Thursday, May 26, 2011

Cities Reference - Brand new metrics!

Almost six months since our last metrics update while a lot has changed. An example? Brand new website and apartment listing wizard with it. A new website: San Francisco Reference.

Let's see what has changed in the meanwhile:

Cities Reference: with the new website it has finally become a real Parent site. Everything from sign up/sign in to apartment search has to or can pass through it. Unsurprisingly its
Alexa rank has boomed to 69,000 an improvement of 525%!  
Analytics It's our second site for traffic (32% of Roman Reference) and it's traffic is gone up 16% month on month and 420% year on year. Time on site and bounce measure better than all our other websites

Roman Reference:
Alexa 60,000 up 15% compared to January and 28.5% year on year
Analytics: By and large still our first site (68% more traffic than the second best, 9 bookings every one made to the second best); grew its traffic 11.5% year on year.
Apartments: with 590 apartments it has grown 12.5% compared to six months ago and almost 30% year on year which is a very interesting rate considering that this site is already mature
Instant: ratio Instant to On Request is 38%
Conversion: ratio Booking Request to Confirmed Booking is 81.5%
Booking Requests: 1,210/month

Paris Reference:
Alexa: 112,000  our third site, up 19% to six months ago and 53% year on year!
Analytics: It's our third site on traffic (16% of Roman Reference) since the new site was launched, time on site is 43% lower than our mature site (RomanReference) and bounce rate 27% higher. Actually down 14.5% year on year in traffic.
Apartments: It's by far our second website in terms of apartment with 160 apartments it grew 86% year on year but lost 10% to 6 months ago due to an unexpected bleeding.
Instant: ratio Instant to On Request is 13%
Conversion: is just 36.5%
Booking Requests are 10% of RR, by far our second site for that.

Copenhagen Reference:
Alexa: 1,447,000 our 5th site still, but is down 51% compared to six months ago and a staggering 75% worse year on year.
Analytics: It's still our fourth site on traffic (2.4% of RR) after site launch, time on site it's 66% lower than Roman Reference, bounce rate is 34.7% higher. Traffic year on year is down 9.5%.
Apartments: It's our 8th site with 12 apartments, no growth since six months, 33% year on year.
Instant and Booking Requests/Conversion ratio are too low to mention, as for booking requests it's our 7th site, 0.16% of RR.
Analysis: We stopped investing in CPH, there seems to be a trust problem with companies that aren't based in the same city or aren't very big/cool American companies. This is true for single owners and competitors there. We had started with quite a bit of enthusiasm with the idea that smaller cities could work better than big ones, and it was so, just at the very beginning though.


Barcelona Reference:
Alexa: 1,401,000 is our 4th site up 100% six months and 84% year on year, only 15% up compared to February 2010.
Analytics: It's our 5th site on traffic (2.35% of RR), time on site is 65% lower than Roman Reference and bounce rate 31.6% higher. Traffic is up 8% year on year.
Apartments: It's our 6th site with 27 apartments, up 42% compared to last year
Instant and Booking Requests/Conversion ratio are too low to mention, the booking requests are plenty though, by far 3rd site 1.3% of RR.
Analysis: we just need new apartments, most of the ones we have don't update nearly enough and keep changing their prices in obscure ways, but we do have traffic and booking requests.

New York Reference:
Alexa: 2,045,000 up 45% compared to six months ago, but 34% worse year on year
Analytics: It's our 6th site on traffic (1.8% of RR) after site launch, time on site is 49.5% lower than Roman Reference, bounce rate is 30% higher
Apartments: It's our 3rd site for apartments! With 44 apartments it grew 110% in six months and 390% in a year
Instant ratio is 2.3% and Booking Requests/Conversion ratio is too low to mention, as for booking requests it's our 6th site 0.25% of RR.
Analysis: New York is growing fast, we have to invest here to get the appropriate amount of traffic

Berlin Reference:
Alexa: 2,032,000 up 13% compared to six months ago it has lost alexa traffic by 46% year on year
Analytics: It's our 7th site on traffic (1.62% of RR) after site launch, time on site is 65.7% lower than Roman Reference, bounce is 32% higher.
Apartments: It's our fourth site for apartments. With 32 apartments it grew  146% in six months and 220% year on year!
Instant ratio is 3.1% and Booking Requests/Conversion ratio is 25%, as for booking requests is 5th on our site 0.33% of RR.

London Reference
Alexa: 2,040,000 up 11% on six months, down 48% year on year
Analytics: It's our 8th site for traffic (1.28% of RR), time on site is 49.7% lower than RR, bounce rate is 31.3% higher than RR.
Apartments: it's our 5th site for apartments with 29 of them, growth is stuck year on year
Instant ratio is Nil and Booking Request/Conversion is 20%, as for booking requests it's 4th on our site 0.4% of RR

Madrid Reference
Alexa: 1,944,000 it' up 15% six months and 36% a year
Analytics: It's our 10th site for traffic (0.7% of RR) time on site is 76% lower than RR, bounce is 88% worse than RR
Apartments: It's our 7th site for apartments, with 14 apartments it grew 55% year on year
Instant ratio is 42.8%!! and Booking Requests/Conversion ratio is Nil, as for booking requests is one before last on our site 0.1% of RR

San Francisco Reference
Last but not least!
Alexa: 1,496,000 newborn runs fast
Analytics: It's our 9th site for traffic (0.8% of RR), time on site is 46% lower than RR, bounce rate is 30.7% higher than RR
Apartments: It's our last site on apartments with Miami, 8 apartments. Seems pretty good considering it just went online
Analysis: It's a really good start, already competing with the other websites



Wednesday, May 4, 2011