Chinalytics Longmarch Blog

2009 is slowly running out of steam, but the Beijing Web Analytics Wednesday is moving from strength to strength. After a huge event in November, where more than 70 guests listened to DCCI sharing their research about the state of the industry, we starting off December with a presentation by Jackson Huang , who is leading Gridsum’s development team to expand the capabilities of their Web Analytics Tool Web Dissector.

Two month ago Gridsum’s CEO Guosheng QI and Michael Xu who runs Gridsum’s Marketing and Operations gave me a private demo of their tool. I walked away very impressed with the tools strong usability, the broad range of functions as well as tools flexibility to run custom reports and segments on the fly. So far Web Dissector is the strongest local tool I have seen, and it will certainly give  Omniture, WebTrends and Google Analytics a run for their money on China.

Always remember though, that it is rarely the tools that drive business results. Its committed, smart and creative people using these tools, that deliver results. To meet such people and to skill up your own team, join us on Wednesday, December 9th.

Speaker Introduction

Jackson Huang co-founded the Tsinghua Software Industry Association with Guosheng QI and other alumni in 2005, and was responsible for technology development and project monitoring. After Gridsum Technology was formed, Mr. Huang took charge of company’s technology roadmap, product structure, R&D, and project management.

Mr. Huang graduated from Tsinghua University in 2006 with a software engineering degree. He won the first “Shanda (NASDAQ: SNDA) Cup” China Adolescents gaming software competition.

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 Jackson, Wu Yong as well as 50 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 December. 9th

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Analytics Quick Productivity Tips #1: Use Regex to filter lists (longmarch.chinalytics.com)

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

Related articles by Zemanta

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

- 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

Related articles by Zemanta

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

Attention: Location Change: This month we are back at Luga’s Villa.
Speaker: Yuan Cheng,程渊, GM of Gomez China

Topic: Introducing “performance” in web “performance” analytics

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 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:
Luga’s Villa (details and map)
7 Sanlitun North Street, Sanlitun
Right behind 3.3 Plaza
三六屯北里7号楼
3.3 大厦后边
Phone: 135-2013-7915

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 August 5th.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Internet Marketing for Beginners. Interesting Points to Bear in Mind (raunchyjohnson.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!

Related articles by Zemanta

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

Speaker: Dixon Dai 戴政, VP of Marketing at Qunar

Topic: Perspective on Vertical Search Engines – Travel Search Engines & ROI Performance
如何看垂直搜索和旅游搜索的模式及ROI

I have always believed that the application of web analytics is most advanced in industries and verticals that have a direct $$$ interest in the performance of their websites. The travel industry has been on of the first verticals to make e-commerce work in China and as a result travel sites are leading web analytics users as well. The first to share her perspective was Anya Zhao from Air China. This time we are going to hear from Qunar, China’s leading travel search engine. As most e-commerce sites they have to optimize the cost and quality of their traffic as well as the conversion of the traffic on their sites. It will be interesting to learn how they manage that. An additional challenge Qunar has to face is that the final transaction is happening on their partners site, so in order to track real conversions they need data across companies and sites. If you are interested to learn how Qunar solves these challenges…

Please join me and more than 30 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:
Lugas Villa (Description and Map)
朝阳区三里屯北街41号同里后
7 Sanlitun North Street, (right behind ‘3.3 Plaza’ in Sanlitun)

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

Please register here to join our event. Looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday June 10th.

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.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 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)

After returning from a relaxing Chinese New Year break, I am looking forward to the first WAW of the 牛 (niu, Ox) year.  I trust you do, too. This time, we will have our long time WAW Beijing core team member Wu Yong joining us for his first presentation.

Wu Yong has been leading Webtrends‘ sales efforts in China since 2005 and in the process built a rich, unrivaled experience about the local Web Analytics market. He is now focusing his energies on the telecom industry and will share his experience working with China Mobile. China Mobile has been a WebTrends customer for years, and is now preparing to leverage the platform for more advanced web analytics objectives. Wu Yong will focus his presentation on the China Mobile case study and especially the lessons he and his team learned implementing and evangelizing web analytics for a large humongous state owned carrier. After Air China in January, it is exciting to see another practical experience sharing, that will help us all to do a more effective job executing and communicating web analytics.

Please join Wu Yong, me, and 30 – 40 other web analytics enthusiasts for this exciting event and bring any friends who might be interested to join our community as well.

click to view larger image

Time and date:  Wednesday February 11th,  8PM
Location: Luga’s Villa (right behind 3.3 in Sanlitun)

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

Please RSVP by commenting on this post, or by sending an email to florianpihs[at]gmail[dot]com.  Any problems please call my mobile at 13401191916.

A small but happy band of web analytics practitioners and friends of the industry met on Thursday, Jan. 24th in Beijing to talk about life, food and the status of the Web Analytics industry in China. 10 people from a wide variety of background came to share their insights and progress. It was in the good tradition of Web Analytics Wednesdays that they sat together in peace and friendship.  This is their story.

People

• Growing from a small basis the attendance increased by more than 300%.
• All the participants came from agencies including MRM Worldwide, OgilvyOne, DMG and WanMo. I suspect this is a reflection of the current state of the industry. While large US companies now often do their web analytics in house, its the global agencies with existing skills and global clients that pioneer analytics in China. I have seen smaller startup and SEM agencies experimenting as well, but larger operations are only sustained by large agencies.
• No vendors joined although Google and Sinotech Media RSVP’ed. I expect them to join next time. With Darryl from Omniture joining as well, we should have a nice vendor panel. I am already looking forward to that meeting

Discussion

This time the discussion focused on tools and benchmarks

• Tools
  • Most agencies work with complex corporate tools that their clients license globally. These include Omniture, Webtrends, Coremetrics and HBX. The consensus is that these tools are too complex for the local market. Most analysts are new to web analytics and they have a hard time getting used to complex interfaces, inconsistent metrics and bad setups.
  • Google Analytics is the clear winner in terms of ease of use, but expertise is missing there as well
  • There is strong interest in locally developed tools, especially for popularizing web analytics with local clients
  • Lack of vendor support and the non-existence of experienced analysts or even consultants leads to mess ups in installation and set-up that compromise data quality and analysis. Stronger support from the vendor side is sorely needed.
• Benchmarks
  • While no one knows of existing benchmarks for CPC and CTR in China, the number published by JPMorgan are generally seen as fantasy. (Much like their balance sheet, I guess)
  • While there is some value in general benchmarks, data shows that these numbers vary widely across industry. While FMCG campaigns have lower CPC, tech campaigns tend to have higher CPC’s
  • Most agencies calculate their CPC benchmarks in RMB, others use USD, which can make comparison difficult, when you are not stating the unit you are using

Sponsorship

All of us were extremely grateful to Eric T. Peterson and WebAnalyticsDemystified for their generous sponsorship of the event. The cheap prices of the event resulted in a free for all. (Or maybe we just didn’t drink enough BaiJiu). We promise to drink more next time. I sincerely hope Eric and his team find time some day to join us for a session, so we can thank them in person. Eric, wouldn’t the Beijing Olympics be a good reason excuse to drop by?