In its inaugural Asia Pacific Content Consumption Trends report, Outbrain collated findings based on data from a global network of more than 100,000 sites including CNN, Channel News Asia, Fox News, The Times of India, ESPN, Times Inc, and The Guardian.
With the exception of Australia and India, where overall hourly content consumption peaks in the day at 1 pm and 2:30 pm, respectively, Asia-Pacific consumers prefer to consume content at night. Hourly content consumption peaks at 9 pm in the Philippines and Indonesia, and at 10 pm in Singapore and Malaysia. All Asia-Pacific markets showed peak content consumption on mobile phone and tablet devices at night between 9 pm and 11 pm.
In every Asia Pacific market, bounce rates for content consumed on mobile phones and tablet devices are higher than bounce rates for content consumed on desktop PCs. Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who enter a site and then immediately leave rather than viewing additional pages within the same site.
Australians show the largest variance in their preference for consuming content on desktops versus handheld devices; they are 36 per cent more likely to bounce when consuming content on a mobile phone compared to on a desktop, and 20 per cent more likely to bounce on a tablet.
“Firstly, both publishers and brands need to optimize content for mobile, and take advantage of mobile-targeting options,” said Anthony Hearne, regional director, Outbrain Southeast Asia and India. “Secondly, the industry needs to embrace data to better inform decisions on what to build as well as when and where to push out content,” added Hearne.
Content related to celebrities is the most favoured among Indonesians, Singaporeans, and Filipinos; Australians are interested in crime news; Indians prefer investing; while Malaysians go for soccer.
Southeast Asian countries comprising Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are least likely to pay for content, while Australia, India and Philippines engage with paid content the most,
Australia (-3%), Philippines (-0.5%) and India (-0.4%) have lower bounce rates than the US average paid content bounce rate, while Indonesia (+2%), Malaysia (+2%) and Singapore (+4%) have higher bounce rates.
Asia represents a huge opportunity with exceptional digital ad spend growth and increasing levels of user engagement, but to take advantage of this, publishers and brands need to understand consumer behaviour.
“Everyone wants to get on board the content marketing train today but not many recognize that consumers now have full control of the content they receive and consume,” Hearne said. “While telling interesting, relevant stories is certainly key to any content marketing strategy, the second half of the equation lies in understanding the where, when and what of how consumers want to consume content.”
Across Asia-Pacific, content that falls in the technology and internet, health and electronics categories has the highest bounce rates. Content related to news, sports, and business/finance shows the highest levels of engagement.
From www.campaignasia.com
