Mobile Engagement Paramount In Competitive JAPAC Marketplace

All industries can benefit from better audience engagement, according to Adobe Digital Insights’ latest “Japan & Asia Pacific Best of the Best” report.

Adobe Digital Insights’ annual “Japan & Asia Pacific Best of the Best” report, released Wednesday, highlights an unsurprising but important takeaway: an increase in online competition.

“New sites are popping up all the time, and there is more competition to attract and retain visitors,” said ADI social and data analyst Adam Lloyd. “To stay competitive, brands need to adapt and ensure that their consumer experience offerings continue to meet expectations.”

That means brands need to invest more in their mobile marketing strategies, given that consumers engage with brands digitally more via their smartphones than their desktops.

In Japan and the Asia-Pacific region (JAPAC), specifically, online visit rates have increased across most industries, the report found. However, the length of time visitors stay on these sites has actually decreased. The exception is Australia and New Zealand, where its top performers achieved average website visits of an impressive nine minutes.

The telecommunications sector had the highest average monthly visit rate, while, for the second year in a row, the automotive, travel and hospitality, and technology sectors experienced the lowest visit rates. This could have negative repercussions for the media and entertainment sectors with regards to marketing and advertising, said social and data analyst Adam Lloyd.

“It’s wonderful that people are visiting these sites more often. However, when we compare that with the time spent on each site, there is an overall decrease in engagement,” he said. “Media and entertainment websites make money from advertising, so the longer people stay on their sites, the more advertising they see and potentially engage with. Brands and marketers need to therefore consider ways to better engage visitors to stay on sites longer.”

Indeed, all industries can benefit from better audience engagement. Stickiness declined roughly 10% across every industry in APAC in 2016, the report found—a similar trend to that in the U.S., where stickiness fell by 6% across all industries.

With time spent on sites and stickiness both down across APAC, Lloyd said he is concerned that visitors aren’t finding relevant or engaging enough material.

“We need to look at the content we’re sharing and ensure it’s being delivered on the right devices, especially mobile, as the smartphone visit share continues to increase across the region,” he said.

Zoning in on individual countries, the report found every nation except South Korea experiencing a decline in stickiness.

Brands in South Korea are excelling across the board, with the “Best of the Best” having 63.2% of visitors sticking to more than one page while browsing a website. Average performers experience such stickiness 47.8% of the time, which is up year over year (YoY).

“The top 20% across the region are outperforming average website stickiness by 53%,” Lloyd said.

Meanwhile, conversion rates are up across both smartphones and desktops in all APAC countries, the report found. Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and Japan have the highest average desktop conversion rates.

“Japan is making a great effort,” Lloyd said. “Their websites are at the top of smartphone and desktop conversion rates.”

Social Following Strong

Top performers also have increased their social following by an average of 19% YoY, the report found. All industries across JAPAC have fully embraced Twitter, while Instagram adoption is on the rise.

“Instagram really is the place to engage consumers as it has about 600 million active users, which is roughly twice that of Twitter,” Lloyd said.

Instagram is also taking a bite out of Snapchat’s market share. “Brands are experiencing more authentic interactions through Instagram,” Lloyd added. “So it’s good to see more channels, especially retail and travel, who you’d expect to be on there, sharing those experiences.”

Click here to view a larger version of this report on SlideShare.