Online-Handel wächst im zweistelligen Prozentbereich

Der Trend im Web Waren zu kaufen, ist ungebrochen. Damit können sich Online-Händler über steigende Umsätze freuen. Eine aktuelle Analyse belegt die enorme Wachstumsdynamik des Vertriebkanals Internet.
Für rund 13,6 Milliarden Euro haben deutsche Internetnutzer im vergangenen Jahr Waren im Internet gekauft. Damit legte der E-Commerce-Umsatz mit einem Plus von 19 Prozent deutlich zu. Die positive Entwicklung ist in erster Linie darauf zurückzuführen, dass immer mehr Menschen im Netz einkaufen. So stieg die Anzahl der Internet-Käufer um zwölf Prozent auf 29,5 Millionen. Die Einkaufshäufigkeit blieb mit 9,4 Käufen pro Person und Jahr fast konstant. Die durchschnittlichen Ausgaben pro Kauf stiegen hingegen um sieben Prozent auf knapp 49 Euro. Das sind die zentralen Ergebnisse des 'WebScope zum Kaufverhalten der Deutschen im Internet' von der Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung.

Allerdings zeigt sich, dass einzelne Konsumentengruppen das Internet als Einkaufsmöglichkeit völlig unterschiedlich nutzen. Hierfür hat die GfK Panel Services Deutschland die Konsumenten in sieben verschiedene Online-Nutzer-Typen segmentiert. Die meisten Verbraucher - insgesamt knapp 35 Prozent - gehören zur Gruppe der Selektivnutzer. Diese Gruppe erwirtschaftet aber nur knapp 13 Prozent des Umsatzes. Den größten Anteil am Umsatz liefert die Gruppe der Onlineshopper und Banker, die mit gut 20 Prozent die zweitgrößte Gruppe der Internetnutzer stellen. Sie erwirtschafteten knapp 35 Prozent des E-Commerce-Umsatzes.

Twitter and UK newspaper websites

Last week (w/e 14/03/09) Twitter.com was the 54th most visited website in the UK, up from 66th the week before. One consequence of Twitter rapid rise up the rankings is that the micro-blogging service has now overtaken most of the UK newspapers online. As the chart below illustrates, last week Twitter received more UK Internet visits than the homepages of the Guardian, Times, Sun and Telegraph. It also over took Google News UK. Of the main newspaper homepages, only the Daily Mail received more UK Internet visits than Twitter last week.

There are few caveats here, the first relating to how we categorize newspaper websites within Hitwise. Wherever possible we split out topic specific domains for the newspapers, particularly the broadsheets (e.g. Times Online - Business, Telegraph Sport, Technology Guardian, etc.). Consequently the traffic illustrated in the chart above refers only to the newspapers’ main homepages; although in every case these do receive the majority each title’s visits.

However, it is also important to point out that we are only measuring traffic to the Twitter homepage and not hits via third party applications such as Tweetdeck or Twitterrific. Given that some people claim that these exceed the direct hits via the website, it is also fair to say that actual Twitter usage is higher than our numbers imply. Therefore, even taking all of these caveats into accounts, the trend is clear: in the UK, Twitter now receives more UK Internet traffic than most of the main newspaper websites and is growing at a faster rate.

Although Twitter is a news source for many, it is also a source of traffic for news websites. During February, 9.6% of Twitter’s downstream traffic went to News and Media websites, and 41% of that went to the News and Media – Print sub-category, which is dominated by the newspaper sites. The chart below illustrates the top News and Media – Print websites to receive traffic from Twitter over the last year. As you can see, the Guardian currently receives more traffic than any of its competitors. And not only is its homepage the top recipient of Twitter traffic, but three of its sections (Technology, Comment is Free, and Media) also appear in the top 10.

So, Twitter is becoming a significant source of traffic for news sites, but how does it fare when compared with other news aggregator websites? As in the US, Twitter has already overtaken Digg in the UK and, as the chart below illustrates, is now a bigger source of traffic for News and Media – Print websites. However, despite having overtaken Google News UK in terms of Internet visits, Twitter still sends only a sixth as much traffic to Print websites. Twitter is also a smaller source of traffic than News Now, while Facebook sends over ten times as many visits to the category.

Despite Recession, More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social Media

In a recession, budgets are tightened, jobs are cut, and those who remain are expected to do more with less. Given this type of economic reality, it's surprising to hear of an industry reporting an increase in spending on anything, much less on something as new as social media. Yet that's exactly what's occurring. According to a new Forrester Research survey of 145 global interactive marketers in both B2B and B2C companies with more than 250 employees, the use of social media as a marketing tool is on the rise. What's more, Forrester reports that over 50% of marketers said they will be increasing their spending on social media marketing in the coming months.

Part of the reason for this increased spending is the low cost of social media tools. Compared with larger expenditures like advertising, social media requires much less investment. In fact, three-quarters of those surveyed who knew their budgets said they allowed for $100,000 or less for social media tools over a 12-month period.

It's also easier for firms to increase spending on social media applications because they aren't yet formalized line items in marketing budgets. Because of their relatively new and still somewhat experimental nature, marketers aren't necessarily predetermining the exact amount they'll spend on these types of applications. Instead, some marketers (45%) pull together funding for social media projects as needed while others (23%) scrape together funds from wherever possible to pay for their various social media efforts.

Yet despite the unconventional methods which are used to fund many companies' social media investments, 53% of marketers believe they will increase their spending on these initiatives over the next six months. Another 42% expect their investments to remain the same. That makes sense since almost all marketers surveyed were already using some form of social media, whether blogs, social networking sites, or user-generated content.

Unfortunately though, marketers who still fund social media projects only as experiments may be putting future initiatives on shaky ground. Without concentrating on measurable objectives, it will be difficult to justify further investment in the future. Businesses also need to understand that social media efforts should be analyzed for effectiveness based on things like customer awareness through activity, interest through interaction, and intent to buy through registration and/or questions. These are the types of successes that social media can deliver; less important are traditional web analytics like page views.

Also key to long-term success in social media is having the necessary assets on hand. For example, social media strategists and community managers should be dedicated resources.

To prove the value of social media to the business, Forrester recommends marketers start with a listening platform and then integrate social media marketing metrics like share of voice and engagement to demonstrate the value of these new tools.

Twitter Experimenting With Text Advertising

Twitter, the subject of endless business model speculation, added another weapon to the arsenal today - house advertisements on the home page when you’re logged in, and some search results.

The advertisements currently only link internally to Twitter Search or the Twitter Widget. But it isn’t much of a stretch to assume they’re testing the units for possible third party advertisements in the future. Twitter Japan, which launched a year ago, has included display ads from the beginning.

Last summer Twitter CEO Evan Williams said he thought Twitter’s strongest revenue potential would come from charging for commercial use by brands. But it’s clear that the company will experiment with a number of different potential streams - we think Twitter search has tremendous revenue opportunity.

Facebook usage statistics by country - March 2009

- Not many changes in position for the top countries by Facebook usage (though numbers are increasing significantly), but further down the list there have been a number of developments

- Facebook usage in Asia is increasing quickly with both Indonesia and Malaysia showing significant increases in Facebook use

- In South America Facebook usage is still climbing, with Colombia now leading the way, but also jumps in Facebook usage in Venezuela, Argentina and Chile

- In the battle of the Nordics, the number of Facebook users in Sweden has overtaken the number of Facebook users in Denmark - though Denmark has the world's highest Facebook penetration with around 2/3 of the Danish population classified as active Facebook users

There are now 27 countries with over 1 million people using Facebook. Here are the latest statistics for March 2009 (taken from the Facebook interface):

Country	Facebook users 30/12/08	Facebook users 17/03/09	% growth Dec 08 - Mar 09
USA	42,078,960	55,329,460	31.5%
UK	14,937,810	17,765,160	19%
Canada	10,862,040	11,655,980	7.3%
Turkey	7,394,340	9,957,180	25.5%
France	6,587,240	8,742,900	32.7%
Italy	5,585,700	8,678,000	55.4%
Australia	4,330,040	5,152,960	19%
Colombia	3,632,760	4,508,960	24.1%
Chile	4,153,020	4,341,240	4.5%
Spain	2,596,080	3,948,300	52.1%
Argentina	2,255,300	3,353,280	48.7%
Venezuela	1,874,220	2,578,540	37.6%
Indonesia	897,040	2,236,380	149.3%
Sweden	1,696,700	2,097,840	23.6%
Denmark	1,776,260	2,093,900	17.9%
Belgium	1,655,940	2,043,380	23.4%
Mexico	1,440,640	1,932,940	34.2%
Norway	1,456,140	1,884,800	29.4%
Germany	1,255,480	1,772,380	41.2%
Hong Kong	1,458,520	1,683,980	15.5%
Switzerland	1,122,900	1,391,220	23.9%
India	1,071,280	1,367,560	27.7%
Greece	999,580	1,360,620	36.1%
South Africa	920,200	1,227,220	33.4%
Finland	918,940	1,131,580	23.1%
Egypt	822,560	1,125,900	36.9%
Malaysia	850,420	1,069,260	25.7%

Adwords mit favicons...

Also dieser Test bei AdWords ist bisher total an mir vorbeigegangen. Google liefert bei AdWords-Anzeigen neuerdings Favicons mit aus, was die Anzeigen wirklich schick erscheinen lässt. Ich habe zwar bisher keine Möglichkeit im Adwords-Konto gefunden die Favicons hochzuladen und denke mal, dass sich Google selbst darum kümmert. Es erscheinen aber bisher nur bei wenigen Anzeigen Favicons, sodass ich noch nicht richtig ein System erkennen konnte.

Was kann das nun für Auswirkungen auf SEM-Kampagnen haben? Ich vermute mal, dass hier Markenunternehmen mit recht bekannten Logos einen Vorteil haben und sich dadurch die Klickrate erhöhen wird. In dem Beispiel bei Immobilien hat leider keiner ein sehr einprägsames Logo als Favicon, was bei der Anzeige von Vodafone schon wieder ganz anders ist.