Web Analytics India Blog

I should humbly accept month of December and January has been slow on web analytics India. But here’s what’s coming up in the month of February/March. Thanks to all the feedback and inputs by readers here are the Category & posts you will see in the coming months. Again this is a draft and feedback are welcome

Web Analytics Career in India

• Web analytics-good with numbers and good with people
• Web analytics as career in india
  - Tool implementation/QA
  -Reporting analytics
  -optimization Expert

Web Analytics Tool Tips, Tricks and Best Practices

• Google analytics: 7 habits of effective GA user
• Integration with Google Adwords
• Integration with Google Web Optimizer

Web Optimization (A/B Testing & Multivariate Tests)

• Getting started with google Web optimizer

Internet and Web Analytics Status in India

• E-commerce status in India and web analytics overview
• Mobile Internet and Advertising status

A Recent Report by the Internet Goverance Forum (which is scheduled to be held from Dec 3 – 5th in Hyderbad) revealed that number of people with internet access in India and all over the world has been growing rapidly.

India stands fourth in Internet Population, but yet to figure in top 10 “Broadband Connected Countires”. Find below brief finding of the report.

At the end of 1997, only 1.7 per cent of the world’s population –70 million people– had access to the Internet. A decade later, that number has risen to an estimated 1,348,572,040 users.

Asia has the highest number of internet users, with an estimated 568.7 million people, followed by the Americas, with 377.9 million. Europe is third with 335.9 million. Africa and Oceania close the rank with 51.8 million and 14 million users respectively.
Top Ten Internet Users

1. United States 220 million
2. China 210 million
3. Japan 88.1 million
4. India 81 million
5. Brazil 53.1 million
6. United Kingdom 40.2 million
7. Germany 39.1 million
8. Republic of Korea 35.5 million
9. Italy 32 million
10. France 31.5 million

Top Ten Broadband-Connected Countries

1. United States 73.2 million
2. China 66.4 million
3. Japan 28.28 million
4. Germany 19.6 million
5. United Kingdom 15.6 million
6. France 15.5 million
7. Republic of Korea 14.7million
8. Italy 10.8 million
9. Canada 9 million
10. Spain 8 million

Internet connectivity in India
In 2007, there were about 13.5 million Internet subscribers in India, representing 1.15 per 100 habitants. Broadband subscribers accounted for over 3.1 million of these, or 0.27 per 100 inhabitants. The number of users – those who report that they have online access, but do not themselves subscribe – was far greater: some 81 million, or 6.93 users per 100 inhabitants.

You can download the Report pdf HERE

Alright! so after really enjoying writing about Online Travel industry in India, it’s time to switch to the Online automobile market in India.

India has been the scene of some of the most frenetic deal-making, big expansion announcements, and new car launches in the global auto industry. Consider that in the last few years alone General Motors (GM), Fiat (FIA), Honda (HMC), Nissan (NSANY), and Hyundai have announced Indian investments valued at roughly $1.5 billion.
And recently TATA , India’s biggest vehicle maker bought British brands Jaguar and Land Rover.

Ask any auto executive, and he or she will tell you that outside of China, India is the most intriguing emerging market opportunity out there. And US-based consultancy Keystone-a subsidiary of LaSalle Consulting Associates-has forecast that India will become the world’s third largest automobile market by 2030, behind just China and the US.

The projected size for China is 62 million and for US 23 million. The size of the Indian vehicle market is forecast to cross 20 million (assuming a consistent GDP growth rate of 6%) from the one million plus vehicles sold in 2004. This amounts to a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 12%.

So Before we go ahead and review few leading sites in India, here’s a look at how internet and review sites help a customer/prospect take decision

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It’s time for us to review the major players in online automobile industry in india and their web analytics status.

Gone are the days of used car lots and car showrooms, depending on whether the purchase is an old or a new car. Now all one needs to sit back sip a cup of coffee and take a look at the brand and the type of  car you looking for!

There’s been many sites which have come up in the last couple of years which help you look up for new and old cars and give you a sneak preview of lot of features now mind you this is apart from the “company” brand sites advantage being you get “expert opinion”, customer reviews, ratings and comparison to other models in the same category.

Carewale:

A very “simple” UI as their tagline goes!, i love the way the Carwale team is used the whitespace and good mix of RIA and other great features. Coming to Web Analytics and the tool used, Carwale uses Google analytics and pretty much seems to be the default code from GA. The Tabbed browsing looked but looked into code to see if it’s being tracked it wasn’t!. Hopefully they’ve set some goals and tracking campaigns

So there lies “enormous” oppurtunity for Carwale to be a step (mile) ahead from other competitors and web analytics can help them be there. Hopefully they are listening

Carazoo is a clean and simple site and undoubtedly clear competition to Carwale, It’s got some great features and wonderful search and UI.  What attracted my attention was how they offer feeds a way for user to come back, and a blog. You can also register to become a member. Some really neat features

Web Analytics Status: Carzoo uses Google Analytics ( ga.js) and to add to it Quantcast. So which probably helps them understand traffic and demographics. There are lot of Internal Campaigns run to register and download wallpers etc and seems to be tracked via adserver. Oppurtunity exists to track RSS and Blog readers to understand effectiveness of these features.

Gaadi.com has an amazing interface!, nice graphics with some wonderfull features. Now there are some great features couple of them include the recommendations and also valuations. This coupled with other great features make Gaadi.com leading site

Web Analytics Status: Gaadi.com uses Google Analytics for their site, It’s intresting that gaadi and other sites have different engagement section (forums, pictures, news, blog) and also finance, insurance and my gaadi. There’s huge oppurtunity to track how these section help in site goals by effectively using Google Analytics.

Indiadrive is one of the sites which comes up in most “natural” search resluts, certainly very seo freindly. Apart from four wheelers it does offer more information and reviews on latest two wheelers. Indiadrive caters to two different segments and indeed a simple and effective site. 

One intresting thing which i probably must say is different is it’s Car Pool efforts for different cities ( how often would you see that on a car review site?) 

Web Analytics Status: Suprisingly none exists, even google analytics (atleast for the pages i viewed). This leads to a fair assumption that they depend on logfiles. However a combination of both does no harm. Hopefully they are listening and set up Google analytics 

CarDekho is another site which has some neat features, apart from normal things you would expect at a car review site. CarDekho drives community and also has good comparison features. 

Web Analytics Status: CarDekho uses Google Analytics (old), and seems like just to measure and collect traffic information. They can move a step ahead in analytics by using other rich features in google analytics. 

In the next post! again related to online automobile industry in India will focus on the latest trends and marketing efforts done in India. This will then be followed by KPI and best practices in web analytics! Stay Tuned. 

What do you feel about the automobile Market in India?, will it grow or it’s just the hype ? Pen down your comments/feedback/critics

Continuing from the earlier posts on Online Travel Industry in India

Post one: Online Travel Industry India and Web Analytics Status

Post Two: Marketing Trends in Online Travel Industry India

This post covers how Web Analytics Tools can be used for Online Strategy and Optimization.

To Step back a little, Travel Industry has evolved! Big time in India. It all started with the airline industry boom, followed by Train and now Bus services. It’s young and happening and evolving

THE PAST

Gone are the days when
1.    You had to wait in a long Que for your air/train tickets!
2.    You had to be on phone with travel agents
3.    Spend time traveling to book and confirm tickets
4.    Last minute cancellation/rescheduling was a tedious process!
5.    you had to go to different agent for your hotel/holiday booking
6.    Spend time negotiating on travel/holiday deals
7.    when you had no idea of how your hotel/holiday destination looks before landing there!

THE CURRENT

Enter Online travel industry ! and just a few clicks and your all set! And what does consumer get?, a one stop shop for
1.    No more going to Travel agents (options of e ticket or paper)
2.    Click away from booking tickets and cancellation too
3.    Meta Search with options like Price range, non stop, airlines options and instant booking
4.    Online itinerary
5.    Mobile alerts
6.    Mobile booking
7.    Great deals on hotels and holiday package
8.    Customized travel deals
9.    Preview of holiday destination (video, reviews and hotel looks)

THE FUTURE

So Here are some trends which one would see (some already existing) in travel industry and “undoubtedly” web analytics plays a key role here!
1.    Increased Meta Search Penetration
2.    Cross selling of related products
3.    Increased Mobile Penetration
4.    Improved Self Services
5.    Increase in RIA ( Rich internet applications)
6.    Travelers Review
7.    Social Media Marketing

With market evolving and internet penetration increasing, every Online travel marketing firm will need to emphasize ( iam sure they do) on ROI on each Marketing efforts, new technology (RIA’s) used, Self Services and also keep a track of future trends ( Mobile, Social media etc)

Measuring What matters!

The two previous posts on online travel industry in India was on web analytics status and marketing trends in India. however there’s still lot’s of room for improvement.

Online Firms in India having been spending huge amount on “Awareness/Reach” that is Marketing efforts* (SEM, Banner, Affilates, Email, TV, Print) and are yet to

• Understand the Return of Investment (ROI) on Awareness
• Yet to measure Engagement and conversion
• Segmentation and Loyalty Analysis
  
• Leverage the “Power of Optimization”
  

* wish i could support this with hard facts, but this is based on my previous web analytics status check of online travel industry sites.

I could not agree more with Ravi ( who commented on the earlier post)

I think there is a bigger problem ,Indian Online travel industry is plagued with is all focus is on acquisition of customer and almost negligible focus on customer conversion. Obviously, all of them focus on how can they cheaply get a consumer to get to their site and thats it. few really understands that increasing user engagement will hugely drive conversion. Also it is less cost effective to increase sales via increase in conversion than to increase in acquisition of customer. However, this scenario will change very soon.

Yes Ravi the Scenario will change!, and will change for good for all the companies which embrace and understand the power of Web Analytics.

Key performance indicators (KPI’s) for online Travel Industry

Travel sites are challenging with so many moving parts and rich media applications which drives success. Remember KPI’s are bridge between your business objectives and web analytics data, Each site may it’s own specific set of measures

however, Here are 7 Key Performance indicators which will help one get started assuming you have your web analytics data implemented to capture this data.

1. Revenue per Booking
2. Sales Cycle
3. Look to Book Ratio/Conversion
4. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
5. Campaign Conversion rate
6. Top Origin and Destination Cities
7. Top Geography and Demography

Here’s a brief description of each Key Performance Indicators for Online Travel Industry

1.) Revenue Per Booking:

Revenue per booking will vary by season, product type, booking pace, and because of this variation it’s important to have a trended view of the KPI to give you an overview of your revenue performance.

2.) Sales Cycle:

Sales cycle will help you understand,

• Days Before first purchase: The number of days that elapsed between the customer’s first visit and
  his or her first purchase.
• Days Since Last Purchase: The number of days that elapsed between the most recent purchase
  and the preceding purchase.

3.) Look to Book Ratio/Conversion:

The Look-to-Book Ratio is the percentage of visitors (looking) who actually make a purchase (booking).
Look-to-book Ratio helps

• Understand if there customers are satisfied with their visit/shopping experience.
• Understand how qualified the traffic to their Web site really is. Look-to-Book.

4.) ROAS (Return on Ad Spend):

Helps understand the return on various marketing spend, helping you do a quick SWOT analysis

5.) Campaign Conversion rate:

A quick overview of all your campaign performance.

6.) Top Origin and Destination Cities:

This probably is one of the oldest metrics used by airline industry, This metric can help

understand popular city pairs and also correlate with other metrics (example: Understand which airlines compliment with popular city pairs, measure look to book conversion for top origination and destination cities, Revenue per booking for popular pairs)

7.) Top Geography and Demography:

This metric gives great insight, the reason i emphasize this is coz of how internet booking is gained/gaining importance India, this metric will help you understand top cities and evolving areas where internet booking is growing.

So above was the list of top KPI’s for Travel Industry which will help travel firms provide actionable, real-time insight that can help them with both online and offline strategies.

Missing something, time to add your perspective via comments.

The Next Post would deal with Automobile Industry and it’s online presence in India. Until next post happy reading!

It’s official now! and dates have been finalized. Thanks to Eric Peterson over at Web Analytics Demystified and also folks at Coremetrics and Sitespect for sponsoring the event.

It indeed is great to see how Eric and other sponsors help build a large Web analytics social network in local communities.

Update: Please see below the event location/venue details, and couple of ways you can reach the venue(refer map). This was the best option available with ample “Parking Place”.

You can now register for the event

Register for Web Analytics Wednesday

Location: Bangalore

Date: July 5th

Day: Saturday

Time: 5.30 PM

Venue: Country Club, 55/1, Deevarabeesanahalli, Sarjapur-Marathalli, Outer Ring Road, Varthur Hobli, Bangalore

Sponsors: Web Analytics Demystified, CoreMetrics and SiteSpect

Agenda: No formal agenda! just meet, greet and speak!

Pre Event Poll: Click Here to take the survey

P.S: The Venue is almost decided and we are waiting for a confirmation, and please do register via the above link so we can personally send you the venue information and yes it will also be posted on the blog.

So here’s a event to meet web analysts around Bangalore, and have great conversations. Stay tuned for the Venue details!

As always suggestions are welcome! Click here voice your opinion

Feel free to reach out via comments or mail in case you are unsure of the location or have doubts/clarifications.