Web 2.0

Google’s Internet Advertising Model Under Pressure ?

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Google Ads Reach the PeakGoogle the Search giant was the first company to meaningfully monetize the Advertising model across the spectrum of the Web from Large to the Smallest Publishing Networks. As other forms of web have emerged like Mobile Apps, Facebook, Twitter, etc the Ad Dollars are increasingly shifting to places where there is consumer engagement model.

In the latest quarterly results of Google, the number of aggregate paid clicks, or the total number of times a user clicks on an ad, increased 26% on a yoy basis in 1Q14. This compares with 31% yoy growth in 4Q13 and 20% yoy growth in the year ago period. On a sequential basis, paid clicks declined 1% which is below an average increase of 5% qoq over the prior three March quarters. CPCs declined 9% yoy during the period and were flat qoq (FX had a minimal impact on CPC growth). As management has stated previously, CPCs (and overall click trends for that matter) are affected

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MSME Sector Embrace Online Advertising – Cheap, Better RoI

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Online Advertising in IndiaWe talked to businesses such as Restaurants, SMEs, job consultants, real estate builders and brokers using online advertising for feedback. Online classifieds are perceived to be cheap and most are likely to increase their online spend. It is not a case of “either-or” as many are using multiple sites.

The cost of advertising through Justdial, Google or Zomato is lower and better targeted than a newspaper or radio ad; for a real estate broker in Mumbai an annual subscription to 99acres or Magicbricks is paid back through commissions from a single rental deal. Online currently

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State & Scope of Online Travel Market in India

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Online Travel IndustryThe travel market size in India is US$19.6bn, of which 35% is transacted online, which puts the size of online travel market in India at US$6.9bn. Interestingly, in India, after air travel, it is rail transportation which draws maximum online bookings. Out of the US$6.9bn in online sales, air travel constitutes $4.1bn and rail transportation $2.2bn.

How Indian online travel market differs from the US market?
Hotel reservation and packaged tours are the biggest online travel spend segments in the US aggregating to 56% of total online travel spends, followed by air tickets which constitute 37% of the spends. As against this, in India, air tickets constitute 58% of online travel spends with Hotels & Packages, being a nascent

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Future of Digital Advertising – Internet, Mobile & Video

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Digital Advertising - Mobile, Internet, Video IndiaThe past decade has seen significant migration of advertising dollars from traditional media like TV and newspapers to digital channels like internet and mobile devices.

Mobile Advertising
Mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – are changing the consumption pattern of various publishing platforms and content. User engagement on mobile devices is significantly better than on the desktop given the 24×7 availability of mobile communication amongst other things. The best examples of this shift are Facebook and Twitter, where engagement and monetisation have significantly moved to the mobile format. On a worldwide basis, mobile advertising still represents less than 2% of total advertising spends and around 8% of total spends on digital media. As brought out by examples of Facebook and Twitter, it is imperative for other platforms to build their mobile presence more extensively in terms of apps and otherwise, which in turn

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BigCommerce Next – Powering Offline Retailers to Go Online / Mobile

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Big Commerce The homegrown engineering team from Aussie tech startup Bigcommerce has revealed new tools to help anyone become an online / mobile retail entrepreneur.

Called Bigcommerce Next, it’s a whole host of new tools and systems (20 new features). It rolls out today to the 50,000 stores that use this Aussie startup’s software. We’d be happy to put you in touch with one or two of them so you can see how

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Google’s India Vernacular for Android Very Soon; To get 1 Billion Indians Online

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Google India Target 1 Billion IndiansSpeaking at the IIFL Investors Conference, Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google India said that Google’s basic objective in India is to get a billion people on the Internet. With smartphone base in India increasing rapidly, this is achievable quickly, as India is a unique country. Within two years, a majority of Internet users would be accessing the net only through their mobile. The biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity are in creating a vernacular user interface.

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JustDial Spending Heavily on Sales & Marketing to Expand Reach

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JustDial Spending to Expand ReachJustDial, the Local Yellow / White Pages Search Engine which diversified into e-commerce is spending heavily in expanding its reach by adding more sales force augmented with online Ad campaigns.

Currently it has a good presence in about 25 cities, although is touching 100 cities through either its own sales team or freelancers. Further, it intends to spend Rs600-1000mn to increase awareness and promote JD Search+ in FY15. Management believes that despite these additional costs / expenditures, benefits of operating leverage should lead to ~100 bps margin expansion.

Justdial does depend on Google for traffic

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SnapDeal e-nabling Small Retailers to Sell Online & Expand Verticals

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92% of the US$600 bn market is unorganized. India is a hub of almost 50 mn small and medium businesses. The problem for the offline markets are high real estate costs, low product discoverability, limited assortment merchandising and low reach. Online markets account for only US$2 bn currently.

How online market places are helping? It is easier to figure out trends on online markets and prepare the products accordingly. Also, working capital position of the retailer can be a lot better given low product batches. Mr Bahl gave a specific example of the benefits accruing to one of his customers from low working capital and greater planning and production flexibility. The same company has now been able to successfully branch out into another product category.

SnapDeal lists the following

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How New Google PLA Adding to Google’s Bottomline ?

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Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are Google’s search ads that include richer product information, such as an image of the product, price and merchant info, without requiring additional text or keywords. When users search for an item, Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the image, price, and product name. These PLAs now form the backbone of a user’s Google Shopping experience.

The Following Picture Shows Google’s New PLA laid out on the search result page which is contributing to Google’s Bottom line heavily, even in the Mobile Ads Format.

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The Rise and Rise of Instagram

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If you fast-forward not quite two years later and Instagram has become a leading platform both for users and brands. We look at the growth in adoption of Instagram both by users of most demographics as well as, importantly, by brands (and future potential big Instagram advertisers).

Both the number of brands with active accounts (accounts that are used more than once per month) and the number of brands that regularly post photos (a common marketing use case) has increased by more than 50% over the past year. Furthermore, the percentage of global

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