25 July 2014

Aim to be the best to gain more return visits, online sales: Adobe

Source: Adobe.
New research from Adobe has found that marketers across Asia Pacific who deliver best practices are pulling further away from their competitors.

The Adobe Digital Index Best of the Best Benchmark for Asia Pacific compares the overall average versus websites in the top 20% on six key performance indicators across six regions: Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, South Korea, Hong Kong, China and the US. Key performance indicators are mobile and tablet traffic, stick rate*, visits-per-visitor, time spent and conversion rate.

“We are seeing a major gap developing between being average and being in the top 20% of marketers across Asia Pacific,” said Tamara Gaffney, Principal Analyst, Adobe Digital Index. “For conversion rates alone, the ‘best of the best’ websites in industries that sell online deliver nearly double the average conversion rate. They are proving that making a commitment to digital excellence can result in a significant increase in revenue.”

Key findings in the Best of the Best Benchmark for Asia Pacific include:

· Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, have seen the most overall growth in tablet share; the best of the best sites achieve about 5% more tablet visits than the average.

· Time spent on websites is higher in Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, but has fallen year on year in all other countries.

· Websites optimised for smartphone visitors in South Korea see nearly 90% difference in share of smartphone traffic than an average site; in the past year the gap between average and best in class for mobile optimisation has grown in every country. Mobile optimisation refers to websites which have been optimised for smartphone visitors.

· All countries except South Korea saw an increase in stick rate year on year; India led all countries with that nation’s ‘best of the best’ marketers improving their stick rate by over 14% year on year.

· The ‘best of the best’ websites increase the amount of return visits by as much as 25% compared to the average across Asia Pacific.

“There is no such thing as ‘offline’ any more. The data is telling us that delivering seamless experiences across devices and within social media is driving the best performance and leading to superior business performance,” Gaffney said.

“Across Asia Pacific, those marketers delivering best in class are on par with top marketers around the world. For example, we can see that stick rate is higher across Asia Pacific than in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. This is a leading indicator of two important elements of website success – optimised marketing acquisition activities and homepage relevance and engagement.

“Finding out where your organisation falls within the tiers of the Benchmark will help identify strengths and weaknesses and can help marketers prioritise areas to focus on.”

“Businesses that can improve customer engagement and drive conversion rates via their digital channels will find themselves at the front of the pack; our Adobe Digital Index has shown that an improvement in the conversion rate of just a tenth of a percent can result in millions of dollars of revenue growth,” said Stephen Hamill, Managing Director, Adobe South East Asia. “The consumption of online content and performance of online transactions on mobile devices in South East Asia is only going to increase. 


"Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific at 87%, with other markets in South East Asia like Thailand (49%), Indonesia (23%) and Philippines (15%) gaining traction. Tablet ownership in Singapore also grew 30 percentage points in the past year to 47%, with Malaysia up 23 points to 42%1. The opportunities in the mobile arena cannot be ignored.”

Organisations can check where they fall within the Benchmark through Adobe’s Digital Marketing Maturity Assessment.

*Stick rate is the percentage of visits that last more than one page.