Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies

Web Portals Division in a quandary

Muhammad Talha Salam
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 Web Portals Division in a quandary
Muhammad Talha Salam
Muhammad Talha Salam
is an Assistant Professor
based at the FAST School of
Management, National
University of Computer &
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Emerging Sciences,
Lahore, Pakistan.
The author wishes to
acknowledge the support of
Aamir Nouman, CEO, Mech
Technologies during the
development of this case.
Disclaimer. This case is written
solely for educational purposes
and is not intended to represent
successful or unsuccessful
managerial decision making.
The author/s may have
disguised names; financial and
other recognizable information
to protect confidentiality.
DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-06-2013-0096
It was end of the last meeting for Wednesday, 20 June 2012 as per Aamir Nouman’s planner.
The accounts manager had just left and had left Aamir frustrated. In this meeting, after
completing a review of the consolidated financial information[1] for FY2011-2012, it was
confirmed that Web Portals Division at Mech Technologies had not even been breaking even
for almost a year. This downfall was initiated by the fateful e-mail Aamir received in July 2011.
The portals operated by the company’s Web Portals Division were found to be in violation of
Google’s Adsense terms and conditions. The Adsense team sent an e-mail stating that Mech
Technologies’ advertising account was suspended henceforth due to these violations.
Which particular terms and conditions were violated and how? The e-mail did not say much.
This decision was not challengeable nor was the Adsense team approachable and such
communications were largely one-way as per SOPs of Google. Adsense was an online ad
network through which hundreds of thousands of web site publishers around the world (like
Mech Technologies) monetized advertising spaces and earned automated revenues. This
revenue stream, vital to the sustainability of Web Portals Division, stood closed as of July
2011 onwards and other options were proving to be quite challenging, to say the least. The
mainstay of these other options was a small sales team hired in August 2011 which after
almost a year in operation was not even able to cover its own salary and other expenses. The
Web Portals Division Aamir had successfully managed so far on Adsense revenues seemed
to be in a quandary. Resources and a formidable plan of action for the next few months were
needed to keep this division afloat.
Mech Technologies – company background
Mech Technologies was a web development company founded by two friends, Aamir
Nouman and Irfan Akram, in 2002. In the initial years, housed in a small rented house in
Lahore[2], the two Co-founders along with their small development team worked with clients
from North America and Europe. Their sales and marketing was conducted entirely on
different outsourcing platforms like Guru and Elance. On these platforms, they bid for
different projects and completed them at highly affordable prices for the client. Mainly they
focused on web design and development projects. Like Mech Technologies, hundreds of
companies from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh remained competitively priced. This was
possible because of low-cost human resources and reasonably adequate IT infrastructure
needed to work remotely.
As Mech Technologies gained experience in both the business development and
technology side of this business, they expanded their operations. More web developers
and design professionals were hired to meet increased workload. In 2006, Mech
Technologies shifted to a bigger building with more resources and capacity to undertake
more complex projects. The web sites that Mech Technologies had started developing were
more advanced than a mere collection of web pages. In most cases, these were
sophisticated online platforms powered by different internet-based software applications.
VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013, pp. 1-14, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2045-0621 j EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES j PAGE 1
 For instance, if a client wanted a web site for a hotel, the site would contain all the information
as well as promotional material for that hotel. In addition, it was inevitable in the highly
connected twenty-first century market that it also had built-in applications to manage
customer end operations like online reservations and payment collection, etc. These
applications would then be integrated into the company’s mainstream information system
thus providing a comprehensive online portal. Such sophisticated and well-functioning web
sites were commonly known as web portals.
Like its peer technology companies from this part of the world, Mech Technologies did not
focus on local clients. The local market was in the nascent phase for web services and it was
difficult to find many equally well-paying clients as compared to advanced markets.
To further improve their services and offer a quick turnaround time to their client, Mech
Technologies developed ubiquitous applications and web portal templates which could be later
integrated into any client’s customized project. These applications and templates remained the
property of Mech Technologies and the company was at liberty to use them in any other project.

Web Portals Division @ Mech Technologies

With all these enhanced capabilities and resources, Aamir and Irfan decided to venture into
another arena. They decided to develop, and launch their own web portals and earn from
them. Portal development had already become their forte and they could develop portals for
virtually any area, e.g. news, classified listings, fashion, automobiles, real estate, etc. All they
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were concerned with was to come up with a strategy to earn sustainable revenues from
these portals. Web portals had the potential to earn through advertising and in some areas
paid services were an additional revenue stream. In the initial phase, Mech Technologies
developed and launched three portals from March to June 2009. These included:
1. a portal for jobs and employment;
2. a portal dedicated to cars, latest information, listing, etc.; and
3. a portal dedicated to motorbikes, latest information, listing, etc.
In addition to developing these portals, resources were required to manage these portals
and their content. In January 2010, two executives were hired and trained to manage these
portals. Managing these portals typically included activities like posting related content,
providing services to registered users regarding issues they faced in handling their
accounts. They were also responsible for reviewing and approving content posted by users,
typically classified listings.
Few months after the Web Portals Division took off, Irfan Akram, one of the Co-founders,
decided to focus solely on outsourcing projects by Mech Technologies while Web Portals
Division became Aamir’s responsibility. They continued to operate from the same office but
delineated their responsibilities within Mech Technologies[3]. Formally, Aamir Nouman
became the company’s CEO and Irfan Akram assumed the responsibility of Managing
Director. Web portals were developed and managed using resources of Mech Technologies.
As for the IT infrastructure used by Web Portals Division for all the portals, the costs
remained minimal and were not considered separately.

Web portals by Mech Technologies

The portals launched by Web Portals Division were selected following the trends of Pakistani
internet businesses. For the last few years, two of the most successful web portals of local
origin in the country have been Rozee.pk (jobs) and Pakwheels.com (automobiles). Mech
Technologies decided to launch competing portals in both areas and an additional one
dedicated to bikes only. This was an attempt to create a focused place in the market.
In terms of monetizing the portals to earn revenue, advertising was the mainstay for all the
portals. The job portal could be an exception as it could also earn revenues from recruitment
services alongside advertising. Earning the revenues from a job portal was more of a Catch

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PAGE 2 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013
 22 situation. More traffic was needed before employers would be ready to pay for the
services. But traffic was a result of more job postings, which were possible by more
employers! Earning from advertising on these portals was effective only with higher traffic
because of CPM and CPC models[4] in vogue in the industry. Banner ads could be sold
through personal selling or advertising or be offered to ad networks like Google’s Adsense.

Job portal – Bayrozgar.com

The job portal launched by Mech Technologies was named Bayrozgar, an Urdu term which
meant ‘‘jobless’’ or ‘‘unemployed’’. This portal was dedicated to online recruitment services.
On Bayrozgar.com the jobseekers could post their CVs after creating their account and apply
for different jobs. Employers also had to create an account using which they could post job
listings and also access the database offered by the portal. This created an ecosystem
dedicated to employment and was a fast-growing trend in Pakistan’s recruitment industry.
Job postings for employers were kept free of cost for basic listings while nominal prices were
charged for premium listings. Employers were also charged for branding opportunities as
well as any other customized service they required. Following industry norms, all the
services for jobseekers were free of charge.
Initially promotion was done using online advertising and the portal was promoted to both
jobseekers and employers. No revenue was expected from jobseekers but still it was
inevitable to promote the site to them as they were required to visit and register as users
before employers could find the site to be of any use. Another important driver of promotion
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was word of mouth. For any portal of this sort, it was inevitable that at some stage, critical
mass was achieved and word of mouth generated additional traffic.
On the revenue side, after an initial slumber of around six months, reasonable traffic started
coming in. This was the time when advertising using the automated stream of Adsense was
deployed on the site. Increasing traffic meant increased revenues which were augmented
by revenues from paid services. For the site layout of Bayrozgar.com, see Exhibit 3.

Classified listing portals – ApniGari.com and ApniBike.com

ApniGari was an Urdu term for ‘‘my car’’ or ‘‘own car’’; while ApniBike meant ‘‘my Bike’’ or
‘‘own bike’’. These were colloquially prevalent terms. On both ApniGari.com and
ApniBike.com, users could see different listings for selling/buying cars. They could
participate in discussions through forums and also contribute with their comments. All
listings were free of charge; however, there was a negotiable price for any special banner ads.
Automobile enthusiasts frequented the portals to stay updated with the latest information on
new models, their prices and specs. ApniBike.com was a clone of ApniGari.com focused
towards motorbikes only. Aamir was somewhat excited about ApniBike.com initially but it died
down as time passed. According to him[5]:
Pakistan had much more bikes than cars and since most of these were also internet users, it made
perfect sense to us that a separate portal for bikes would gather good traffic and become market
leader. However, it didn’t prove to be right. People remained enthusiastic about the cars’ portal
much more than the bikes portal. At least this is what the traffic stats showed.

Promotion for both the portals was carried mainly through online advertising and word of
mouth. For the site layout of ApniGari.com and ApniBike.com, see Exhibit 4.

Google’s Adsense revenue stream and debacle

With increased traffic, monetizing of these portals was a simple affair using Google’s
Adsense. Like many other technology services, Google was a frontrunner in the internet
advertising business with its flagship business, Adsense, which was part of Google’s global
online ads network. Advertisers in different markets placed their ads with the network. The
network through a complex algorithm optimally placed these ads on web sites of different
publishers (like Mech Technologies) who wanted to sell their web sites’ advertising spaces.
More traffic on a site or portal meant more ad impressions or clicks leading to higher
revenues. Thus, a fairly robust ecosystem was created in which the advertiser, the publisher

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VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 3
 and the network all had a winning stake. The advertiser was saved the hassle of contacting
and auditing different web sites. The publisher was able to monetize his web site(s) or
portal(s) without investing in promotion effort. The network (Adsense) earned automated
revenues in exchange for such intermediation.
For many web site publishers like Mech Technologies, Adsense meant an automatic revenue
stream from their web sites. All they were required to do was to provide banner spaces on
their web sites to Adsense which would then serve the ad on those. This highly productive,
no-hassle revenue stream came to a grinding halt in July 2011. Citing the debacle, Aamir
Nouman said[5]:
For us, losing Adsense was really unfortunate. But what we soon learnt that many other publishers
in Pakistan had also lost their Adsense accounts around the same time. According to
ProPakistani[6], around 70% of the accounts were closed on complaints of malpractices. Few of
clean ones like ours were also rounded up. It was like a crackdown by Google and Google was
not going to listen to anyone. Adsense earning became history. We had to look for alternatives.
Other networks had much less revenue. Quality of ads served by those networks was also much
inferior to that of Adsense as it had a proper quality control framework in place.

There were other ad networks, but their revenues were fractional as compared to Adsense
and were not even sustainable. Paid services were a better alternative but were much more
convoluted than what the company was used to in the case of Adsense’s automated revenue
stream.
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Paid services
There were two key paid services: premium listings (for all portals) and recruitment services
(only for the job portal).
Paid listings in addition to banner advertising offered by the site were positioned as
‘‘premium’’ from the standard offering. Thus, otherwise free, a paid listing would become a
premium. Premium listings were given a prominent place on the front page of the portal.
Increased visibility and branding mileage leading to increased response justified the cost for
the advertisers.
Exclusively for the job portal, another option was online recruitment services which included
access to the complete database of CVs, personalized services as well as dedicated
company pages within the portal. Accessing the complete database made sense to
employers and recruitment firms having higher recruitment frequency. See Exhibit 5 for
detailed pricing of paid services by Bayrozgar.com and selected job portals.
The challenge in the paid services was selling these services to clients. It required a
dedicated personal selling team. Some initial planning was done at the inception of these
portals for this personal selling. Still, paid services never took off seriously until Adsense
earning ended. To undertake personal selling, two more marketing executives were hired in
August 2011. After a couple of weeks of training and orientation, they were given the task of
aggressively contacting all the existing clients and registered users and offering them
upgrading to paid services.

Pakistani cyberspace and internet businesses

Access to the internet had historically remained a novelty for a large proportion of the
Pakistani population. Internet penetration grew rapidly from the early 2000s, primarily in
urban areas. From merely 133,000 users in 2000, the country had around 29 million users in
2012[7]. A key impediment in internet growth was the lower adult literacy rate, hovering
around the 50 per cent mark[8]. Global IT Report (GITR) by World Economic Forum (WEF)
ranked Pakistan 102 out of 142 countries on a comprehensive framework of 73 factors. As far
as internet connectivity and IT infrastructure were concerned, Pakistan was regarded as a
country in the lower cadres[9]. Holistically, the country offered a fairly decent user base,
having around 45 per cent penetration in the urban population.

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PAGE 4 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013
 In this market, there were several web portals of local and international origin having good
traffic from Pakistan. While leading global portals, search engines and social networks
dominated this market as well, some local web portals among the local origin web sites and
portals, newspaper web sites led overwhelmingly in terms of traffic[10].

Online recruitment market

The information technology (IT) sector in Pakistan thrived primarily on outsourcing. Many of
the world’s leading IT companies had outsourcing partners and vendors from Pakistan. IT
companies exploited the low cost human resource as well as affordable infrastructure
leading to an overall cost-effective technology development environment. Thus, the IT sector
remained on a hiring spree from the early 2000s. Then there were other sectors which led to
expansion in recruitment services and created a formidable potential for online recruitment.
The recruitment environment in the country also received a boost from many new players
entering the telecom, banking, FMCG and retail sectors, creating more opportunities. These
new players were entering the world’s sixth largest population amid all the security concerns
surrounding the post-9/11 era.
To hire a white collar workforce, many employers considered online recruitment services
offered by job portals as a sound option. Thus, the online recruitment market remained
upbeat compared to an otherwise negative socio-economic and political landscape in
Pakistan. Several key players in recruitment services which posed competition to any new
job portal from its inception included[11]:
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B Rozee.pk was part of Naseeb Networks, a venture by an ex-Silicon Valley executive

who was based in Lahore. The venture was backed by venture capital funding,
enabling it to undertake aggressive business development and marketing activities.
Unarguably, Rozee.pk was the leading job site in Pakistan, offering a host of online
recruitment services. Its traffic was the highest among all the job portals and so was its
number of registered jobseekers and employers. Rozee.pk had a strong sales team
stationed in three regions of Pakistan. This enabled penetration into each region through
aggressive personal selling. Prices charged by Rozee.pk were the highest among
all the job portals but were still more affordable than the newspaper and other
recruitment options.
B Mustakbil.com was a distant second to Rozee.pk but offered competition by giving
several services for free. Its parent company was a software development house based in
the Northern metropolitan city of Rawalpindi (adjacent to the capital city of Islamabad).
Through a limited sales force, Mustakbil.com kept its geographical focus in Northern
regions only. However, due to free offering, it was able to reasonably penetrate in other
regions through automated selling. Around 2011, the company had started rejuvenating
its marketing efforts and was fanning out promotional activities to central and Northern
regions as well.
B Brightspyre.com was similar to Mustakbil.com in terms of geographical focus as it
remained focused on Northern areas only. Although services were open for all kinds of
employers, it focused particularly on NGOs and social sector organizations. Prices were
also close to those of Mustakbil.com.
B Jobsvilli.com created a challenge for every other player in the market when it was
launched in 2011 by offering free services. Apparently, it was relying on advertising
revenues and vying to achieve higher traffic. This was a relatively novel approach.
B Small job sites banking on the Google’s Adsense wave mushroomed every now and then.
They did not charge anything and allowed posting of job ads for free. They thus attracted
a lot of employers posting lots of ads, which in turn attracted jobseekers. As of 2012, there
were around ten such sites which could be counted in this category.
B Social media platforms were not about recruitment directly but since the viral spread of
messages could be used for any purpose, promoting jobs also caught on. Different social
media platforms had different interfaces but one thing was common: they were free! For
example, any status update announcing a job at a company would get promoted to all the

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VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 5
 ‘‘followers’’ of that company for free on Facebook and LinkedIn[12]. More followers meant
more exposure. So it was obvious that gaining more followers had become a key
objective of many companies and brands.
B Other players included indirect competitors like newspapers and recruitment firms.
Newspaper advertising was historically an expensive option but boasted a wider
audience than the internet. However, this was changing with ever-increasing penetration.
Recruitment firms provided much more personalized services than any other option. For
these tailored services, their prices were quite varied and at times prohibitively
expensive, particularly for the small employers.
For more comparative profiles of different job portals, see Exhibit 6.
On the client’s end, although many companies had professional HR departments, they
remained devoid of serious attention and budgets. Although companies needed to hire more
people in the thriving economy, they wanted to cut corners and go for the lowest-cost
options (ideally free in most of the cases). As per one of the marketing executives of
Bayrozgar.com[5]:
Clients came to our site initially only because we were free. They frowned upon any priced
upgrade that was communicated to them and were simply not interested. In most of the cases,
they shared that it was a limitation in their setup that recruitment was expected to be a low-cost, if
not free activity.
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Classified listing market

This was a much simpler sector compared to online recruitment as it was concerned with
platforms that listed basic advertisements only. As the market developed and competition
soared, a couple of internet-based listing portals developed rich content which was aimed at
keeping users engaged. Among the most successful classified advertising portals,
Pakwheels.com could easily be singled out. The portal was unique in the sense that it had an
ever-increasing, loyal user base. Among others, Garee.pk was an automobile classified site
by the same organization which had earlier launched Rozee.pk. The key strength of
Garee.pk was its predecessor portal Rozee.pk. It used its high traffic volumes to further
promote itself and increase its user base. Such collaborative promotion saved cost and
optimized unsold ad inventory amongst the portals from the same company.
Another trendsetter in the market was olx.com.pk. This was part of a multinational network of
classified sites (all with the same name, operating in different markets). Its outstanding
feature was extensive use of TV advertising to promote the site and attract traffic. The site was
completely free of charge and was frequented by users interested in a diverse range of
products and services. From jobs to automobiles and from tutoring services to buying/selling
electronics, it featured almost every product and service in a normal consumer’s life.
Then there were smaller direct and indirect competitors. Launching a classified listing portal
was a relatively simple affair and anybody who wanted to venture into an internet business,
considered this as an easy option. With many players in the market and a relatively smaller
proportion of the population using the internet, this sector was not doing very well. There
were many sites, including mushroom sites, but most of them remained devoid of content.
Newspapers carried thousands of classified listings every day and enjoyed a large, stable
audience. With affordable price points, they continued to challenge any classified listing
portal.
For more comparative profiles of different listing portals, see Exhibit 7.

Challenges ahead
After a gloomy meeting on Wednesday evening, Aamir took some time out and spoke
informally to the Web Portals team on Thursday morning. He shared with them key highlights
of the review and apprised them that the division was not a sustainable business if things
continued in the same way. The team members shared their concerns that it was getting
harder to sell in the face of competitors offering free services. Further, their penetration was

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PAGE 6 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013
 limited because of using telemarketing as the sole medium of communication. They were
expected to bring in revenues in the face of competition offering low-cost, free services to
employers. The high priced competitors were well-funded and had a strong sales
infrastructure in place in all regions.
Aamir was somewhat aware of these concerns and thought that he would chalk out a clear
strategy to tackle competitors as well as bring the Web Portals Division back into profit. He
was eager to invest in the sales team but a sales team selling lower priced or at times free
offerings did not make sense. Personal selling of online advertising was an option but was
very time-consuming. The advertising industry in the country was still warming up to online
advertising which continued to be not more than 5 per cent of the country’s total ad spend of
around PKR 30 billion. It was widely believed that during these evolving years, online
advertising would continue to experience nothing less than double-digit growth rates[13].
Aamir had observed and learned about practices of competitors from informal sources. He
was keen on learning from their successes as well as mistakes. The Web Portals Division
was losing money with every passing day, week and month. An aggressive marketing
strategy to engage clients was all that Aamir was looking for. Nothing else would be as cool
for the rest of the summers!

Notes
1. Selected financial information is given in Exhibit 1.
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2. Lahore was Pakistan’s second largest city and several internet startups were based in this city.
3. For complete organization of Web Portals Division and Mech Technologies, see Exhibit 2.
4. CPM – cost per impression model implies that advertisers paid only for the number of impressions
served on a particular web site. CPC – cost per click implied that advertisers paid only for clicks
achieved on their ads.
5. In an interview with the author.
6. A leading Pakistani blog on technology related matters which covered this issue extensively in
different posts during 2011. URL: www.propakistani.com
7. Source: internet world stats; ISPAK – an internet trade body in Pakistan estimated around 25 million.
8. Source: CIA world Factbook; defined as population 15 years and above – which could read and
write.
9. WEF a Swiss-based non-profit is a global think tank which produced GITR on annual basis.
10. Source: Alexa.com – web analytics company (www.alexa.com).
Keywords: 11. Information developed from respective web sites’ ‘‘about us’’ sections as well as interviews with
Online advertising, sales team at Mech Technologies.
Marketing strategy,
Promotion, 12. Facebook and LinkedIn, worlds’ largest personal and professional networks, respectively, were
Developing markets, among most trafficked portals in Pakistan with traffic much higher than any of local portals.
Internet business, 13. Well established and authentic advertising spend figures and growth rate estimates were not
Personal selling available. These facts and figures were estimated by a marketing research firm and industry experts.

References
Alexa – The Web Information Company (2013), ‘‘Top sites in Pakistan’’, available at: www.alexa.com/
topsites/countries/PK (accessed 4 April 2013).
Mech Technologies (2012), About Us, available at: http://mechtechnologies.com/aboutus.php
(accessed 3 April 2013).
Nouman, A. (2013), Personal Interview with CEO (in person) 2 April 2013.
WEF Global IT Report (2012), The Global Information Technology Report 2012 Data Platform, available
at: www.weforum.org/issues/global-information-technology/gitr-2012-data-platform (accessed 4 April
2013).

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VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 7
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PAGE 8 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013
Table EI
Average monthly figures till Average monthly figures after
Sr. July 2011 before Adsense July 2011 after Adsense
No. Items contract was cancelled contract was cancelled Notes

A Revenues 458,560 102,150 A1 þ A2

A1 Bayrozgar.com revenues 230,140 81,300 A11 þ A12
A11 Advertising 212,640 6,700 After Adsense, banner ads sales are mentioned
Exhibit 1. Selected financial information

A12 Paid services 17,500 74,600 Mainly recruitment services as well as premium listings
(non-banner advertising)
A2 ApniGari.com and ApniBike.com revenues 228,420 20,850 A21 þ A22
A21 Advertising 228,420 5,850 After Adsense, banner ads sales are mentioned
A22 Paid services – 15,000 Mainly premium listings (non-banner advertising)
B Expenses 58,090 121,720 B1 þ B2 þ B3
B1 Sales expenses 8,210 69,540 Mainly salaries and operational expenses of sales team
B2 Promotional expenses 10,500 9,500 Costs for promoting the sites
B2 Administrative and other expenses 39,380 42,680 Direct costs for site administration and management
C Net income 400,470 (19,570) A 2 B (net income before tax)

Notes: All figures in PKR; as of 2011-2012, 1 USD was equal to 90 PKR (approximate average)
Source: Company records
 Exhibit 2. Organization of Mech Technologies

Figure E1
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Division’s total team size: 32

Division’s Average salary: PKR 31,500
Industry’s salary average: PKR 30,500
Division’s total team size: 4
Division’s Average salary: PKR 18,500
Industry’s salary average: PKR 21,000

Notes: Team information for Web Development Division is for technical team only; information
for Web Portals Division is for sales and site management team (non-technical staff);
Web Development Division was headed by Irfan Akram (company's Managing Director);
Web Portals Division was headed by Aamir Nouman (company's CEO) – both
were founding partners; company had a fairly lateral reporting structure; almost all
employees reported to respective
Source: Company records; corresponding industry averages for the respective teams were
not formally available; this information was developed from informal discussions with CEO
and other team members

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VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 9
 Exhibit 3. Standard layout of Bayrozgar.com

Figure E2

Banner Advertising
Initially Adsense
advertising was
displayed here.
Later, these were
sold by sales team to
different advertisers
through personal
selling

Premium job listings

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Paid listings
Guaranteed position
on front page meant
increased visibility

Standard job listings

Free listings
Did not stay on the
front page

Source: www.bayrozgar.com (web portal by Mech Technologies)

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PAGE 10 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013
 Exhibit 4. Standard layout of ApniGari.com

Figure E3

Banner Advertising
Initially Adsense
advertising was
displayed here.
Later, these were
sold by sales team
to different
advertisers through
personal selling

Premium ad listings
Paid listings
Guaranteed position
on front page meant
increased visibility
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Standard ad listings
Free listings
Did not stay on the
front page

Note: ApniBike.com had a similar layout and offerings for bikes

Source: www.apnigari.com (web portal by Mech Technologies)

Exhibit 5. Pricing for paid services and competitive prices

Table EII
Prices for job portal recruitment services
Sr No. Items Bayrozgar.com Rozee.pk Mustakbil.com

1 Basic ad listings Free 2,500 Free

per credit
2 Premium ad listings 2,500 9,500 2,500
per credit per credit one month access
3 CV database access 8,500 19,500 15,000
one month access one month access one month access

Notes: As of June 2012, JobsVilli.com was offering all services free of cost; all figures in PKR; as of
2011-2012, 1 USD was equal to 90 PKR (approximate average)
Source: Company records (Bayrozgar.com); information on portal (Rozee.pk and Mustakbil.com)

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VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 11
 Table EIII
Prices for job portal recruitment services
Sr No. Items ApniGari.com PakWheels.com Garee.pk

1 Basic ad listings Free Free Free

2 Premium ad listings 500 700 950
per credit per credit per credit

Notes: All figures in PKR; as of 2011-2012, 1 USD was equal to 90 PKR (approximate average)
Source: Company records (ApniGari.com); information on portal (PakWheels.com and Garee.pk)

Table EIV
Prices for online advertising (banner spaces)
Sr No. Parameter Bayrozgar.com ApniGari.com ApniBike.com

1 Page impressions (avg. monthly figures) 2,500,000 3,000,000 600,000

2 Banner ad spaces/units (per page) 3 3 3
3 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) 200 250 150

Notes: All figures are numerical counts; CPM figures in PKR; this information was available only for
Mech Technologies portals as other companies did not share this information publicly; one key reason
was customization extended offering to every advertiser
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Source: Company records

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PAGE 12 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013
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Table EV
Parameter Bayrozgar.com Rozee.pk Mustakbil.com Brightspyre.com JobsVilli.com

Registered 300,000 2,500,000 900,000 9 NAb

jobseekersa
Registered 10,000 40,000 25,000 10,000 NA
employersa
Posted jobsa 250 1,500 1,000 200 NA
Rank based on 4 1 2 3 5
trafficc
Offices Lahore Lahore Rawalpindi (Islamabad) Islamabad Karachi
Karachi
Islamabad
Revenue sourcesd Paid services Paid services Paid services Paid services Paid services
Exhibit 6. Comparison of different job portals

(as of June 2012) Selling ad spaces Selling ad spaces Selling ad spaces Selling ad spaces Selling ad spaces

j
Adsense Adsense Adsense
Key promotional Word of mouth Word of mouth Word of mouth Word of mouth Word of mouth
strategies for Job fairs Online advertising Online advertising
jobseekers
Promotional strategy Personal selling Personal selling (telemarketing, Personal selling (telemarketing, Personal selling (telemarketing, Personal selling
for employers (telemarketing) extensive field sales) limited field sales) limited field sales). Participation (telemarketing)
Participation in industry events Participation in industry events in industry events

Notes: aThese figures were approximately rounded off as per publicly shared information by respective portal; authentication was not possible; bNA implies figures/information not
available – an unappealing low figure could be construed; cthis ranking is based on Alexa’s position of these sites in Pakistan; rank compares to each other only; dbased on limited
information gathered from sales team and CEO Mech Technologies
Source: Interviews from Mech Technologies sales team; information on portals (for rest of the portals); Alexa.com for traffic ranking

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VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 13
 Exhibit 7. Comparison of different classified listing portals

Table EVI
Parameter ApniGari.com PakWheels.com Garee.pk Olx.com.pk

Rank based on traffica 3 2 4 1

Offices Lahore Lahore Lahore Managed from
Karachi international offices
Islamabad
Revenue sourcesb Paid services Paid services Paid services Adsense
(as of June 2012) Selling ad spaces Selling ad spaces Selling ad spaces
Key promotional Word of mouth Word of mouth Word of mouth Word of mouth
strategies for traffic Online advertising Rozee.pk TV advertising
Online advertising
Promotional strategy for Personal selling Personal selling (limited Personal selling Online advertising
advertisers (telemarketing) telemarketing and field sales) (telemarketing, field sales) TV advertising
Participation in Participation in industry shows Participation in industry
industry shows events

Notes: aThis ranking is based on Alexa’s position of these sites in Pakistan; rank compares to each other only; bbased on limited
information gathered from sales team and CEO Mech Technologies
Source: Interviews from Mech Technologies sales team; information on portals (for rest of the portals); Alexa.com for traffic ranking
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About the author

Muhammad Talha Salam is an Assistant Professor in marketing at FAST School of
Management, National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan.
He teaches core course of marketing management at undergraduate and graduate level.
He also teaches elective courses of sales management, brand management and
e-marketing. Muhammad Talha Salam can be contacted at: talha.salam@nu.edu.pk

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PAGE 14 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 3 NO. 8 2013