’s SinoBuzz. That’s great news for advertisers and ad agencies. It keeps everyone on their toes
• Sinotech has been working of Sinobuzz for more than one year. Especially the natural language processor part had been tricky, but they are confident that it produces reliable results now.
  FP: Chinese is a very difficult language to interpret with software. None of the natural language processing tools I have seen for Chinese have worked at an acceptable level. I would love to see a more detailed demonstration of Sinotech’s system on a post and aggregated level to understand if they have cracked this particular nut.
• SinoBuzz is working with connectors to plug into BBS, Blog, Social Network, Video sharing and other conversations. The platform is flexible to add other connectors to any upcoming platform or network.
  FP: This flexibility is a clear competitive advantage, given the more static nature of most competitive products.
• SinoBuzz is trying to aggregate unique metrics from various platform
  • #of BBS post, BBS clicks, BBS replies, Post Sentiment
  • #of Blog post, Blog replies, estimates about Blog post PV’s, Blog post sentiment
  • SNS #of Friends, #of status message, #of posts, # of relies, post sentiment
  • etc

  into general metrics like “reputation” and “attitude”.
  FP: I am highly sceptical of this approach since is a) lack transparency b) ignores unique characteristics of different platforms, their audiences and their impact c) uses unreliable third party resources like Alexa to gauge the impact of sources that do not publish reach (PV) data.

• The Sinobuzz dashboard is well designed and provides a good overview of brand performance. Like most dashboards (see Avinash’s Action Dashboard post), it suffers from the lack of analysis and actionable insights.
  FP: A good rule of thumb for any Dashboard: Handle with care. Dashboards without analytics and recommendations usually end up as pretty charts without impact. The key resource is not the dashboard, but an analyst who understands these numbers and your business and can provide actionable insights and recommendations based on that data. John mentioned that there are more reports to dig deeper and it would be great to understand what these reports can do. The critical queastion remains: How does the tool enable brands to take action?

What are your thoughts? Did I miss anything important? Let me know in the comments section.

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• Defining Social with Usage Data (arnoldit.com)
• Semantic Search Getting Social (marketingpilgrim.com)
• Accidental Measurement And Why We Love Useless Metrics (rohitbhargava.typepad.com)

Attention: Location Change: Now at Club Obiwan (Haidian), Next month back at Luga’s Villa.

Speaker: Mike Pereira, COO at Sinotech Media (TBC)

Topic: Web Analyics Getting Social in China

Please join me and 40 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn about web analytics, meet other web analytics enthusiasts and have an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along as well to.

We will have a buffet dinner and soft drinks available for our guests. Be prepared to spend RMB 50 for the evening if you register in advance, and RMB 100 if you visit us without registration. As usual, the knowledge you get in exchange is invaluable.

Address:
Club Obiwan (Description and Map)
西城区西海西沿4号 离积水潭地铁站300米
Xihai Xiyan No.4, Xicheng district, 300m from Jishuitan subway station

Phone (for directions): 010 8322 1231

Schedule:
19:45 – Door open / Buffet open
20:15 – 20:45 Presentation
20:45 – 21:00 Q&A Session
21:00 – 22:00 Networking

I am looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday July 1st

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• Measuring Social Media at Web Analytics Wednesday (n0d3.org)

During yesterday’s May Web Analytics Wednesday I had the chance to share my thoughts about Testing and why it has to be at the core of digital optimization and innovation.  Please see the deck I shared with the crowed on Slideshare.

In my post on “Landing Page Optimization” in early 2008 I have made a point that is still almost unanimously ignored in developing websites in China.

 The most effective way to an optimized landing page is testing,
but testing itself comes as one part of part of an
effective optimization process.”

I took  this opportunity to reprise this post in a presentation. My objective was to help all attendees to take a fresh look at their web analytics and optimization process and come away with new ideas on how to make it work better. Take a look at the slides and let me know how it worked. The comments are open. Let the fun begin.

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• Landing Page Optimizer (petpeeving.com)
• Stop bouncing: tips for website success (googleblog.blogspot.com)
• Web Analytics vs. Web Design: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? (cmswatch.com)

Daqi Logo

As a web analysts, we try to understand and optimize the performance of our or our clients’ websites and digital campaigns. For the most part that has included media optimization, creative opmtimization and site optimization. In a Web 2.0 world that is not enough anymore. As brands realize that they share the ownership of their brand image with their customers, prospects  and other interested parties online, (who influence each other by sharing their impressions, opinions and feedback trough ever increasing social media channels), brands are asking us to help them make sense of the discussion happening about their brand online a s well.

Zhou Lei will introduce Daqi’s tools and services that enable brands and agencies to keep track of the  ever proliferating online discussion. She will share some examples from auto/IT/FMCG case studies and describe  Daqi’s methodology. A quick intro to their service:

Daqi’s Buzz Radar system monitors 700,000+ BBS and 10 blog service providers in China. We capture av. 500,000+ data points from social media sites every day. From 2004 to now, our database has 8000+ million data entries. Based on the primary data from social media, we provide market intelligence, ads/campaign tracking, industry analysis, online behavior analysis, social media analysis,  IWOM analysis reports for our clients.

Please join Zhou Lei, me and more than 30 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn about web analytics, meet other web enthusiasts and have an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along as well to:

Location: Luga’s Villa (right behind 3.3 in Sanlitun)

Time and date: Wednesday April 1st , 8PM

We will have a buffet dinner and soft drinks available for our guests. Be prepared to spend RMB 50 for the evening. As usual the knowledge you get in exchange is invaluable

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• March Web Analytics Wednesday Beijing with Google’s Stephanie Hsu (longmarch.chinalytics.com)
• Using Web Analytics to Meet Your Business Objectives (edocr.com)

For those of you who didn’t have the  March Web Analytics Wednesday Beijing with Google’s Stephanie Hsu take a look at the video posted above.  Its a full recording of the presentation and Q&A session. The presentation last for 32 minutes and then we have 23 minutes of Q&A. Make sure you don’t miss the insightful questions from our audience. For Song Xing’s video of the event take a look here. We understand that image and sound quality are still sub-optimal and are working on it.

For those of you who have never attended a WAW, this is also a great sneak peak, to see if joining us would add value to you. What is missing from the video of course is the great food and the networking. For that you really have to turn up in person.

During the presentation, in front of a record crowd of 60 attendees,  Stephanie focussed on Custom Reports and Advanced Segments. Both are very powerful tools and Stephanie does a great job demonstrating that power. She is showing actual screenshots from GA, which sometimes makes it diffucult to read what is on the slides. This is compoundend by the fact that I had to use an evluation version of a video conversion software to get the video uploaded.

The video was graciously provided by one of our attendees, but neither of us are experts at filming and editing video. Any recommendations and support in the filming and editing process you can provide is highliy appreachited.

What did you think of this month’s WAW? Like it? Hate it? Want better Chinese translation? Let me know in the comments.

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• Microsoft to shut down adCenter Analytics Beta (downloadsquad.com)
• March Web Analytics Wednesday Beijing with Google’s Stephanie Hsu (longmarch.chinalytics.com)
• New Google Analytics Guide Offers Help for Beginners (searchenginewatch.com)

With a record turnout of 60 attendees for last nights Beijing Web Analytics Wednesday (more details about that, including video!! to follow), we are setting our sights to spreading the WAW goodness to other digital hubs in China. Next stop Shanghai.

We have money:

Local Sponsor: Elliot Ng
Global Sponsor 1: Coremetrics	Global Sponsor 2: Sitespect

We have attendees:

Multiple comment and emails on my and Song Xings blog (Chinese) and in out Inboxes  have asked us about Shanghai events.

What we don’t have is someone who stands up and organizes it.

- Is that you? -

If you are interested, please get in touch with me. I am happy to share my experience and advice. Its not rocket science, it doesn’t take much time nor any money. But its very rewarding, seeing the community grow month by month. Sweet deal, right? So what are you waiting for? Shoot me an email florianpihs[at]gmail[dot]com or leave a comment to this post.

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• Free Omniture Online Business Optimization workshop in Beijing (March 11th) (longmarch.chinalytics.com)
• February WAW in Beijing: WebTrends at China Mobile with Wu Yong (longmarch.chinalytics.com)
• Upcoming Omniture training in Beijing and Shanghai (longmarch.chinalytics.com)