For all those who work in the financial services sector this is a great article which explains form/application abandonments from the financial services/product pages.
In a study conducted with Forrester Research, Inc. that examined consumer motivations in abandoning applications for online financial products, including checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, auto insurance, brokerage accounts, mortgage loans, home equity loans, and personal loans.
The study, which revealed that 54 percent of online financial product applicants abandon applications prior to submitting, examines some of the reasons why these abandoners chose not to complete the application online. The study was based on behavioral data from comScore’s panel of more than 2 million people worldwide, plus an email survey of 568 applicants who had abandoned an application for a financial product online.
Of those who initiated an online financial application but did not submit it, 49 percent said that they had no intention of completing the application. This percentage was higher for deposit product applicants (58 percent) and substantially lower for credit card applicants (32 percent).
The top reasons cited by those who did not intend to complete the application included:
Wanted more product information (23 percent)
Not ready to apply (19 percent)
Wanted to see if they qualified for the product (14 percent)
Those who started an application with the intention of completing it, but who ended up abandoning the application cited the following reasons for not completing the application:
Changed their mind about applying online (12 percent)
Had privacy/security concerns (11 percent)
Wanted to speak to a sales person regarding the product (11 percent)“As more consumers research and purchase financial products on the Web, the importance of understanding application abandonment will increase,”
said Forrester Research Senior Analyst Brad Strothkamp. “This study provides clear evidence that today’s financial services sites have a ways to go at both understanding and solving this important issue.”
Content Courtesy: Comscore
Complete article with full report link Here
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
online financial product applications - abondonment
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Google Sites Capture 27% Online Video Market Share
In a recent comScore Video Metrix report for July 2007, revealed that nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during the month. Google Sites topped the July rankings with both the most unique video viewers and most videos viewed.
Google Continues to Dominate Online Video Market
July saw Americans view more than 9 billion videos online, with Google Sites once again ranking as the top U.S. video property with nearly 2.5 billion videos viewed (27.0 percent share of videos), 2.4 billion of which occurred at YouTube.com. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 390 million (4.3 percent), followed by Fox Interactive Media with 298 million (3.3 percent) and Viacom Digital with 281 million (3.1 percent).'
In total, nearly 134 million Americans viewed online video in July, or approximately three in four U.S. Internet users. Google Sites also captured the largest online video audience with 67.8 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 35.8 million and Yahoo! Sites with 35.3 million.
Other notable findings from July 2007 include:
Online viewers watched an average of more than three hours of online video during the month (181 minutes).
The average online video duration was 2.7 minutes.
Nearly three out of four (74.2 percent) U.S. Internet users viewed video online.
More than one out of three (36.7 percent) U.S. Internet users viewed video on YouTube.com.
The average online video viewer consumed 68 videos, or more than two per day.
Entire figures and article here
Content Courtesy: Comscore
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Rapid Growth in Use of U.S. Online Credit Card Services
In a recent study of online credit card services conducted by ComScore,revealed strong growth in the use of the Internet for credit card account management. The study found that customers visited their issuer’s site 57 percent more often to service their accounts in 2006 than in 2005. This follows a 55 percent rise in 2005 over 2004. Strong growth in online servicing has continued in the first quarter of 2007, as the number of customer visits to issuers’ sites jumped to more than one billion, an increase of 32 percent versus the same period a year ago. “Investing in e-servicing is critical for credit card issuers because it not only helps them realize cost savings but the Internet is also becoming the preferred channel for many customers to interact with the issuer’s product and brand,”
63 Percent of Credit Card Users Find Online Servicing Important
As part of the study, comScore measured consumer attitudes toward online servicing of credit cards. The survey revealed that 63 percent of credit card users find online servicing important to their overall experience with their credit card. Sixty-nine percent of all customers have logged into their credit card Web site at some point in time and 58 percent of online customers log in more than once a month. Among customers for whom online servicing is important, viewing online statements, paying credit card bills, and disputing charges were cited as the most important online services.
Underscoring the importance to customers of making payments online, comScore’s Credit Card Solutions Benchmarker revealed that the number of online credit card payments has grown significantly during the past two years. In 2006, 524 million credit card bills were paid online, marking a 73-percent increase versus 2004.
62 Percent of Credit Card Users Willing to Switch to Paperless Statements
Enrolling customers for paperless credit card statements is one of the biggest cost-saving opportunities for issuers, and the comScore survey revealed that 62 percent of credit card users are either already using the service or are willing to use the service. Issuers can expect paperless adoption to grow with rising adoption among younger consumers, as those ages 18 to 44 are 20 percent more likely to use the service than consumers age 45 and older. Incentives and appeals can boost further adoption of paperless statement service among various customer segments, with 58 percent of them being enticed by a cash incentive.
As the Study indicates increasing trend in E- Servicing is a great deal to reduce operational costs for financial firms by increasing self service.
Benefits of Increased E- Servicing for financial firms:
With more customers preferring Paperless statements, would also benefit in cross selling and increased reach
of promotional campaigns.
Do you agree with me?
Post your comments and add on if i missed anything
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Social Networking, the fabric of global internet
Social Networking It would appear that social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very fabric of the global Internet.
In a recent press release comscore released Social networking global visitor reports. Here's a brief of the report followed with how one can effectively measure/track success of Social networking sites.
Social networking behemoth MySpace.com attracted more than 114 million global visitors age 15 and older in June 2007, representing a 72-percent increase versus year ago. Facebook.com experienced even stronger growth during that same time frame, jumping 270 percent to 52.2 million visitors. Bebo.com (up 172 percent to 18.2 million visitors) and Tagged.com (up 774 percent to 13.2 million visitors) also increased by orders of magnitude.
“During the past year, social networking has really taken off globally,” said Bob Ivins, executive vice president of international markets. “Literally hundreds of millions of people around the world are visiting social networking sites each month and many are doing so on a daily basis. It would appear that social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very fabric of the global Internet.”
A fundamental aspect of the success of social networking sites is cultural relevance,” continued Mr. Ivins. “Those doing well in certain regions are likely doing an effective job of communicating appropriately with those regions’ specific populations. As social networking continues to evolve, it will be exciting to see if networks are able to cross cultural barriers and bring people from different corners of the globe together in fulfilling the truest ideals of social networking.
i personally love Facebook! but iam also on orkut! well yeah everybody is on orkut in india.
Which ones are you on? :)
Ok here comes the best part! how do you measure/track Social networking sites? what are the KPI's for these kind of sites.
Top Social networking sites: Myspace, Facebook, hi5, friendster, orkut, beebo and Tagged
These are transcripts (with my comments) from Dennis R. Mortensen blog post about measuring Social networking sites. The entire post is here. I strongly recommend you read the entire post in which also has 7 Optimization opportunities for any social networking sites.
okie getting back, it's a fact that Social Networking is the prime headline for Web 2.0 and highly successful so far. This fact only leading towards an even greater responsibility in trying to measure ROI on ones social networking activities, especially as it is somehow agreed upon that only a limited number of players can win.
Why do Social Network site exists? Rather what's their objective ??
1.) Increase Advertising and/or premium member-ship Revenue ($$$$)
As the post from comscore clearly indicates social networking is now a global
phenomenon, this indeed will increase demographic/behavioral targeted advertising!
2.) Increase User engagement
Engagement is the word!, In a sentence global networking site bring people with common interest together increasing engagement, and as Eric Peterson describes User Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction on the website against a clearly defined set of measurable goals
Right now we know the objectives! let's get to the KPI's to track the success of these business objectives.
1.) Advertising Revenue KPI
Advertising Revenue
Visits per week
Ad units per visit*
Ads served*
Ad CTR
* The “Ad units per visit” KPI is a replacement for the old "page views per visit" as a way of indicating the size of your Ad inventory and the “Ads served” KPI is the actual number of revenue generating banners or other media type served in those units.
“Social Network User Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction on the website against a clearly defined set of measurable goals.” – and with that in mind we can define our KPI’s.
2.) User Engagement KPI
Social Network User Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction on the website against a clearly defined set of measurable goals.” – and with that in mind we can define our KPI’s.
Social Networking user engagement KPI’s:
User Engagement*
Anonymous visitors to members conversion rate*
Active member length
Time since last login
Total time spent on site
* The “User Engagement” KPI is a custom session metric designed and calculated from a set of basic metrics such as for example; pages viewed, time spent on site, time since last login, comments or other content submitted, subscribed to a feed or alert and so on – the calculation of this KPI is highly dependent on the structure of the Social Network in question). The “Anonymous visitors to members conversion rate” is very much a growth KPI that is used until the Social Network reaches its final plateau.
Although this might not be the exhaustive list, but certainly some great KPI's to start of with!
Feel free to add if i missed anything via comments!
Source:Comscore
Monday, July 23, 2007
3 Out of 4 U.S. Internet Users Streamed Video
In a recent press release by Comscore, month of May saw Americans view more than 8.3 billion video streams online, and Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. streaming video property with 1.8 billion videos streamed (21.5 percent share of streams), 1.7 billion of which occurred at YouTube.com. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 680 million streams (8.1 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 387 million (4.6 percent) and Viacom Digital with 237 million (2.8 percent). Google Sites also captured the largest streaming video audience with more than 64.9 million unique streamers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 52.7 million and Yahoo! Sites with 35.0 million.
Other notable findings from May 2007 include:
* Online viewers watched an average of 158 minutes of streaming video per streamer.
* The average video stream duration was 2.5 minutes.
* Nearly three out of four (74.3 percent) U.S. Internet users streamed video online.
* More than one out of three (35 percent) U.S. Internet users streamed video on YouTube.com.
* The average online video viewer consumed 63 video streams, or more than two per day.
Source: Comscore Article
Here's another article which according to which U.K. Internet Users Leading Consumers of Online Video
80 Percent of Surfers Streamed Video in April, Spending 10 Percent of Their Online Time Viewing Video
Comscore Article
Streaming videos are indeed becoming a part internet users,and one of the more popular things to do online.
Looking in terms of web analytics,if you do have any kind of streaming videos on your site, it sure is importantto measure the effectiveness of these streaming videos.
So does your Web analytic solution track streaming videos effectively,
Is implementation easy?
what are the KPI's for streaming videos?
Implementation
Implementation is done via Custom events (clip start, clip complete, played event) for omniture Site Catalyst. Advanced implementation can be also done via omntiure.
KPI's
Video Start (event)
% played (event - 10%, 50%, 90% or 100%)
Pre roll ad event
Average played time
are some of the key KPI's,
Did i miss anything? I'll be glad to hear more
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Search Engine reports may07 by Comscore
ComScore released its monthly analysis of search report, google is still well ahead
followed by Yahoo and MSN.
In May 2007, Google Sites captured 50.7 percent of the U.S. search market, gaining one full share point from the previous month. Yahoo! Sites maintained its second place ranking with 26.4 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (10.3 percent), Ask Network (5.0 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.6 percent).
Americans conducted 7.6 billion searches online in May, up 4 versus April and up 11 percent versus May 2006.
Google Sites led the pack with 3.9 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (782 million), Ask Network (384 million), and Time Warner Network (348 million).
Complete Article here.
Do you think Social bookmarking site can in anyways effect the search industry? i've observed that many people have started searching on social bookmarking site for better results. What do you think ??
Comments, suggestions and feedback welcome :)
Thursday, May 24, 2007
ComScore PodCast Study
In a recent press release Comscore, released the following study on PodCast User community
Podcasting Dominated by Males
An analysis of the iTunes podcasting audience revealed that males represented a significantly larger share (63 percent) of the audience than did females (37 percent). In addition, 18-24 year olds represented a substantial share of the audience (29 percent) and were more than twice as likely as the average Internet user to download podcasts. People between the ages of 35-54 represented about half of the podcasting audience and were also more likely than average to download podcasts.
“The comScore study reveals significant advertising opportunities among several consumer segments,” said Nick Tabbal, comScore senior vice president of media and entertainment solutions. “While the conventional wisdom says that only young, tech-savvy consumers are downloading and listening to podcasts, there is also a sizable market among 35-54 year olds, indicating that the audience is broader than previously thought.”
Read the complete Press Release
