Posts Tagged ‘The Guardian’

Guardian mobile site drives mores unique browsers & traffic than apps & tablets combined but where is the engagement?

Posted: May 17, 2012 in Digital Marketing, Industry News, Information communications technology, Internet, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Applications, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Platforms, Mobile Technology, Online, Publishing, Publishing Industry, Tablets, Technology, Uncategorized, User Experience & Usability
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Deutsch: logo der tageszeitung the guardian

the guardian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It has been some time since I first remember trying to sign The Guardian to the YOC media network, sometime in 2009.  From memory at the time, 4th Screen were selling around 1 million page views per month.  I have posted below the latest figures from their site**, that figure now stands at 6.2 million and generates more unique browsers and monthly page views than their iOS, Android and iOS tablet apps combined.  These figures are somewhat surprising but not because their mobile internet has the biggest pull,  rather that their mobile traffic has only 6 fold in 4 or so years and all their mobile channels are not generating significant page impressions.

I have always been an advocate for mobile internet and I do get and understand that having an app strategy for print and digital publishers makes perfect sense.  After all, I have personally been involved in building so many for clients as such, why wouldn’t I think this.  My bigger question is why is their mobile internet site and apps not generating higher levels of uniques or monthly page impressions?  We know they have an award winning app and their paid for model seemed to work and made them a small profit after development costs.

But… why is their mobile internet site generating far less monthly page impressions in ratio to their applications? And… are their applications generating enough impressions in ratio to the unique users?

Mobile Internet

Generating 6.2 million page impressions from 2.5 million unique browsers can be averaged out that for every one customer visiting the site once a month is only generating 2.5 page impressions per visit.  I am guessing that their customers are visiting more than once a month which would mean they are generating even less impressions per visit (just divide the impression number by the number of visits).  As you can see from these states it becomes somewhat disappointing and raises some concern.  Maybe I am interpreting unique browsers wrongly as unique users, but it sounds like the same thing to me.

The iphone app is a little better…

Again applying the same principle generating 1 million page impressions from 34,000 uniques can be averaged out that for every 1 customer using the app once a month is generating about 30 impressions per visit.  Like their mobile internet users the reality is they are visiting more than once a month and therefore the impressions they generate per visit are even less.

Lets look at the rest, again applying the same methodology…

iPad app

45,113 monthly uniques generating 3.45 million page impressions equates to 1 customer visiting once a month generating 75 page impressions per visit.

Android app

11,000 monthly uniques are generating 1.2 million page impressions equates to 1 customer visiting once a month generating 110 page impressions per visit.

What does this all mean?

Image representing Android as depicted in Crun...

In summary, it shows that their Android app is generating a much richer experience than their other channels.  Or maybe Android users are just more engaged than iOS users.  We have to be careful here as their mobile internet site will have traffic from all devices but overall the statistics suggest that most of their mobile site users are less engaged than their app users.

In my experience, working with print and digital publishers it is typical for a user to generate up to 10 impressions per visit but at an absolute minimum of visiting the site or apps 2 to 3 times a week.  This would mean you would have to divide those impressions (generated by the users) by approximately 12.  In doing that, the numbers would suggest that only their Android app and iPad app are delivering a rich experience where the user is most engaged generating 9 to 6 impressions per visit respectively.  The others fall well short of this and their mobile internet site alarmingly so.

m.guardian**

A dedicated mobile site giving users access to guardiannews.comcontent any time and from any device. It is optimised for mobile screen sizes and connection speeds.

Traffic:

2.5 million monthly unique browsers
6.2 million monthly page views

m.guardian is showing incredible growth and almost doubled its traffic over the course of 2011 – growth that is outstripping total growth of the mobile internet market (+25% yr on yr).

Users are accessing a broad range of content through m.guardian with the top five most visited sections being world news, football, sport, technology and Comment is free. Comment is free alone delivers over 250,000 page views per month – an indication that users are valuable opinion leaders.

iPhone app

An award winning iPhone app featuring video, live blogs and more that is available free to users in the US.

Traffic:

34,000 monthly unique browsers

1 million monthly page views

With steady growth in unique browsers of almost 50% over the last four months, the iPhone app is another strong performer in GNM’s mobile portfolio. What’s more, the proportion of heavy users is high at just over 50%. That, combined with a strong frequency metric for user behaviour, indicates a very loyal and engaged audience.

In addition to the regular news content, users have a strong preference for football, sport and business content.

iPad app

We launched our critically acclaimed iPad app in October 2011 and since then it has been downloaded more than 500,000 times (globally). With a clean, modern design and easy navigation the Guardian iPad app is immensely readable.

Traffic:

45,113 monthly unique browsers

3.45 million monthly page views

Android App

Free to download and available from the Android market worldwide it contains the latest news, sport, comment, reviews, videos, podcasts and picture galleries from the Guardian website.

Traffic:

11,000 monthly unique browsers

1.2 million monthly page views

The app delivers a globally minded audience of opinion leaders and the most popular sections include football, Comment is free and world news.

Furthermore, over one in three are heavy users and this has steadily increased over the last few months – an indication that user loyalty and engagement is growing.

SOURCE**: Guardian (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/advertising/mobile?newsfeed=true
)

Snaptu joins YOC media network

Posted: March 10, 2010 in Display advertising, Industry News, Information communications technology, Internet, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Internet, Mobile Technology, Technology, Telecommunications, YOC news
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Latest addition to the YOC network extends advertising opportunities into social networking

London, UK – 10 March 2010: Full service mobile solutions provider YOC today announced that Moblica owned Snaptu, the first truly successful manifestation of cloud-based “virtual” applications has joined the YOC media network. As part of the partnership, YOC will provide brands and advertisers with advertisements across the Snaptu mobile application portal which includes Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, AccuWeather, the Guardian, ESPN Cricinfo and other major news and sports outlets. YOC will work with Snaptu across Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and the UK.

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Snaptu’s free, fast and intuitive suite of services runs very quickly and simply on most GPRS/3G mobile phones. Snaptu will sit alongside a number of other publishers in the YOC premium media network including 3 Favourites, Getjar, PC Advisor, Macworld, Stuff.tv, Perez Hilton, Elle UK and Digital Spy.

Simon Davies, Managing Director of Europe at Moblica said of the partnership: “YOC came highly recommended by every reference we took. We were impressed by their experience working with brands and advertisers across Europe and its track record in providing high quality inventory to its customers.  Growing at over 1million  users a month and topping the bill on most quality app stores such as BlackBerry’s AppWorld, Ovi and Play Now arena, Snaptu can offer YOC’s advertising clients not only great reach but also access to a number of specifically targeted demographic groups.”

Since its launch in July 2008, YOC’s UK media has grown significantly and now receives more than 600 million monthly page impressions and reaches over 35 million unique mobile users.

“Snaptu’s access to a number of hugely successful social networking applications, portals, news sites and content is very attractive to our brand and advertiser customers,” said Christian Louca, Managing Director of YOC UK. “Working with Snaptu, one of the most exciting applications in the market, we can help advertisers to target several million mobile users on a number of devices all across Europe.”

About YOC Group:

YOC Group is one of Europe’s leading full service providers of mobile advertising, mobile marketing and mobile internet services. YOC Group’s mobile services span an extremely broad client base across global brands, media owners, social networking businesses, mobile phone manufacturers and networks, retailers and financial service providers. YOC Group employs over 180 employees across the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium. Clients include: Coca-Cola, News International, Mercedes-Benz, Nike, Kraft Foods, Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures, Motorola, BILD, Guardian Media Group, IDG Media, Haymarket Consumer Media, and Bacardi Global Brands. 

For more information about the YOC Group, please visit
http://en.group.yoc.com/

About Snaptu:

Snaptu’s flagship product, Snaptu, is one of the most popular applications on the mobile web. Growing at over 1m users a month it has users in more than 100 countries. Using groundbreaking virtual application technology, Snaptu provides a fast and elegant user experience in partnership with various media brands such as Sky, ESPN, Guardian, Teletext as well as most of the top handset vendors and operators.  Launched just over a year ago and backed by Sequoia Capital, Snaptu is headquartered in Israel, with offices in London and Silicon Valley.

For more information, please contact:

Becca Daniel or Robert Haslam

Mi liberty Ltd

P: +44 20 7751 4444

E: bdaniel@miliberty.com

E: rhaslam@miliberty.com

Mobile Advertising Set To Soar ? Yes, But What Is The Engine For Growth

Posted: November 18, 2009 in Digital Marketing, Industry News, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Internet, Online, Trade Associations
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Below is a good analysis I came across on Gerson Lehrman Group website.  It was taken from an article published in the Guardian on the 9th November.
My opinion on this:
I do not entirely agree that focusing on the growth of the mobile web is wrong but I certainly do agree that just focusing on the growth of the mobile web is not the best approach in determining what is going to drive the growth of the mobile advertising industry.
I completely share the view point as commented below, quote ”will be driven by a deep understanding of the mobile consumer’s context not just by the mobile web”.   More understanding of the context of the consumer must be understood in order to produce concise relevant pieces of content that are specific to the needs demanded at any given time.  If we get this fundamental principle right then we will be on the right track and not follow the old footpath of online.  What do I mean by this?  I am not an online expert by all means but I am a heavy user of the web.  I see far too many ads that are so irrelevant to my needs.  This negative and at times somewhat quite annoying experience has now led to me conditioning myself to completely ignore ads on the fixed line web.  It is almost like they are not there.  We must not allow this to happen in mobile, especially if we are to maintain healthy CTRs and ROI for the advertisers.
For sure, we need much more growth in traffic, we need better developed ad-servers, we need better standardisation, we need richer devices, we need better understanding within the agencies and brand managers.  However, we must look beyond the all too easy areas where we can raise alarms bells.  Most importantly it comes down to the user experience.  If we get the user experience right, the advertisement will be embraced with open arms.  Showing the right message, at the right time, with relevant content in the preferred way will lead to the growth of the mobile advertising industry.   It is the people at the end of the device that will drive the growth.  Not the agencies, not the technology, not even the brands or the Googles.  It is me, you, your next door neighbour and every single one of us.  We don’t care if it is an iphone, Blackberry or Nokia.  We don’t care if it is a banner, text link or video pre-roll.  We buy into the experience. We prefer one experience over another experience.  If we get this right and place the message (in whatever format it comes) in this preferred environment then the results can be magic for everyone.
Article

Summary

Mobile advertising is set to soar but only if all mobile channels are used and the combination of enabling technology, analytics and advertiser mindset is focused on identifying the exact context of the consumer before ads are served.

Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.

Analysis

The article is taken from London based Guardian Newspaper in a special report, “Mobile Marketing” published on 9th November 2009. This was sponsored by The Internet Advisory Bureau (IAB), Velti and Orange. Other stories within the same report discussed the simplicity of texting, the appeal of mobile applications and the growing relevance of location awareness.

Even with all of the hype surrounding mobile advertising, it is starting from a relatively low base. The IAB reports 2008 UK spend on mobile advertising at just ₤28.6M, which itself represented a growth of 90% on the previous year. A 100% year-on-year growth is not too difficult to predict when 2009 figures are reported. Google’s recent acquisition of AdMob will certainly add to this rate of growth during 2010 as brands, advertisers and agencies leverage what is a huge endorsement of the mobile advertising industry.

That the project to determine an accurate method to measure mobile web traffic might somehow have a major impact on the industry is questionable. Whilst the GSMA working in collaboration with the UK’s big five operators to achieve this was the right way to go, the results are late. The GSMA are behind the curve on this after all, the lack of metrics has not stopped AdMob from serving billions of mobile ad impressions. Further more other specialist companies such as Bango for example, are already providing such tools.

But what about the rest of the advertising industry and their involvement in the mobile web?  For the brands, advertisers and agencies involved, focusing on the mobile web as the growth engine for mobile advertising is wrong. The tendency is still to treat the mobile web as a scaled down version of the internet. Mobile’s smaller screen and personal nature mean that it needs to be treated much more preciously that that. Ads served on the basis of what a consumer is browsing or what they are searching for will be hit-and-miss without tools that can accurately determine the context of the mobile consumers. Serving incorrectly targeted ads, even to consumers that have ‘opted-in’, will do much to damage brand values. The location, time of day and personal preferences of the consumer are key elements of that context and once it is available, there might be other more appropriate channels over which to advertise.  SMS, MMS, mobile video and mobile apps all support advertising.

Ultimately growth in mobile advertising will be rapid but it will come from being able to address consumers across any one of, or combination of all, the mobile channels available and will be driven by a deep understanding of the mobile consumer’s context not just by the mobile web.

URL Link to Gerson Lehrman Group website:


http://www.glgroup.com/News/Mobile-Advertising-Set-To-Soar—Yes-But-What-Is-The-Engine-For-Growth-44869.html