Hitwise Intelligence - North America

Tracking Hurricane Earl online

2010-09-02T20:03:52Z

Visits to the website of the National Hurricane Center jumped to represent 7.5% of all visits to the News and Media – Weather category on Tuesday, August 31, 2010. The National Hurricane Center ranked 4th among the 227 websites included in the category on Tuesday as fears increased regarding the projected path of Hurricane Earl, after being named a category 4 storm. The storm also drove increased visits to the News and Media – Weather category on Tuesday and visits increased 13% from the previous day.

Searches for ‘hurricane earl’ and ‘national hurricane center’ ranked 5th and 6th, respectively, among search terms driving traffic to the News and Media – Weather category on Tuesday.

The daily search term variations of ‘hurricane’ were dominated by Hurricane Earl-related searches, with 4 queries related to tracking the path of the storm.

The National Weather Center received the highest share of clicks on Tuesday from searches on ‘hurricane earl’, followed by Yahoo! News and The Washington Post.

Successful promotion from Groupon.com and The Gap

2010-08-27T16:41:16Z

Over the past year, group buying websites have surged in both popularity and number. The weekly market share of visits to a custom category of 81 group buying websites & aggregators has increased 416% for the week ending August 21, 2010 as compared to the same week the previous year. Groupon is currently leading the group buying websites in traffic and captured 50% of all visits within the custom category last week.

On August 19th, Groupon offered a national deal with The Gap which offered purchasers $50 in merchandise for $25, a 50% savings. The national offers are a good strategy for group buying websites to pursue to attract a broader audience in locations where they may not have a presence yet. In this case, the discount for The Gap caused visits to Groupon.com to increase 37% from the previous day and 51% as compared to Thursday, August 12th, one week earlier.

Interested purchasers were also visiting Gap.com immediately after Groupon.com, the share of downstream traffic from Groupon.com to Gap.com jumped to 4.18% on August 19th. This figure is strong from a customer acquisition standpoint because 53% of the visitors referred from Groupon.com to Gap.com were new, meaning they had not visited the website in the past 30 days.

Also aiding in the success of the promotions was high consumer awareness and shoppers actively seeking the discount. Searches for ‘gap coupons’ ranked 4th on August 19, 2010 among the search terms driving traffic to Groupon.com.

For more insight about Group Buying websites, please visit our webinar archive to listen to ‘New Trends in Online Retail – Flash Sales and Group Buying’.

Customer Acquisition Strategies in Insurance

2010-08-25T18:15:10Z

USAA regularly captures the highest share of visits within the Insurance category and receives nearly the amount of the next 3 combined. A large driver for the high share of visits to USAA.com is the limited number of physical locations, so the majority of contact takes place online or over the phone. One caveat is that USAA also offers banking and investing services in addition to insurance.

Customer acquisition is always important within the Insurance industry, so another way to look at the category is ranking the websites by the share of new visitors to measure potential drivers of growth. Among all of the new visitors (defined as having not visited the website in the past 30 days) to the Insurance category last week, Geico attracted the largest with 8.73%, followed by Progressive and LowerMyBills.com – Insurance. Overall, 69% of visits to Geico.com were from new visitors last week, in contrast LowerMyBills.com – Insurance, an aggregator of insurance rates was among the highest with 91%.

The sources of the new visitors vary somewhat across the websites, with Geico, for example, search is the main driver of new visitors to the website, followed by social networks and other insurance websites. Search is also the top driver for Progressive along with social networks and portal frontpages. In comparison, Lower My Bills – Insurance is more reliant on web-based email and television websites for customer acquisition initiatives.

Search Behavior and Results for Laptops

2010-08-19T00:18:18Z

Laptops have become an increasingly popular and necessary Back to School item, so we used the generic term ‘laptops’ to help understand the current search strategies and behavior around this competitive term. Many consumers put significant time and consideration into researching a laptop before committing to the purchase, since computers and electronics tend to have a longer life span and higher price tag.

In order to help understand what searchers are looking for during the purchasing cycle, we looked at the Search Term Sequence Summary report for ‘laptops’, a new tool to be released soon in Hitwise. The search terms used in queries before ‘laptops’ are an interesting lot, many include brands of computer manufacturers or retailers, along with price-sensitive qualifying terms like ‘cheap’, ‘free’, and ‘discount’. However, an interesting trend emerges following a search on ‘laptops’, where retail names seem to dominate. In some cases, there are also manufacturer names like Apple, Dell, HP and Sony, but each of these sells direct as well. These search queries suggest that shoppers may have a brand in mind to research initially, widen the search to include others (just to be sure), and then head to a retailer.

Knowing what people are searching for is half the battle and needs to be followed by understanding and improving your position with the search engines. Here we’ll focus on organic search results which take more time to create results, but could help drive sales in the upcoming holiday season.

Below are the results of searches on ‘laptops’ – the overall share of organic clicks for the search term ‘laptops’ and position in organic ranking across the 3 major search engines for last week from our new SERPs tool. Together, Best Buy and Dell captured 33% of all organic clicks from searches on ‘laptops’ for the week ending August 7, 2010 and hold high positions in organic listings on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Best Buy captured the highest share of organic clicks for searches on ‘laptops’ last week and ranked 1st in Google’s organic SERPs, 6th on Yahoo! and 9th on Bing. Dell followed with 10% of all organic clicks on ‘laptops’ and ranked 2nd in Google organic SERPs, 1st on Yahoo! and 2nd on Bing. While the position on Google is always going to be important, this is also a good way to discover additional opportunities with Yahoo! and Bing.

Also important is the landing pages appearing in the SERPs to understand where the searcher is potentially being sent following the search to compare the types of offerings being made by competitors.

Targeting College Students for Back to School

2010-08-11T22:09:21Z

According to the NRF’s 2010 Back to College Consumer Intentions and Actions survey, the average college student’s family will spend $616.13 on new apparel, furniture for dorms or apartments, school supplies and electronics, down slightly from $618.12 last year. Electronics represent the largest share of spending with the average family predicted to spend $236.94 on computers, cell phones, MP3 players, cameras and other electronics.

In some cases, the parents might be paying for the new gadgets and electronics, but the students are probably going online to research which products they want most before anyone pulls the wallet out. To understand which Appliances and Electronics websites were visited by 18-24 year olds over the past 4 weeks, we used the new ‘Rank by Audience’ tool within Hitwise that allows us to segment a category of websites by demographic targets such as age, gender, income and others. Among the Top 10 retailers in the Appliances and Electronics category ranked by visitors aged 18 – 24, Best Buy, T-Mobile’s Online Store, and TigerDirect.com captured the highest share of visits. However, within those Top 10 retailers, visitors aged 18-24 were more likely to visit Sony Style than the overall online population.

For retail advertisers looking to reach the 18-24 demographic during the Back to School season, identifying the websites visited within the Entertainment – Multimedia category can provide opportunities on destinations where 18-24 year olds visit to view online videos. Not surprisingly, YouTube captured the largest share of 18-24 year olds among Multimedia websites for the 4 weeks ending August 7, 2010. Among the Top 10 Multimedia websites (filtered by those that display advertising) ranked by share of visits, OVGuide, Crackle, MySpaceTV, and MetaCafe indexed higher for 18-24 year olds compared to the Internet population overall, providing a smaller, but highly targeted audience.

iPhone 4 Launch in Canada

2010-08-11T14:38:42Z

On Friday July 30, the iPhone 4 was launched in Canada and Hitwise data reveals that Canadians turned to social networks, blogs and retailers after searching for the highly coveted phone.

In the week after the launch (week to 7 August 2010) "iphone 4" was the top Canadian search term that included the word "iphone", followed by "iphone" and "iphone 4 canada". The top downstream websites from the search term "iPhone 4" were Apple.com, Telus Mobility and Bell.ca.

Social networks were popular sources for information and reviews In the week of the launch (week to 31 July 2010), Facebook was the #2 downstream website from searches for "iphone", receiving 20% of clicks. Last week, YouTube was the #4 downstream website (after Bell.ca), receiving 5% of searches.

I created a Search Term Portfolio to look at downstream websites for the top 100 search terms that included "iphone 4" in the past twelve weeks. Again, Apple.com was the #1 downstream site receiving 14% of iphone 4 clicks. Telus was #2 with 12% of clicks and Bell.ca #3 with 8% of clicks. The popular blog, iPhoneinCanada.ca had been the #1 recipient of iphone 4 searches two weeks before the launch but took the #4 spot last week. Facebook and YouTube were again among the top 10 downstream websites for iphone 4 searches.

As the following chart illustrates the traffic to Bell.ca and TelusMobility.com from iPhone 4 searches spiked up post-launch indicating that paid search marketing was employed to capture visits. This is also a nice case study of how important social networks and blogs were to information gathering and decision making in the lead up to the launch.

On a separate note, this will be my last blog post for a while as I will be on maternity leave as of the end of this week.

Heat wave drives online sales of ACs

2010-08-02T22:23:01Z

Recently we wrote about the increase in searches for air conditioners during the heat wave affecting many parts of the country, causing the share of search clicks on the term ‘air conditioners’ to increase 268% for the week ending July 10, 2010. Upon publishing these trends, eBay confirmed that they were also seeing increases in both search and purchasing activity for air conditioners. We received one comment regarding the initial post around the fact that many of the searches are only for research and much of the search activity taking place online is to inform an offline purchase. While purchasing air conditioners online may seem non-intuitive and prohibitive due to size and shipping costs, eBay provided evidence to the contrary to show that ACs are being purchased online.

Similarly, eBay experienced increases in the Air Conditioner category during the same week ending July 10, 2010 with a 46%* increase in the volume of searches for ‘air conditioner’, ‘window air conditioner’ and ‘portable air conditioner’. During the peak week for searches, the number of air conditioners sold also increased 38.6%* and while demand was high, the average selling price was highly unchanged during the peak week with an increase of only 1.9%*. Another interesting trend is the ability of the eBay sellers to predict demand in terms of their inventory – in this case, the number of listings was the highest the week ending July 3, 2010, right before the peak, with a small decrease in the subsequent weeks of 2.3%* and 3.6%*. Watching the listings of eBay sellers could offer some predictive insight into the popularity of certain categories and products– like last year’s holiday hit, Zhu Zhu Pets.

*Based upon internal eBay data

How Canadians Reach Retail Websites

2010-07-28T14:01:52Z

Canadians are heavy users of search engines and as we see in most markets, Search Engines are the top source of upstream visits to retail websites. In the month of June 2010, one third (33.21%) of upstream visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites came directly from a Search Engine. But, that is down year over year. In June 2009, Search Engines accounted for 39.18% of upstream visits, a 15% decline. What is making up the difference?

The following chart shows the top sources of upstream Canadian visits to retail websites in the month of June 2010 compared to June 2009. As illustrated in the chart, we have seen a slight increase in visits from other Shopping and Classifieds websites (shopping comparison in particular), Social Networks and Business and Finance.

The largest increase among these top industries was from Social Networks, up 37% year over year. Last week, the top downstream Shopping and Classifieds websites downstream from Facebook.com were mainly Classifieds websites (eBay Canada, various Kijiji and Craigslist city websites). Also among the top 30 were Sears Canada, Avon Canada, Amazon Canada, Ticketmaster Canada, and Walmart Canada.

This is an interesting mix of retailers, and not necessarily those you'd expect to be getting the most downstream traffic from Facebook. Stay tuned for more on social networking and retailing in Canada.

Back to school searches growing

2010-07-21T21:26:09Z

The summer is only half over, but search queries including ‘Back to School’ are on the rise and the share of variations have increased 28% for the week ending July 17, 2010 year-over-year. Over the past 2 years, the peak of the Back to School searches has occurred in mid-August – the week ending August 18, 2008 and the week ending August 22, 2009.

The top variations of Back to School related searches were around content – looking for ideas & quotes and shopping – sales, supplies and lists. In August last year, the top search variation was for back to school activities and searches for bulletin boards were also popular. Not surprisingly, shopping related terms were more competitive in terms of paid search with 63% of clicks for ‘back to school supplies’ coming from paid search and 70% for ‘back to school shopping list’.

When looking at the Back to School variations ranked by paid clicks, the trend toward shopping-related terms becomes even more apparent with the top paid 10 terms – supplies, shopping list and clothes. The sales opportunities during the Back to School season is likely to be worth the investment in paid campaigns or to seek out affiliates and other partners to help manage costs.

Heat wave offers retail opportunities

2010-07-15T21:23:49Z

The recent heat wave in the US has sent many in search of air conditioners to keep cool last week with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees in parts of the country. The share of search clicks on the term ‘air conditioners’ increased 268% for the week ending July 10, 2010 over the previous week and air conditioners ranked 3rd out of over 1,000 products included in a portfolio of top Appliances & Electronics.

Portable air conditioners have become a popular segment and ranked 2nd among all variations of ‘air conditioner’ and the keyword ‘portable’ was included in 185 queries. Last week, Mitsubishi, Goodman and LG were the top searched brands of air conditioners, highlighting opportunities for merchandising and search campaigns based upon consumer demand.

Bestbuy.com and Walmart.com received the highest share of traffic from searches on ‘air conditioners’ last week among websites in the Shopping & Classifieds category. Despite the recent demand for air conditioners, the share of paid search traffic for the term was just under 3% last week, suggesting that retailers may want to invest in paid campaigns to capitalize upon the increase in search activity.

My colleague Heather Hopkins also wrote about our neighbors to the north in Canada that are also on the hunt for ACs.

Heat Wave Sends Canadians to Weather Websites and in Search of Air Conditioners

2010-07-14T14:14:01Z

We Canadians are notorious for our weather talk. Last week's heat wave in Ontario and Eastern Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal in particular, drove our obsession to new heights. Weather websites accounted for more than 1 in every 100 Canadian internet visits. Canadians were twice as likely to vistis Weather websites last week than were Americans (many of whom also suffered the same heat wave).

The following table lists the top 10 Weather websites last week.

The heat wave also drove up searches for air conditioners and other ways to cool down. The #1 Fast Moving Search Term sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites last week was "climatiseur portatif" (portable air conditioner). At #3 was "climatiseur" (air conditioner). These were also the #1 and #2 Fast Moving Search Terms sending visits to House and Garden websites. Also among the top 10 Fast Moving Search Terms to this category were "air climatise", "air conditioner" and "swimming pools".

Paul the Psychic Octopus

2010-07-08T19:35:04Z

Quite possibly the first octopus to receive death threats (first from Argentina fans, now German fans), Paul the Octopus (or “Oktopus Orakel”) has catapulted into fame after correctly predicting the winner for all six of the German matches in the World Cup. Although yesterday’s prediction about Spain winning the semi-finals has probably made Paul the most famous octopus on the planet, searchers have been curious about the psychic octopus for weeks. Out of 423 search queries including the keyword ‘octopus’, ‘octopus world cup’ ranked 10th for the 4 weeks ending July 3, 2010 and 32 in total were related to the World Cup predictions. Fans were hoping that Paul could predict the outcome of all of the matches with plenty of variations including non-German matches.

Google Travel - ITA Acquisition

2010-07-07T14:04:58Z

Google Thursday announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, a flight information software company. We at Hitwise have been waiting for such an announcement for some time. In 2006 when Google Finance was launched, we looked at the top downstream industries from Google and noticed an obvious gap: Travel. Then again in 2008, when Google Health was launched we did the same analysis and pointed out the same gap.

The following table shows the top 20 downstream industries visited after Google in June 2010. Google's presence is obvious in most: Search Engines (Google.com), Entertainment (YouTube), Shopping and Classifieds (Google Shopping, Google Base), Business and Finance (Google Finance). Google's presence is perhaps less obvious in others: Social Networking and Forums (YouTube, Orkut, Google Talk), Education (Knol, Google Book Search, Google Scholar), Lifestyle (Blogger).

While Maps is an important component of our Travel category, Google has so far lacked a presence in the Travel subcategories of Travel Agencies or Destinations and Accommodations.

Travel industry executives are reportedly wary of the deal, concerned that Google will wield too much power. In June, Google was the #1 source of traffic to Travel Agencies, accounting for 15% of upstream visits. Google accounted for nearly 4 times the share of clicks to Travel Agencies compared with the #2 source of clicks, Yahoo! Search.

Destinations and Accommodations websites are even more reliant on Google for visits, with 32% of upstream clicks in June coming from Google.com. This is more than 6 times the share of clicks coming from the #2 traffic source, again Yahoo! Search.

It may have taken four years since our initial analysis for the acquisition but what does clickstream data tell us about Google's next potential foray? Games. After Travel, the next biggest downstream industry from Google.com is Games and Google does not yet have a presence in that industry. Stay tuned...

Rolling Stone McChrystal Profile

2010-07-01T14:05:00Z

Rolling Stone Magazine last week published a tell-all account that led to the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal. On June 23, the day after the article appeared online, www.rollingstone.com became the #402 ranked website among All Categories of websites, up from #5,094 the day before the article appeared. Market share of Internet visits to the website increased 160x in the seven days to June 23. Rolling Stone ranked as the #41 most visited News and Media website on June 23

Two thirds (66) of the top 100 search terms sending visits to the Rolling Stone Magazine website last week related to the article. The only other celebrities whose names were included in search terms sending visits to the site were Lady Gaga and Taylor Lautner.

The article, subsequent apology and resignation were big news. The News and Media industry experienced a 7% gain in visits last week. The following table displays the top 10 websites receiving visits from searches for "stanley mcchrystal" (the highest volume search term last week with the General's family name).

This is a great example of a news organization making the news. Because of the way search engines work, the top search term, "stanley mcrystal" sent visits to a host of websites with Rolling Stone coming in at #9 last week. Even for searches for which Rolling Stone appeared at the top of the organic results, the Google News shortcut appeared ahead of the top organic listing. If Rolling Stone Magazine wanted to draw more readers to the orignial article and its follow up articles, the only real option to stay at the top of the search engine resutls would have been to pay for visits. The CPC would have been low since 99% of clicks on most McChrystal related searches were on organic listings last week.

Summer Brings Canadian Travel Opportunities

2010-06-28T22:11:47Z

Heading into the season for summer vacations, visits to a PhoCusWright Canada Travel custom category comprised of 720 websites are up 6% for the week ending June 26, 2010 as compared to the previous week. The sub-categories within Travel that experienced the highest week-over-week upticks were Car Rentals (+15%), Cruises (+8) and Reviews and Planning (+8).

When looking back at the past year, the PhoCusWright Travel Category experienced the highest share of visits in January, followed by summer peaks in mid-July.

Search plays a key role in driving traffic to the PhoCusWright Travel websites and referred 36% of upstream visits last week. While much of search traffic within the Travel category tends to be heavily branded, the top generic term to grow year-over-year for the 12 weeks ending June 26, 2010 was ‘vacation packages all inclusive’. Four out of the top 5 search queries including the keyword ‘vacation’ to increase year-over-year also included ‘packages’ or ‘all inclusive’. This summer, Canadian travelers are increasingly showing a demand for fixed price vacations that are easier to plan to fit a budget, highlighting an opportunity to promote vacation packages within search campaigns and other marketing initiatives.

Join us on Wednesday, June 30th for an online event with PhoCusWright Canada – Online Travel in Canada: Market Size, Consumer Trends & Traffic”.