Effectiveness of Online Classifieds

Chapter 1

1.1 Abstract
Research of effectiveness of online classifieds show the absence of agreed factors of effectiveness.

Focus has been placed on the click-through rates, rather than on attitudinal responses, and it is necessary
to evaluate the effectiveness of online classifieds from a more comprehensive perspective. Online
classifieds has sizable effects on brand loyalty and attitudes that cant be reflected in click-through.

Online classifieds features force consumers to make relationship with companys brand which leads to
increase brand image in consumers mind. Aim is to analyze the impact of the type of online classifieds
format as well as specific advertisement features on users response and on the effectiveness of online
classifieds in general. The methods used: literature analysis, comparison, data analysis, observation.

The mode of advertising and the perspective of Marketing have been changing to reach quick and easily
near to customer door. From 1999 to 2012, IAB reports show that the internet classifieds revenues hit
historically at nearly $9.3 billion. Digital Marketing is a highly effective medium for interacting and
engaging to the consumers, through social media consumers play no longer as passive but are more
active participants in contemporary online media. The online advertising is an increasingly important
component of public relations, organisations use social network sites to build relationships with key
publics, provide a variety of organisational information.

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1.2 Introduction
India is showing an upward trend in the technology usage. There is rapid emergence of Internet
in India, more and more people are becoming net savvy and there are a lot of activities spread
over a broad spectrum on Internet for them. Now days, all thanks to the internet you can find site
related to any topic of your choice. Earlier it was parents who used to look for the perfect match
for their children. It was on the sole discretion of elders to make decision. Today Youngsters have
dreams regarding their life-partners; they want to explore the options before making one final
decision about choosing their soul mate. Like so many other activities such as E-shopping, E-
mailing, E-business, matrimonial websites are expected to provide a lot of scope for people
wanting to get married. The social attitude in India are transforming to reality of today.
People favour choosing life partners for themselves.

Peoples Perception & Attitude towards the usage of matrimonial websites presently has changed
drastically, people are availing the service of matrimonial websites, though it may not be their
first option but yes it is one of the options for them. Not only todays generation has accepted
this modern technology, but people who are a generation behind us i.e our parents, relatives, etc
are progressing with the fast changing world & technology by accepting this mode of
matchmaking for their children, relatives, etc. This can be seen from the results given ahead in
the report below.

Thus, with increase in demand we have loads of matrimonial websites coming up &
mushrooming, thus providing variety of options to the prospecting bride & grooms.

Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and
other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Classified advertisements are much
cheaper than larger display advertisements used by businesses although display advertising is more
widespread. According to William A. Cohen, classified ads will bring "a greater return on your
investment", dollar for dollar, than investments in display advertising, direct mail, or other media.

The Internet has become a major source of information consumption, and to some extent, has replaced
old media such as the radio, television and the newspaper. The main advantages of the Internet include
its mass availability and its almost instant access to current information. As a result of the public's
reaction to these advantages, Madison Avenue realized the potential of the new media and soon

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incorporated it to its budget. Convinced by the initial web publications of the early '90s, companies soon
instilled momentum in the new channel. Today, more than 700 million people use the Internet daily,
mostly so in developed countries (USA, China, Japan, Germany and Britain, e.g) Hoffman and Novak
(1996).

The most popular uses of the Internet are searching through data and information, and the purchasing of
products and services. In light of these, it is understandable why many companies advertise their
products and services online. In addition, advertisers can quickly benefit from changing advertising
scripts, from the possibility of better segmenting their market, and from relatively low costs. Due to
Internet advertising's proliferation, it is important to examine the factors that affect its effectiveness.

Kinds of Classifieds

There are many free classifieds that you can use to advertise. Not only is it cheap, its easily accessible
as well. There are many kinds of classifieds made for each specific purpose. While the most common
type of classified is more general, incorporating many different fields and classifications. However,
more specialized classifieds exist. They are for those who are looking to advertise or look for specific
classifications.

One of the most popular kinds of online classified ads is for jobs. Job classifieds are strictly for those
who are looking for employees, or are looking for those who are looking for an open position. Online
job classifieds are especially useful because it caters to a wide audience, and is free for everyone. You
will be able to find a variety of fields from entertainment to secretarial. There is something for everyone.
Moreover, you can choose from a lot of different options in online job classifieds as many people post
open positions. This way, you will be able to choose the best offer you can get.

Classified ads for various goods like electronics are also very popular. Here, different people can sell
new, used or damaged electronics for a specific price. It is also a good way to start a business. You can
choose from different types of payment methods. A good example of this kind of classified is eBay. You

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can choose to auction your goods to get a higher price. You can also choose to auction off various
memorabilia or collectibles. They can usually be auctioned for a higher price.

There are many benefits to posting on classified ads. Because there are so many kinds of classified ads,
everyone can use it to their advantage. There are a lot of free classifieds online. You have to choose
which one is suitable for what you need.

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1.3 History
The global advertising market, estimated to be worth over $200 billion, has for a long timed remained
the purview of newspapers, television and radio media, but slowly the growing internet penetration has
brought in another big player into the game. Online classifieds has somewhat made big inroads into print
publications once secure monopoly. In many other parts of the world, the most popular sections in the
online classifieds are recruitment, automobiles, real estate, education and other miscellaneous ads. These
classifieds are also growing fast and a major section of national print dailies or local area dailies are
filled up with these ads.

Online classifieds has its origins in the USA in the 1990s and the time when internet usage had started
becoming more popular. The drive behind this emergence was that traditional offline classifieds were
perceived to be cash cows for print publications all over the world, so it was prudent to extend the
concept wider. The pioneers of technology foresaw how advancements in information could expand over
$100 billion classifieds industry and suggested that the solution was to create the online classifieds
industry with benefits far beyond the conventional classifieds. Monetization and revenue generation for
the players in this industry normally comes from online advertising, featured listings, and value added
services.

The father was Craig Newmark, who in 1995 created an email distribution list with co-workers and
friends to publicize events in the San Francisco Bay Area. The subscriber numbers grew very fast
through word of mouth, and that is how it all began, with the Craigslist becoming web based in 1996.
Up to today, Craigslist remains the most popular online classifieds website in the US. But in India, the
worlds second largest in population size, the most popular site is OLX

The nature and scope of the classifieds industry

From selling items you no longer need, a car, real estate, job opportunities to virtually anything you can
think of, the online classifieds market can do it. And because it is a cheaper form of advertising than the
conventional media, the industrys growth will continue booming for years to come. The online
classifieds industry continues to be a major boom in, thanks to the internet penetration that has allowed
the posting of classifieds on the web to reach a wide client base.

The online classifieds are gaining popularity every now and then. The many websites, internet enabled
tablets and mobile devices increasing day by day, has contributed a lot to the growth of the industry. The

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online classifieds industry has become a major internet market and a lot of people take a regular access
to internet only to explore these classifieds online.

The matrimonies has grown to occupy the better sections of online free classifieds in India today,
largely because they are looked upon nearly by every household and millions of people end up getting
married through the matrimonial classifieds. Job listings make the other popular online classified
segment, with many people looking for jobs every now and then. Private investigative agencies are also
growing in popularity because people do hire private investigators to look into some important matters.
As is the education sector where many coaching agencies have come up to help students get admission
to their desired colleges, and they advertise on these platforms.

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1.4 The Surge in online classifieds across the world
Recent data reveals that classifieds ads are migrating to the Internet. The number of printed
classifieds ads in MENA is shrinking, while Arabic language online classifieds websites are
booming.
The shift to online classifieds has improved the experience of consumer-to consumer and
business-to-consumer selling and buying. It also created billions of dollars in value for start-up
founders and their investors.
Globally, online classifieds is a business that is mostly local or regional, where global websites
are usually of low value outside their geographical area. For this reason, the regions homegrown
online classifieds companies have high growth potentials.

If you like to get your hands dirty with an inky, fat and heavy print classifieds newspaper made out of
dead trees on a Friday or Saturday morning, and circle classifieds that are of interest using that bold red
pen, over a cup of coffee, then you must have noticed that the number of classified ads has shrunk. This
is especially true in the autos and real-estate segments, as the volume of ads has fallen over the
past couple of years and even more so during the last 12 months.
Where did the classified advertisements go? You wont have to look far. Just pick up
your computer or smart device, do a quick search, or download a regional
classifieds app, and youll find all youve missed and much more.
Between 2000 and 2010, US newspaper classifieds revenue fell from $19.6 billion
to less than
$6 billion. In fact, today most cities in the US dont have a classifieds print
newspaper.
Europe did not need long to follow. A couple of years ago, Frances most iconic
classifieds paper which was the inspiration behind many of the classifieds prints in
the Middle East decided to stop printing. While we are yet to see leading
classifieds newspapers in the region shut down, its easy to predict that this may
happen in less than 5 years.
A look into the regional print classifieds industry reveals that business from
classifieds listings has stopped growing 2 or 3 years ago, while most titles have
witnessed 20 to 30 percent decline in revenues and volume of ads last year. This

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year seems to be following suit. While this may be bad news for publishers who
made a bet on print classifieds, and set a blind eye to the obvious shift to online
classifieds, the migration of classified advertising to the Internet has been a win-
win for all. This includes consumers, small and medium-sized companies, and
online classifieds start-ups and their investors. The shift drastically improved the
experience of consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer selling and
buying. It also created billions of dollars in value for start-up founders and their
investors around the world, which made-up -multiple times- for the lost value in
print classifieds. Despite starting mostly with a free offering, online classifieds have
been able to prove their success in monetizing users infinitely more than print
classifieds, in a far more scalable manner, and with much higher margins.
It is not an exaggeration that more than 50 percent of the 135 million Internet
users in the Arab world rarely use a print classifieds newspaper. From a seller or
service providers perspective, one can get immediate gratification and results by
posting ads for free, or paying a small fee, to get premium exposure without
having to leave the comfort of his couch or wait for the newspaper print date. For
example if you want to sell your car or house, all youd have to do is pull out your
smartphone, take few photos, tick a few boxes, and boom, your advertisement
would be online.
From a users perspective, spending hours going through print pages and circling
ads, setting-up
comparison tables, writing down phone numbers and waiting for next weeks
edition for new options is now replaced by a sophisticated search that allows you
to look for cars by brand, year, body type, fuel type, and price, get in touch by
email or phone, and set-up alerts in case what a user wants is not available now,
but could become available in the next minutes or hours. The same great
experience applies to real-estate, jobs, electronics, services, and whatever buy/sell
category you can imagine.
To understand the seismic nature of the shift that happened in the past few years,
approximately 25 percent of Internet users in the Arab world have used online
classifieds. This put the total audience of top regional classifieds websites at an

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estimate of more than 35 million users per month by mid-2014. This includes
varying using habits from daily to weekly or more, which far exceeds not only the
audience of print classifieds, but that of all print media in the Arab world be it
daily, weekly, or monthly.
On a country basis, a leading classifieds website in Saudi Arabia for example
reaches 250-400 thousand users a day, depending on the day of the week, while
the leading newspaper and leading classifieds weekly in the country prints no more
than half this number on their best day.
In terms of depth, classifieds websites usually have tens of thousands of postings
per day, compared to a maximum of several hundred posts in the daily, and low
one-digit thousand posts in weekly print classifieds.
Online classifieds have become so popular in the Arab world that in some countries
the leading classifieds website is more popular than Facebook. This is the case for
leading Arabic classifieds website OpenSooq.com, which is a leader in its category
in several countries including Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. With a simple, easy to use website and popular iOS and
Android apps, OpenSooq is not only leading in countries that have mature online
audiences, but also in countries where the number of Internet users is growing
very quickly via smartphones, such as
Iraq and Libya.
In expat-dominated countries such as UAE, Qatar, and Oman, English-language
generic classifieds website Dubizzle has done well by focusing on business-to-
consumer advertising in sectors such as real estate, offering advanced search
functionalities, and a more elaborate user interface.
OpenSooq.com and Dubizzle are joined by category leaders who have focused on
specific verticals, such as Propertyfinder, focused on real estate in the UAE, and
Haraj, the undisputed leader in automotive classifieds in Saudi Arabia.
Globally, online classifieds is a business that is mostly local or regional, where
global websites are usually of low value outside their geographical area. The sector
is also usually one of the first categories to mature with emergence of regional
leaders. This has been the case indeed in

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MENA, with the business leaders in online classifieds mostly being home-grown
start-ups that are now valued at tens of millions of dollars. Thats just for starters,
as they have tremendous growth potential ahead of them.

1.5 Online advertising effectiveness evaluation theories

There is agreement that online advertising can be audited through factors such as brand awareness,
product or service recall, changes in the attitudes and behavior. The studies and theories of such
processes focus on information processing on the internet. Such processes can be illustrated by online
advertising information processing models, which are mostly the integration of old theories
(Such as the product involvement theory, information processing theories, and psychological theories)
with some new elements specific to online advertising. It has been widely argued that the effectiveness
of online advertisements should be evaluated by their ability to generate click-through, which refers to a
users clicking on a certain web advertisement, or some other behavioral responses, such as sales or
interactions on a website.
Others have argued that direct response is a complex phenomenon which is partly determined by factors
relating to the predisposition of the audience, not the advertising itself. A single measure cannot provide
a complex picture of online advertising. Discussion of advertising effectiveness must take in to account
the objectives in marketing contexts. If the objective is to attract online users to visit its website, then the
ability of advertisement to generate the desired behavioral responses should be measured, but if the
objective is to increase brand awareness, the level of click may be irrelevant.
Online classifieds depends on the advertiser specific aspect (objective advertisement features) and the
customer-specific aspect (subjective classified features). Most of these factors include structural
elements, such as classified features, formats and types. Factors that are specific to users, such as their
personal propensities, perceptions, and motivation, may influence the effectiveness of online classified

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as well many hierarchy-of-effects models have been proposed for advertising effectiveness. For example
in the DAGMAR (Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results) model it is assumed
that advertising works in the sequence of awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action. Hierarchy
of effect model categorizing elements into three categories: cognition, affection and conation. Conation
is natural tendency, impulse, striving, or directed effort, and it was a popular term for behavioral
intentions but it has been replaced by behavior as the organizing term.
Studies found that advertising on the web has sizable effects on brand loyalty and attitudes that cant be
reflected in click-through However, the internet introduces an additional dimension alienation
(subject's estrangement from its community, society). So, internet is an active media and moving
consumer to the role of an active receiver from being a passive receiver. Rodgers and Thorson (2000)
draw a distinction in their Internet Advertising Model (IAM) with extra features of online
advertisements which are interactivity, attitude toward online advertisements and attitude toward
websites. These factors divided into consumer-controlled (functions and information process) and
advertiser-control (structures) that lead to consumer response such as emailing to advertisers, clicking
on advertisement, and exploring the website. Model of key success factors of effectiveness of online
advertising which are measured by click-through rate was proposed by Papadopoulos.
First factor is online activity type including article reading, picture tagging, social bookmarking and
message exchanging. Second is social context that is the perceptual influence of friends of a user.
Third success factor is functional elements where motives and behavior must be considered. Fourth
factor is structural element, which are devoted to physical presentation and format of the classified 2009.
The effectiveness according the Danaher and Mullarkey can be denoted as the page viewing duration.
In order to identify the online classified efficiency factors the more detailed analysis of classified tools
and researches in this field necessary.

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 Chapter-2

2.1 The evolution of online classified ad models

McKinsey research into this industry detailed two primary online classified ad business models that have
evolved. The first one, the horizontal model, offers ads across a wide range of categories, from bicycles
to hair styling. Among the best known horizontal sites is craigslist in the United States. Another is
Norways FINN. In the second onethe vertical modela site focuses on a single category, such as
cars with AutoScout24, the European automotive leader in the category, or real estate with Right move
in the United Kingdom. To better understand how the online classified ad market has evolved and
identify underlying trends, McKinsey surveyed around 11,000 classified ad consumers online in Brazil,
France, Germany, India, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United
States.
McKinsey research indicates that while both models are evolving, each models speed of penetration and
level of dominance vary by market. Countries like France and Norway, for instance, are moving faster
under the horizontal model, with about 75 percent of the consumers surveyed turning first to online
advertising when searching for second-hand merchandise across a range of categories. Others, such as
Germany and the United Kingdom, feature a strong mix of print and online classifieds, with the vertical
model dominating. And finally, in Brazil and the United States, consumers still embrace print classifieds.

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In the United States, for example, only 28 percent of consumers surveyed turned to online ads first when
searching for a used car, compared with an average of 43 percent in other developed markets.

2.2 Effectiveness of Matrimonial Sites In India

India has always been rooted in tradition and religious beliefs. Traditional marriage in
India depends heavily on tying partners based on certain important characteristics (religion,
caste, class, social status, etc.) than a romanticized tying of partners, as is common in much of
the Western world. Arranged marriages and marriages within the family has been the usual norm
in Indian families. Love marriages are much less common, although this has been drastically
changing over the years. The essential marriage broker is a volunteer (person who does
introduction between bride's and groom's family without any monetary consideration), or a
professional, who used to be involved in most arranged marriages, or a blend of a priest and a
barber. In the last decade the print matrimonials gained an upper hand. With the internet boom in
India, the picture of a marriage broker with a huge diary with tucked-in photographs is slowly
phasing out, giving way to a gamut of online matrimonial sites.

Indian marriage requirements can, in many cases, be so specific in religion, caste,

language, and location needed that the internet suits many potential Indian husbands and wives
perfectly. A service provider may use registration profiles to filter preferences and may run
several different portals to cater for needs like different languages

Matrimony is deemed as a sacred ritual in India ever since the ancient times. India has an
age-old tradition of arranged marriages. This custom of marriage has been flowing down to the
successive generations from time immemorial and is also popular in this cyber age. The cyber
world has cast a profound influence on our lives. Now-a-days eligible bachelors or spinsters can

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meet each other in this virtual world and can fall in love. Well things are not restricted to merely
falling in love. They can take their love to the sacred altar and the matrimony portals deserve the
entire credit for that. The matrimony portals are now-a-days acting as the matchmakers for
millions of people. The various matrimonial portals existing in India to name a few are as
follows:
a. www.shaadi.com b. www.jeevansathi.com

c.www.bharatmatrimony.com d.www.sikhmatrimonials.com
e. www.merasaathi.com f. www.matrimonialsIndia.com
g. www.oneindia.in: h. www.123matrimony.com i. www.matrifare.com, etc & many more

2.3 The Future Outlook

In the early years of online classifieds, verticals such as jobs and matrimonials helped the transition of
consumers from newspapers to online. However, now consumers are moving to horizontal classified
platforms that address their multiple needs much faster at a single place. According to Pranay Chulet,
CEO, Quikr.com, the online classifieds industry has been growing very fast and will continue to do so in
the coming years. This is primarily due to the simplicity in usage and it being a better suited platform for
a larger set of consumers across the country.
The consumer also likes to browse around, see a variety of products, negotiate on price, and see value in
the product before the final transaction. This again offers a huge opportunity for a horizontal classifieds
platform like Quikr that helps the consumer in all these things. A variety of such factors will lead to
continued growth in digital classifieds which really speaking is a simple, mass market form of
Ecommerce.
So, there is a continuous growth in the online classifieds industry and online classifieds business is the
best business idea to start earning money. But how to start classifieds site like craigslist, olx etc. This is
can be made easy with readymade classifieds software. Creating a classifieds site from scratch would be
a difficult option.

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2.4 Online advertisements efficiency research
The online advertising formats included in the research are based on studies conducted by the
Belch and Belch (2009), Burns and Lutz (2006), Chaffey et al. (2006, 2009), Jensen (2008), Rodgers
and Thorson (2000) and others. The research period spring of 2011. The 24 questions were related to
hypothesis developed from literature analysis and 4 additional questions in order to get the demographic
and internet motive data. 100 filled questionnaires were received out of which 61 % female and 72% of
age group between 25-44 years. Most of the respondents (90 %) were users, accessing internet every (or
almost every) day. Among the most popular online activities were email (90 %), reading online news,
newspapers or magazines (82 %), searching for information (79 %) and banking online (7 %).
Regarding the general attitude toward online advertising, only 15 % have negative attitudes (consider as
irritating, indulgent and interruptive), 31 % have positive attitudes, 14% does not pay attention and 40 %
affirm having different attitudes toward online advertising (depends on product, advertising features,
etc.). The 55 % of respondents that have negative attitudes (15 %) or have different (negative or
positive) attitudes depending on product being advertised (40 %) were asked to answer the additional
questions in order to investigate if the overall negative attitude toward online advertising has an impact
on the effectiveness of online advertising.
Total of 66 respondents answered this question out of which 55 % states that they may respond to online
advertising if they find the product interesting or relevant to their personal needs and 26% stated that
they may find it interesting if the advertisement is eye-caching or exceptional from others.
As the most effective online advertising formats the rich media (22 %), banner advertisements
(20 %) and contextual advertisements (19 %) were indicated.

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The pop-ups (74 %) were found as the most irritating online advertising format. The most acceptable
online advertising format features are idea uniqueness (50 %), eye-caching design
(44 %) and photos or pictures embedded in the ad (29 %). As the most irritating ad features are no exit
option to stop or delete the ad (74 %), moving across the screen or blinking (flashing) ads (57 %) and
ads that cover the content the consumer is watching/reading (52 %). Regarding the online ad features
that attracts the viewers attention the most, the results show that viewers pay attention to the ads that are
relevant to their personal needs (55 %), not interruptive (39 %) and exclusive from the context,
contrastive ads (24 %).
The results show that the banner advertisement size has no impact on the effectiveness of this format (64
%), but banner located on the top of the page (47 %) are more attention-grabbing than on the side (29 %)
or on the bottom of the page (3 %). Moreover it was found that banner advertisements with short phrase
(38 %), logo/brand name (35 %) or animation (27 %) have more chances to grab attention than banner
with long text message (0 %).
The results indicate that relevant to content sponsorships are more efficient (63 %) than irrelevant (16
%). Depending on motives, the internet users respond to relevant sponsorships (60 %) when they
searching for the information, than internet surfers for entertainment or leisure (16 %). Users have a
negative bias against sponsored search results (50 %) and 32 % of respondents indicate that sponsored
results are just as relevant as non-sponsored results for search queries. Only 18 % of respondents in most
cases use sponsored results. In organic search result list 42 % of respondents view the results ranked in
more than one page of result list and 34 % of respondents indicate that only first page of organic search
results. 24 % of respondents view only up to top five of organic search results.
52 % of respondents open and read advertising emails if they found the email title interesting and
29 % do not open advertising email at all. Investigating the features of what make email advertising
effective, respondents indicate that the personalization (49 %) and creativeness (36 %) does not influent
much on their interests. The loyalty programs were found equality influencing the interest. The strongest
influence on interest to open and read email advertisements have the interesting and compelling title of
the message (37 %) as well as interesting and useful email message content (38 %). In order to
investigate the desired frequency of email messages being received, 32 % of respondents prefer one or
more advertising emails per week, 39% of respondents prefer one or two advertising emails per month
and 23 % of respondents prefer less than one advertising email per month.

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 Chapter 3
3.1 Data Interpretation of Matrimonial sites

Q1. Rank in order of your preference the following mediums for matchmaking.
Rank, 1= most preferred, 4= least preferred

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Interpretation:-

The most preferred mode of people for still is Matchmakers like family members, pundits,
relatives, etc , next being Marriage bureaus with least still being print media like news papers,
etc.

Q2 What factors make you prefer other modes of matchmaking over

Matrimonial websites? Please tick any one.

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Interpretation:-
Family traditions & customs and not believing in such modes of match making are the major
barriers of people not opting for online matrimonial options.

Q3 Do you believe in following statements?

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Interpretation:-
Majority of the people strongly agreed & agreed with the facts that matrimonial websites are
commonly being used these days by people for matchmaking, also they are one stop shop
convenience for all the rituals, ceremonies & functions. Few people also agreed with other
statements like matrimonial websites are faster mode of matchmaking, matrimonial websites are
safer mode of matchmaking & also matrimonial websites offer larger database for convenience
of matchmaking.

Q4 Name any 3 matrimonial websites that you are aware of?

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Interpretation:-
People are very much aware of the various matrimonial websites existing in the market, the most
known & famous ones being www.Bharatmatrimony.com, www.Jeevansaathi.com, followed by
www.vivaah.com along with www.simplymarry.com & www.123matrimonial.com

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Q5 - In a matrimonial website what matters to you the most? Rank the
following attributes, 1= Most preferred, 8= Least preferred

Interpretation:-
With different people & different expectations, made all the parameters being preferred across all
ranks, of which security being the most crucial & name being the least important.

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Q6 a) Have you availed any matrimonial service on Internet?

Interpretation:-
People not availing matrimonial on internet are approximately 10% more as compared to people
availing the service, which means the trend is very fast catching up & people are breaking the
tradition thinking walls.

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b. If yes (Please Specify the name of the website).

Interpretation:-
With as many as 43.40% people availing services of matrimonial websites, www.shaadi.com is
the most preferred by the people, followed by www.vivah.com & www.jeevansaathi.com.
People also visited sites like www.simplymarry.com, www.bharatmatrimony.com &
www.communitymarriage.com.

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Q7 What are the main reasons for you visiting that particular
matrimonial websites? (Rank your choices 1. Most preferred 6. Least
preferred)

Interpretation:-
All the factors like Convenience, Promptness, Availability of larger database, Having wedding
arrangements done with just a click of button, security of data, transparency of the data available,
are of utmost importance to all the customers, only the priority of the same is different.

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Q8 If you have visited any matrimonial site please tick your
experience on the following scale:
i. Highly Satisfied, ii. Satisfied, iii. Neutral, iv. Dissatisfied
v. Highly Dissatisfied

Interpretation:-
With different people & different expectations, made all the parameters being preferred across all
ranks, For all the respondents who availed the services of matrimonial websites, they are highly
satisfied & satisfied with factors like, appearance of the website, response time by the company
officials, ease of surfing the website & security, with few not being dissatisfied & strongly
dissatisfied with the same.

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Q9 What do you think could be added to these sites to make them
better?

Interpretation:

This was an open ended question put across in front of the customers, where by few responded to
the same with different kinds of opinions like Free chatting & more assured safety, followed by
Kundli Match & Prompt Action.

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3.2 Findings:
The most preferred mode of people for still is Matchmakers like family members,
pundits, relatives, etc , next being Marriage bureaus with least still being print media like
newspapers, etc.
Family traditions & customs and not believing in such modes of match making are the
major barriers of people not opting for online matrimonial options.
Majority of the people strongly agreed & agreed with the facts that matrimonial websites
are commonly being used these days by people for matchmaking, also they are one stop
shop convenience for all the rituals, ceremonies & functions. Few people also agreed
with other statements like matrimonial websites are faster mode of matchmaking,
matrimonial websites are safer mode of matchmaking & also matrimonial websites offer
larger database for convenience of matchmaking.
People are very much aware of the various matrimonial websites existing in the market,
the most known & famous ones being www.Bharatmatrimony.com,
www.Jeevansaathi.com, followed by www.vivaah.com along with
www.simplymarry.com & www.123matrimonial.com
With different people & different expectations, made all the parameters being preferred
across all ranks, of which security being the most crucial & name being the least
important.
People not availing matrimonial on internet are approximately 10% more as compared to
people availing the service, which means the trend is very fast catching up & people are
breaking the tradition thinking walls.
With as many as 43.40% people availing services of matrimonial websites,
www.shaadi.com is the most preferred by the people, followed by www.vivah.com &
www.jeevansaathi.com. People also visited sites like www.simplymarry.com,
www.bharatmatrimony.com & www.communitymarriage.com.
All the factors like Convenience, Promptness, Availability of larger database, Having
wedding arrangements done with just a click of button, security of data, transparency of
the data available, are of utmost importance to all the customers, only the priority of the
same is different.
Majority of the respondents who have availed the services of matrimonial websites, have
availed it for friend, relative, children or for more than one person mentioned above.

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 With different people & different expectations, made all the parameters being preferred
across all ranks, For all the respondents who availed the services of matrimonial
websites, they are highly satisfied & satisfied with factors like, appearance of the website,
response time by the company officials, ease of surfing the website & security, with few
not being dissatisfied & strongly dissatisfied with the same.
As seen here in the results clearly, Newspapers & magazines are leaders of brand
building & recalling in case of matrimonial websites, followed by other sources like word
of mouth, self exploration & websites (hyperlinks).
This was an open ended question put across in front of the customers, where by few
responded to the same with different kinds of opinions like Free chatting & more assured
safety, followed by Kundli Match & Prompt Action.

Large pool of Availability of data of prospects, makes Jeevansaathi.com a preferred mode

of matching over other conventional modes of match making i.e news papers or marriage
bureaus.

Brand, Ease of access to data, Quality data availability, Jeevansaathi.com a preferred

mode of matchmaking over other matrimonial websites.

1. Regular update of the data pool, & a concept of Vishwas seal wherein users need to verify
their mobile number / contact number(step 1), verify email id (step 2) and give an address
proof (step 3), are various measures adopted by Jeevansaathi.com to safe guard their
customers interest.
Large data, User friendly, Effective or consumer friendly packages, are the features of
Jeevansaathi.com
Jeevansaathi.com does not provide only their supplementary or secondary services
(wedding planner activities) to their clients, if asked for.
Prominent visibility of Search options on Site, Contact centres/ statistics available on
multiple tabs, Option to refine the search results, Suggested matches visible on multiple
links, are factors or parameters making Jeevansaathi.com user friendly.
Mandatory number verification, Concept of Vishwas seal, Limiting the number of
contacts/ expression of interests sent by a user in a day/ month or overall, blocking the
spammers, are various security measures are taken care of by Jeevansaathi.com.

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 A.) Quality of match alerts sent to user, B.) Timely service messages to the customers,
C.) Number of relevant responses in comparison to other matrimonial sites, are 3 most
important or special testimonials received by Jeevansaathi.com
Jeevansaathi.com claims that it has never lost any of its important customer, till date.

Chapter-4
4.1 Recommendations:

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 I. The various matrimonial websites should get their links registered on various other
websites, where by the people become aware of the matrimonial sites existence, also
these matrimonial websites should make provision for related sites links registered on
their site, making browsing more interesting for the customers

II. Reducing the membership fees can attract people to join. In this market where sites are
offering free buddies like anything you can't charge anything at introduction stage. After
getting a good number of members they can make a steady and slow increase in prices for
the fees.

III. New innovating & engaging features should be introduced which are of interest to the
visitor; site can add features like chatting, email.

IV. Continuous Advertisements in different forms should be practiced, for consumer

awareness, consumer recall, personalized relationship building, etc.

V. Site can have post marriage arrangements like booking honeymoon package, in which
they are provided information about destination. They can also put a promotional link to
tour operator sites, which will increase product variety as well as will generate revenues.

VI. These various Matrimonial websites can sponsor various activities related to the
youngsters (college going) like fairs in college's competitions that can increase their
possibilities of increasing site awareness. Also participation in exhibitions can also help
in getting more business.

VII. These sites need to keep on changing & upgrading with the time and as per the interests
of the customers, so they can do well like any other company in their market. They
should keep this in their mind that it is not an easy task to retain that position which they
have to.

VIII. With the increasing add on services & benefits being provided by these websites, they
should not loose out on their focus from their main service i.e. Matrimonial services.

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4.2 Conclusion:
- During the survey with customers, it was interesting to find out the fact that internet
has very much penetrated into the lives of people in metro cities like Delhi/ NCR
region.
- People are spending more than one hour on internet, on everyday basis.
- Their main & regular usage being email & chatting, followed by news & information,
downloading music, softwares, & gaming.
- People are increasingly becoming aware of matrimonial websites on internet & are
also availing the service of the same.
- With the help of z test we have seen that people have a good perception about the
matrimonial websites in India.
- Thus a good perception has led a good number of people availing the services of
matrimonial websites.
- The people visiting these websites have also had a good experience when availing the
services of them. (Proved above with z test).

- These sites have been doing pretty well in the past and have shown an upward trend
in terms of profitability and market share, which can be seen in our results, & can also
be proved by the fact of increasing number of matrimonial websites presently.

The literature analysis provided a review of researches related to online advertising. Theories of
advertising efficiency evaluation were discussed, followed by studies on internet advertising tools
efficiency analysis. The effectiveness analysis of different online advertising formats revealed some
controversial results. For some formats there are a lack of research data regarding the effectiveness of
those formats. Still, the literature reviewed provided a solid foundation for the empirical research.
Based on literature analysis as well as descriptive research results, online advertising formats such as
pop-ups, interstitials and sponsored results on search engines were found as the least effective.
As the most effective formats can be mentioned banner advertisements, rich media and contextual
sponsorships. The online classifieds features, such as interactivity, creativity and content relevance were
found as the most influent on consumers mind.

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The effective online classifieds features to each particular online advertising format were identified top
page location, animation and frequency (6-7 exposures) of banner, audio/video streaming contents of
rich media, SEO results location within the first page of results list, top location, content
related sponsorships, useful content, compelling titles and frequency of 1-2 times per month of email
newsletters, compelling and useful content with no requirement to pass-along the message of viral
marketing and public relation activities with video, audio, picture and photo containing communication,
involvement stimulation and company generated daily posts.

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4.3 Bibliography
Books:

Marketing Management, 12th edition, Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Kotler, Published by
Prentice Hall, USA

Marketing Research, 3rd edition, Naresh Malhotra, Published by Pearson Education, Asia.

Journals:

Alpert, Frank H.; Kamins, Michael A., (1995, October 1), An empirical
investigation of consumer memory, attitude, and perceptions toward
pioneer and follower brands, Article from: Journal of Marketing, Vol. 59,
Pg. 34-45.

Cox, Dena, Anthony D. Cox and George P. Moschis (1994), When

Consumer Behavior Goes Bad: An Investigation of Adolescent
Shoplifting, Article from: Journal of Consumer Research, 17
(September), 149-159.

Articles from Newspapers & Magazines:

ANUSHA SUBRAMANIAN 2007, Matchmaking Made Easy, BUSINESS TODAY,

OCTOBER 21st 2007.
Diana Ningthoujam 2009, Wedding bells ring online, Times of India ,TNN, Jul 12, 2009.
Indo-Asian News Service 2010, Prospective groom too perfect? , Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
March 18, 2010.
Prasenjit Chowdhury 2010, Choices, choices..., Times of India, Jul 16, 2010.
TNN, Getting knotty on the Net!, Times of India, Jul 8, 2003.

ANJALI THOMAS 2010, What's love got to do with it?, TIMES NEWS NETWORK ,
TOI Crest, Mar 12, 2010.

SHARMILA GANESAN-RAM 2010, The brokers who click, TIMES NEWS

NETWORK, TOI Crest, Aug 3, 2010.

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 GEETA SHARMA 2001, Tie the knot the net way, The Asian Age,13th July, 2001.

4.5 Annexure

Questionnaire

1. Rank in order of your preference the following mediums for matchmaking. (1 for most
preferred, 4 for least preferred)

i. Matrimonial websites ___________________________

ii. Print media {newspapers / magazines}_________________
iii. Matchmakers {pundits, family etc.}_________________________
iv. Marriage bureaus_________________________

1. What factor makes you prefer other modes of matchmaking over Matrimonial websites,
please tick any one?
i. Past self, family or friends, bad or not so good experience
ii. Not computer or net savvy
iii. Do not believe in such modes of matchmaking
iv. Family traditions & customs
v. Others_______________________________________________

2. Do you believe in the following statements:

ATTRIBUTES Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree

Matrimonial websites are

most commonly used for

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match making these days

Matrimonial websites are

the faster mode of match
making

Matrimonial websites
offer lager database for
convenience of
matchmaking

Matrimonial websites are

safer mode of match
making

Matrimonial websites
offer one stop shop
convenience for all the
rituals, ceremonies &
functions

3. Name any 3 matrimonial websites that you are aware of?

i. ______________________________

ii. ______________________________

iii. _______________________________

4. In a matrimonial website what matters to you the most. Rank the following attributes.
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

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 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Most preferred Least Preferred

i. Appearance ____________________
ii. Name_____________________
iii. Ease of surfing______________________
iv. Quality of promotion___________________
v. Content_____________________________
vi. Response time________________________
vii. Availability of larger database______________________
viii. Security _____________________________

5. a. Have you availed any matrimonial service on Internet?

i. Yes, then (name the website)____________________________________
ii. No

b. If yes, then name of site that you visited:

____________________________________

6. What are the main reasons for you visiting that particular matrimonial websites? (Rank
your choices 1. Most preferred 6. Least preferred )

i. Convenience_______________________
ii. Promptness___________________________
iii. Availability of larger database_________________________
iv. Having Wedding Arrangements Done With Just A Click Of A Button_________
v. Security of self data_________________
vi. Transparency of the data available ____________

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 8. If you have visited any matrimonial site please tick your experience:
Name of the site:_________________________________

ATTRIBUTES Highly Satisfied Neutral Dissatisfied Highly

Satisfied Dissatisfied

APPEARANC
E

NAME

EASE OF
SURFING
QUALITY OF
PROMOTION
CONTENT

RESPONSE TIME

Options or Variety
of Brides &
Grooms
Security

9. What do you think could be added to make these sites better?

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_____________

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