| What are Australians Doing Online? |
News & Media, Banks, Education and Government leading Australian online industries;
Australian Online Shopping lagging vs overseas markets
Hitwise Australia provides a snapshot of the leading industries that Australian Internet users visit. The update includes comparisons with major overseas markets, the United States and United Kingdom.
Key Findings based on a selection of Hitwise's 165+ online industries analysed include the following:
Banks & Financial Institutions - was a dominant commercial sub-category, accounting for 4.35% market share of visits. This reflects user confidence in conducting financial transactions online. Financial institutions were also competitive in marketing a diverse range of products and services through the online channel in 2007. The top three banking websites for the week ending 9 February 2008 were CBA NetBank with 12.48% share, Westpac Online Banking (7.77%) and ANZ (7.61%). Australian visits to banking websites outstripped US and UK usage, which recorded 3.59% and 2.35% market share respectively.
News & Media - accounted for 6.75% share the week ending 9 February 2008, ranking after Social Networking & Forums. Australian online News & Media consumption was high compared to US and UK markets, with 3.97% and 4.63% market share respectively. Growth in referral traffic from Social Networking & Forums was up 48% comparing week ending 10 February 2007 and 9 February 2008. 'Social news' will continue to shape the direction of online media in 2008, with websites such as Technorati, Digg and Newsvine providing a model of how users can interact with news online. Ninemsn News was the top commercial news player with 6.47% share, followed by Sydney Morning Herald with 5.28% share for the week ending 9 February 2008.
Education - Reference - was a leading sub-category partly due to the popularity of websites, Bureau of Meteorology and Wikipedia, which ranked 9th and 12th respectively amongst all websites the week ending 9 February 2008. The importance of Wikipedia as a general content source was reflected by the fact that Wikipedia was the 4th most popular website in the downstream traffic of Search Engines for the week ending 9 February 2008. Australian visits to Education - Reference accounted for 2.63% share, higher than US usage (1.62%) and UK usage (1.61%).
Government - attracted strong usage amongst Australian Internet users compared to overseas markets, accounting for 2.56% share in Australia for the week ending 9 February 2008, compared to 1.52% in US and 0.87% in UK. These metrics provide an important benchmark for measuring community engagement with state and federal online initiatives. The Bureau of Meteorology was the top Government website, accounting for 35.05% market share, followed by Australian JobSearch with 2.1% share.
Shopping & Classifieds - accounted for 5.93% market share of visits the week ending 9 February 2008, significantly less than the US and UK, which attracted 9.54% and 9.61% share respectively. Overseas standards indicate that there is potential for improved performance by vendors in the retail sector to increase online engagement. This is further highlighted by the fact that 30% of visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites were directed to overseas websites suggesting local inventory opportunities. eBay Australia was the leading website in the Shopping & Classifieds industry with 29.37% share for the week ending 9 February 2008.
|
|
| Travel - Destinations and Accommodation |
Most visited Travel - Destinations & Accommodation websites for Internet users aged 55+. Based on those websites that have the greatest proportion of traffic from the 55+ age group.
|
| 1. |
ecruising |
www.ecruising.travel |
65.42% |
| 2. |
Princess Cruises |
www.princess.com |
63.76% |
| 3. |
Fodors.com |
www.fodors.com |
62.07% |
| 4. |
Celebrity Cruises |
www.celebrity.com |
61.53% |
| 5. |
Active Hotels |
www.activereservations.com |
59.19% |
| 6. |
AA New Zealand Travel Guide |
www.aatravel.co.nz |
58.44% |
| 7. |
Royal Caribbean International |
www.royalcaribbean.com |
56.46% |
| 8. |
Resort Condominiums International |
www.rci.com |
55.95% |
| 9. |
LondonTown.com |
www.londontown.com |
55.90% |
| 10. |
Book in Hotels |
www.bookinhotels.com |
54.75% |
|
|
|
| Common Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaign Mistakes |
Pay-Per-Click advertising can make or cost your business money. Below are some common reasons why businesses fail to achieve the best results from their PPC campaigns.
Having too many non-relevant keywords
Keywords are the backbone of any PPC campaign. However, having large lists of untargeted keywords that are NOT relevant to your products and services could hinder your campaigns performance and your overall ROAS (Return On Ad Spend).
Creating single ad groups
Using only one ad group for all keywords gives you far less control of costs and ad text. Categorising keywords into tightly targeted keyword clusters (ad groups) will not only allow you to establish a high level of control over your entire campaign but will also help you target relevant ad text, resulting in efficiencies in your campaign.
Directing users to the home page
A very common mistake! It is vital that whatever you say in your ad text is repeated on your landing page. No point in promising a '30 Day Free Trial' in your ads and sending users to a page that has no mention of it. It not only affects the performance of your campaign but also has a negative impact on the user's experience.
Having non-optimised ad text
This is an obvious one. Place keywords for which you are serving the ad into your ad text. Not only will this make your ad more relevant to the user's query but it will bold your keywords making them stand out!
Utilising only one search engine
Broaden your horizons. Try different engines to see which ones are helping you derive the results you want.
Not utilising negative keywords
If you do decide to broad match generic terms then make sure you have an extensive negative keyword list. This will help ensure that your ads do not appear for irrelevant search queries and cost you money!
Not tracking results
How do you measure the success of your PPC campaign? Is it traffic, sales, newsletter sign-ups? Whatever it may be, it is vital that you understand the metrics that are important to your business and track them correctly. These findings then need to feed back into the campaign. How else will you know what's working and what's not?
The success to any PPC campaign is continual optimisation. The dynamic nature of PPC demands that continual changes and improvements be made to a campaign, by adding new keywords, different positioning strategies or ad creative changes.
So just how well optimised is your PPC campaign? Here is a quick checklist to help you evaluate your PPC campaign:
1. Does your campaign have irrelevant keywords?
2. Are you using a single ad group?
3. Is your traffic going to the home page, instead of the most relevant page?
4. Is your ad text optimised?
5. Are you using more then one search engine?
6. Does your campaign have negative keywords?
7. Are you tracking your campaign results?
To access Hitwise's Search Marketing Budget Calculator visit search.hitwise.com.au
|
| Evaluating Potential Affiliates Using the Hitwise New and Returning Visitors Tool |
By using Hitwise New and Returning Visitors data you can make decisions on partnerships and advertising by evaluating the number of new potential consumers a website sends to your website, as well as evaluating which websites to place advertising on to capture a steady stream of returning visitors for your target demographic.
In the Hitwise UK example of Bebo.com we see that of all the visits to the website over the week ending 26 January 2008, 96% of visits were from returning visitors and only 4% were new.
Hitwise clients who would like to discuss this application further, please contact Hitwise
Customer Support, or visit Hitwise University and
review the New & Returning Visitors FAQ.
|
| Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation - www.antar.org.au |
During the week of Kevin Rudd's national apology to the Stolen Generation, the Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation website received a significant increase in market share of visits. For the week ending 16/02/2008, it moved up 112 places from a rank of 159 to become the 47th most popular Community - Organisations website and increased its market share of visits by 274%.
The most popular search terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 16/02/2008 that resulted in traffic to the Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation website were 'antar' and 'apology' to stolen generations rudd'. The top 3 News and Media websites to drive upstream traffic to this website were ABC Melbourne (www.abc.net.au/melbourne), ABC News Online (abc.net.au/news) and The Age (www.theage.com.au).
|
| Travel - Transport |
Businesses which supply transport and related services to individuals including business and holiday travel - car hire, for instance. Airports and boarding facilities are listed here. The data below is based on All sites > Weekly rankings for the week ending 23/02/2008 > Ranks by 'Visits'.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 78.8% |
|
of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
|
|
|
|
|
| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
50.99% |
| 2. |
Search Engines |
29.51% |
| 3. |
Travel |
21.67% |
| 4. |
Transport |
14.35% |
| 5. |
Aviation |
10.94% |
| 6. |
Commercial Airlines |
9.67% |
| 7. |
Email Services |
8.69% |
| 8. |
Business and Finance |
8.49% |
| 9. |
News and Media |
6.70% |
| 10. |
Portal Frontpages |
5.50% |
|
|
|
|
| 1. |
Travel |
39.40% |
| 2. |
Transport |
24.73% |
| 3. |
Computers and Internet |
24.07% |
| 4. |
Aviation |
19.93% |
| 5. |
Commercial Airlines |
16.26% |
| 6. |
Business and Finance |
11.12% |
| 7. |
Search Engines |
8.63% |
| 8. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
6.90% |
| 9. |
Agencies |
6.05% |
| 10. |
Entertainment |
5.09% |
|
|
|
|
