Where’s Dennis? – a comment about Web Analytics in Asia

I recently returned from a month in Singapore, where I had the opportunity to explore the Asian Web Analytics market (as far as Singapore represent the region, which of course is not a fair representative). This is no Forester or Gartner in depth market analysis; this is my own very subjective comment and view after:

• Meeting with some almost 10 interactive agencies (SME and Enterprise level)
• Meeting with our existing partners in Singapore
• Meeting with a handful of direct clients
• Presenting and demoing IndexTools
• Attending the Online Marketing and Web Analytics conference and seminar hosted by GSQM at the Marketing Institute of Singapore. (Jim Sterne actually presented there, what a small world)
• Meeting up with Jim Sterne at Raffles Hotel, sharing a handful of Singapore Sling’s (see that is great in depth market RESEARCH if you ask me..)

With ultrahigh Internet penetration (they have nationwide FREE Wi-Fi) – one would expect sophistication in their use of online marketing and this including sophisticated use of Web Analytics Tools. There was only very limited in depth knowledge of the powers of Web Analytics as a discipline and even more surprising, there were very little knowledge about web analytics tools – Only two tools were mentioned:

• Google Analytics
• Webtrends (mostly the LOG analyzer)

No mentioning of IndexTools, Omniture, Visual Sciences or any other Enterprise Web Analytics Vendor – this including Asia specific vendors like Digital Forest and CCMedia. Whenever debating use of the deployed Web analytics tools – it became clear that it was merely on a reporting level and not on a analysis level.

My instantaneous conclusion is that the web analytics market is not yet mature in Asia (Singapore). A big reason for this includes the fact that Online Marketing spend was below 1% last year, BUT there is no doubt that it will be there soon (1 to 2 years according to most of the agencies interviewed).. so perhaps it is time to move out there, because Singapore in general was absolutely fascinating and the people I spoke to at the agencies utterly friendly.

I would be very happy to get your input on the market and I am more than happy to bring it up at the next fantastic 6 podcast Lars? :-)

N.B.
Where’s Dennis? – I am actually in Chicago attending Ad:Tech, so if you are there, post a comment or throw me an email and we should meet up! :-)