China developers outspend US counterparts in Mobile Ad Spend, Q3, 2013

China’s developers outspent their US counterparts on mobile advertising by an estimated 25% during Q3 this year, according to mobile advertising platform AppFlood.

This increase tallies with increases in mobile ad spend on the two major search engines in China during 2013 – Baidu, and Qihoo, who saw a collective 150% increase in mobile ad spend between March and September this year.

One of the key drivers behind the rise in mobile ad spend seems to an increased focus from Chinese developers to target overseas territories, notably India and the Middle east. The AppFlood report shows less than 1% of mobile ad spend being spent on actually acquiring Chinese customers while 7.2% was spent on India, 6.5 percent on Saudi Arabia, 4.9 percent on Indonesia, and 3.8 percent on Thailand.

This trend, according to AppFlood, reflects the use of these territories as pre-launch test beds for Chinese developers, essentially using these markets like the US uses New Zealand and Canada.

More on this story here:-
http://pando.com/2013/12/18/report-chinese-developers-massively-outspend-the-us-on-mobile-ads-as-they-target-emerging-markets/

Compared to the West, the search engine landscape in China is ever-changing. The emergence of Qihoo as a major player has been astonishing; with recent figures announced by the CNZZ showing that Qihoo now has 20% of the Chinese search engine market place-http://engine.data.cnzz.com

This rapid rise seems to have been at market-leader Baidu’s expense, with their market share declining by 10% over the last 12 months.

Qihoo has managed to impact this market quickly because of their sizable foothold in the web security market in China and their 360-branded browser, which is the default setting for their security software.

Having spoken to a number of leading digital agencies in China this week, Qihoo has become an immensely attractive proposition for advertisers in China because of its increasing reach and because of the lower cost of clicks they offer, compared to giant Baidu.

Can Qihoo sustain this growth? – It is difficult to see this happening with Baidu’s might and ever developing offering, particularly on mobile. Baidu, like it’s western counterpart, Google, never stands still, and has too much at stake to see its’ market share continue to be eroded by this contender.

Where does all of this leave Google?
Precisely nowhere, with a market share of less than 2%. Google, it would appear, has lost this particular battle.

A view from the Bund, Shanghai, this week:-

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Google announced their largest algorithm update since 2001, at a press conference last month, heralding the usual consternation among the SEO fraternity, in a year of much change and upheaval.

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So what is the likely impact of the update known as Hummingbird (Pelican next maybe)? For once, it seems we in the SEO world can rest easy, assuming the path taken is one of general accordance with Google’s guidelines.

The key thrust of Hummingbird can be summarised quite easily:-

– Hummingbird reaffirms all the other recent Google algorithm changes – good quality, good usability, legitimate and natural links are all good

– One of the big outputs of Hummingbird is increased emphasis on ‘conversational search’- Google’s ability to make sense of the context of a conversation in addition to the actual words.

– Increased focus on the users’ location (assuming this information has been shared). This in turn helps Google distinguish if a search is for a physical store for instance, or an an online shopping query.

– In particular, Google stated that Hummingbird is paying increased attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query i.e. the whole sentence or conversation is taken into account, rather than standalone words.

A good example provided by Google, a search for “acid reflux prescription” would have previously returned prescribed drugs, post Hummingbird, this might return information about the treatment.

What does this mean for SEO? The answer to this, it would seem, is nothing new. The same activities will still help organic ranking – good quality content, healthy, natural linkages, and good usability.

Full details of Hummingbird can be found at Danny Sullivan’s blog:-http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816

(London, UK – 11 September 2013)— Rising Media, producers of the eMetrics Summit, today announced details of this year’s London event, which takes place on 23-24 October. http://www.emetrics.org/london/2013/
The eMetrics Summit is the most comprehensive and forward thinking digital analytics forum. The event gathers together a stellar line–up of business intelligence experts, marketers and web analysts from leading organisations. They will share best practices, tools and techniques to help you successfully optimize digital marketing programs.

This year Jim Sterne, eMetrics founder, will step down from the chair and will pass the baton to Peter O’Neill from, L3 Analytics, who is excited at the prospect of overseeing the growth of this stellar event. Peter said “I am delighted to join the team working on eMetrics Summit London, it is great to be working with Jim in putting together the program for this event.  I can’t wait, personally, to learn from the many great Digital Analytics practitioners we have on the line-up for this year’s eMetrics Summit London.”

eMetrics Summit will open with a keynote presentation focusing on multinational analytics delivered by James Cornwall from Shell and Jabir Salam from Stradva. The remainder of the two-day conference will features panel sessions, clinics and roundtable discussions on topics including: privacy, enterprise attribution, tag management, testing, optimization campaigns and overall customer experience.

eMetrics will, as always, provide fantastic opportunities to network with your peers and with internationally renowned experts in customer data analytics. The eMetrics Summit solves real-life problems and challenges through peer insight, new tools and technologies and shared wisdom and experiences.

The eMetrics Summit takes place on 23-24 October 2013 at etc Venues, 200 Aldersgate, St Paul’s, London.
The eMetrics Summit will be co-located with The Conversion Conference http://conversionconference.co.uk/, Predictive Analytics World http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/london/2013/ and is part of Data Driven Business Week.
 
Register before 20 September 2013 to take advantage of the early bird rates: http://www.emetrics.org/london/pricing/
About Rising Media 
Rising Media is a specialised media company excelling in the production of business technology-related conferences and exhibitions. Rising Media currently produces events including eMetrics Summit, Conversion Conference, Search Marketing Expo, Predictive Analytics World, DemandCon, Affiliate Management Days, Internet Marketing Conference, Web Effectiveness Conference, Social Gaming Summit, Building Business Capability in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Australia. See www.risingmedia.com for more info.

We talk rightly about the huge opportunities that exist for Western brands now to reach new audiences online in ’emerging’ BRIC markets.

China with the sheer volume of netizens shines out as the single most attractive market; with over half a billion people online, over 1 million millionaires and a huge appetite for all things luxury and Western.

Whilst China is undoubtedly a key market now for luxury Western brands, the digital landscape is far from being straight forward.

Google has less than 5% of the search engine market now in China, and this share is being eroded even further by the emergence of Qihoo.

Baidu continues to dominate, with 80% of the market share and the rules for SEO differ to Google in nuance, as well as having to factor in the overriding influence of Baidu-owned sites, which can dominate organic search.

The social landscape is also significantly different, with Twitter and Facebook missing from the equation, and the dominance of We Chat, Sina Weibo & Tencent, all accounting for huge market shares.

China clearly demands a completely different approach to the rest of the World, and the skill-sets required to impact this market wholly differ to the West.

The Indian online landscape however is very different. There are 150 million internet users in India now*, making it the 3rd biggest internet market. The digital landscape practically mirrors our own digital landscape in the UK.

Google dominates the market in India with c80% market share, much like our own. Facebook and Twitter are massive and dominate the social landscape, and LinkedIn is emerging as a serious channel for business users.

All of this makes for a very interesting opportunity for Western brands, who can adapt their western strategies digitally with the minimum of fuss, to tap into this massive and increasingly cash-rich consumer market. Oh, and English is a readily accepted online language!

All of this makes India a very interesting market indeed, and like in the West 10 years ago, opportunities for early entrants are sizable.

This market will only increase in size, surely making it a prime opportunity for Western brands’ growth plans.

*Source IAMAI 2013 Report