• ‘mobile phones’ was the leading product-related search term, but ‘Young Ambition’ were much more likely to search for ‘mobile phone reviews’ with an index of 485 compared to the online population average (100).

• ‘iphone accessories’ attracted higher volumes of search than ‘iphone,’ suggesting that ‘Young Ambition’ are seasoned iPhone users and are now looking for the latest accessories.

• ‘Omnia’ and the ‘LG Web Slider’ are providing strong competition to the iPhone amongst ‘Young Ambition’ households, with high search volumes compared to the online population.

• ‘navman’ and ‘tomtom’ searches were over-represented amongst ‘Young Ambition’ during Christmas 2008 but were under-represented during March 2009. This suggests that navigation products are becoming less of a fad amongst early adopters.

• ‘headphones’, ‘cameras’ and ‘laptops’ were other leading product search terms. ‘Sennheiser’ related terms also appeared in the long-tail of ‘Young Ambition’ searches.

Retailers can gain an understanding of the products and brands that resound with specific consumer groups by drilling into their search behaviour. Stay tuned for a similar analysis on high-end shoppers and suburban families.

Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – What gadgets are early adopters searching for?

Despite this, ‘budget’ was the third fastest moving term in the in the UK last week (in fact it was really the fastest, as the two that appeared above it – ‘earth day’ and ‘st george’s day’ – were both Google Doodles), and lots of websites were competing to pick up traffic from it. As the table below illustrates, the most successful was DirectGov, which paid for the majority of its clicks. The Telegraph ranked second, also thanks to a significant investment in paid traffic, while BBC News, Google News and the FT all ranked in the top 10. The accountancy firms also did well from the term, with KPMG beating Ernst & Young to the top spot this year, despite paying less for its traffic.

The Conservative Party also ran a paid search campaign for the budget, and was the 11th biggest recipient of traffic from the term ‘budget’ last week. Over 90% of this traffic came via paid search and, as the table below illustrates, it was the highest placed non-branded term sending traffic to the Tories’ homepage last week. The other terms that that Conservative Party received a significant amount of paid traffic from were ‘budget 2009’, ‘vat threshold’ and ‘2009 budget’.

The combination of more paid search traffic and the general interest in all things budget-related meant that traffic to conservatives.com increased by 71% last week. The official homepages of the Labour Party (up 20%) and the Liberal Democrats (up 33%) also received traffic boosts. Following on from the Daniel Hannan YouTube clip last month, it is starting to look like the next UK election may well be the first in which the Internet will play a significant role.

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Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Budget 2009: paid search tactics

In Australia the growth of Twitter has been nothing short of phenomenal;
• 49.9% growth in the past month (comparing 21/04/2009 vs. 22/03/2009)
• 1067.3% since the start of the 2009 (comparing 21/04/2009 vs. 01/01/2009)
• 3,220.7% annual growth (comparing 21/04/2009 vs. 22/04/2008).

On Sunday 19 April 2009, Twitter became the 37th most visited website by Australian Internet users, breaking into the top 40 Australian websites for the first time on the back of a 3.9% rise in share, coinciding with Oprah’s first tweet.

The largest single day of growth experienced by Twitter this year was 22 March 2009, when share of visits grew by 89.3% over the previous day. It was a day after the Queensland Election and four days after the second of the Melbourne earth tremors.

In Australia a number of celebrities were included in searches for ‘twitter’, representing 38% of the top 50 ‘twitter’ search variations for week ending 18 April 2009.

Ashton Kutcher and his challenge to be the first Twitterer to have one million followers received considerable news coverage. In the days leading up Kutcher passing the million follower mark, Twitter’s share of daily visits increased by 10.6% (16/4/2009) and 6.22% (17/4/2009). Oprah could only move Twitter’s Australian share by 2.46% (18/4/2009).

Lindsay Lohan however, with her much publicised relationship split, had the strongest association with Twitter compared to other celebrities, with 0.65% of Twitter-related search terms (week ending 18/04/2009), followed by Kutcher (0.51%), Miley Cyrus (0.35%) and Australia’s Hugh Jackman (0.22%).

Twitter a truly global phenomenon

In other markets, Twitter has a growth pattern similar to the US and UK, highlighting that Twitter is a truly global phenomenon.

Twitter increased its share in New Zealand 305.5% since the start of the year (1/01/2009), and on 21 April 2009 ranked at 49 amongst all websites (up from 206).

In Singapore, Twitter moved up 239 positions to a rank of 65 amongst all websites with an increase in share of visits of 333.3% since the 1/01/2009.

Hong Kong is lagging by comparison to the other Asia Pacific markets the US and UK, as can be seen from the chart below, but has moved up 373 places since 1/01/2009 to currently stand at the 198th most visited website in Hong Kong on 21/04/2009 with a share of visits increase of 198.1%.

Click chart for larger version

It is interesting to note that large jumps in share of visits have been sparked by a variety of events and news items at different times over the past three months. However, Ashton Kutcher and Oprah seem to have had an impact in all countries in mid April.

For statistical comparison the Twitters share of visits in the US and UK, as at 21/4/2009, have grown 570.03% and 621.3% respectively since 1/01/2009 improving its ranking position by 324 spots in the US and 305 spots in the UK.

It is interesting to note that Entertainment / Celebrity brands have embraced Twitter as a communication and connection tool, yet many consumer facing brands have yet to understand the opportunity and accept the challenge of direct interaction with consumers. Props to those businesses that are active and learning.

Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Oprah may be America’s Tweet-heart, but she doesn’t make the earth move Downunder!

· ‘Bushfires’ searches decreased by 76.5% the week ending 21 February 2009 compared to week ending 14 February 2009, and dropped a futher 44.3% a fortnight later.

· There was 4-week window for peak community awareness following the Victorian Bushfire tragedy. 6 weeks after the height of the crisis, search activity on ‘bushfires’ dropped to search levels preceding the crisis.

Bushfire Searches became more specific during and after crisis

A detailed study into the bushfire searches provide insight into what types of information requirements emerge at key periods during a crisis. Hitwise found that bushfire searches fell into the following 5 types:

1. ‘Appeal’ searches around fundraising efforts e.g. ‘redcross bushfire appeal’
2. ‘Education’ searches around historical knowledge and future planning e.g. ‘bushfire survival’
3. ‘General’ searches e.g. ‘victorian bushfires’
4. ‘Informational’ searches around news and geographical updates e.g. ‘bushfire map’
5. ‘Services’ searches around government and commercial agencies e.g. ‘cfa bushfires’

· ‘Informational’ searches were strong throughout, with timeliness the key in providing community updates. The top 5 websites to receive ‘Informational’ searches during the height of the crisis (week ending 14 February 2009) were the Victoria Country Fire Authority, ABC News Online, Google News Australia, Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, and The Age.

·The community were willing to provide support immediately with ‘Appeal’ searches prevalent during the week ending 14 February 2009. ‘Appeal’ searches however dropped off significantly 5 weeks after the crisis.

· News and Media websites attracted the most traffic from all types of bushfire searches apart from ‘Services’ following the crisis. However News and Media websites received a smaller allocation of paid traffic on ‘bushfire’ Searches (5.8%) than Government websites (8.7%) during the week ending 14 March 2009, suggesting that organic traffic was a more important driver of traffic.

·The proportion of ‘Education’ searches peaked 5 weeks following the crisis, suggesting ongoing demand for information to avoid a repeat of the disaster. Wikipedia was the top website to receive ‘Educational’ during the crisis (week ending 14 March 2009). While Government websites received a significant portion of search traffic with 8.9%, it is clear agencies need to compete with a range of sources in providing reliable and authoritative information to the public.

Making sure government websites are optimised for searches on key issues

Government agencies can use online behaviour surrounding the Victorian bushfire case study to understand the needs of the community, when information is crucial for saving lives. By investing in best practice Search Engine Optimisation, such as using keyword research to determine the language of the community, government agencies can ensure they are a key source of information. Government agencies can also work with leading online news outlets for information dissemination.

We will be releasing an Online Government report very soon that includes the bushfire case study so stay tuned. Hitwise Research Director, Alan Long and Product Director for Search Marketing Services, Stuart McKeown will also be speaking at this AMI event on 30 April: Best practices for government, community organisations and consumer marketing.

Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Bushfire Searches: 4 week window of peak community interest

Search engines are the primary source of traffic for almost all online retailers, and a typical ecommerce site in the UK receives 2 in every 5 visits from a search engine. However, the proportion of search traffic that comes from paid listings fell from 27.8% in March 2008 to 22.5% in March 2009. Retailers are amongst the biggest users of paid search in the UK, so – as the chart below illustrates – this has also contributed to an overall decline in paid search rates. In March 2009, 9.4% of all search engine traffic in the UK was from paid listings, down from 12.1% in March 2008.

Following yesterday’s post illustrating that social networks now receive more UK Internet visits that online retailers, it is perhaps no surprise to see that the amount of traffic our Shopping and Classifies category receive from social networking websites increased from 5.2% in March 2008 to 7.1% in March 2009. A year ago online retailers received a similar amount of traffic from both social networks and webmail services (such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and GoogleMail), but social networks now account for 58.3% more traffic than webmail providers.

The retail categories that received most traffic from social networks during March 2009 were Auctions, Fashion and Department Stores. Together they accounted for over half of all downstream visits from social networks to an online retailer.

Top 10 online retail websites receiving traffic from social networks, March 2009:

1. eBay UK (1.94% of all downstream visits from social networks)
2. Amazon UK (0.40%)
3. Play.com (0.19%)
4. ASOS (0.13%)
5. eBay (0.10%)
6. Argos (0.09%)
7. Gumtree.com (0.09%)
8. Amazon.com (0.08%)
9. TopShop.com (0.08%)
10. HotUKDeals (0.08%)

Social networks are a relatively small but fast growing source of traffic for online retailers. At present, only a minority of retailers pick up a significant amount of traffic from social networks, but many of those that do have seen a positive impact on traffic. For example, fashion retailer ASOS has a strong presence on Facebook and in March received 13.3% of its traffic from the social network. Another example – in a very different market – is online bookseller Abebooks, which currently receives a quarter of all its UK Internet traffic from social networks, more than it gets from search engines. These and other examples illustrate that a retailer’s success on a social network has less to do with products or demographics than it does with effectively engaging with an online community.

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Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Online retailers receiving less traffic from paid search, but more from social networks

The growth of social networking, online video and the continuing popularity of news websites has meant that an increasing proportion of consumer’s online time in the UK has been devoted to online media. Historically this has gone hand in hand with the growth of online retail, but over the last 3 months online retailers seem to be really suffering from the economic downturn for the first time. Traffic to online retailers always peaks over the Christmas period, then declines during January and February, but picks up in March. Last year UK Internet traffic to online retailers increased by 0.8% between February and March, but this year it fell by 0.1%. The decline between December and February was also greater this year.

Electronics retailers and department stores have experienced the most significant declines in traffic since Christmas, although the recent Spring sales acted as a temporary boost for the latter category. However, despite the post-Christmas decline in online retail, there are a number of categories that continue to outperform the general market Online fashion was the fastest growing online retail category during 2009 and continues to perform well, despite growth slowing. Sports retailers are also doing well, helped in part by the demand for the new England football kit.

The good weather over the last few weeks has led to an increase in searches for garden furniture and tools, with a corresponding increase in traffic to House and Garden retailers. Finally, Classifieds websites have seen their UK Internet traffic increase by 15% over the last 12 months as people look to buy and sell second hand goods online.

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Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – UK Internet users spending more time on social networks than shopping online

So what was the Oprah-Effect on Twitter? The following chart shows daily visits to Twitter from 1st January to 18th April (Oprah’s first Tweet was on the 17th).

Share of US Internet visits to Twitter increased 24% on Friday, April 17, the day of Oprah’s first Tweet. Comparing visits with the previous Friday, visits were up 43%.

Hitwise clickstream data reveals that on April 17, 37% of visits to Twitter.com were new visitors (as opposed to returning). The service typically has a high ratio of new visitors as it is still very much in a growth phase. However, the percentage of new visitors was 5% higher on Friday than the previous day and the average for March. To give a benchmark, Facebook’s ratio of new visitors was 8% in March.

The search term “oprah twitter” was the #35 highest search term with the word “twitter” last week and the #7 with “oprah”. Considering that our search data is weekly and that the show only aired on Friday, this is impressive.

Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Oprah Effect on Twitter

Top Internal Site Seaches on Hulu.com – Week of March 21, 2009
1. family guy
2. transformers cartoon
3. lie to me
4. the office
5. keeping up with the kardashians
6. 24
7. battlestar galactica
8. bones
9. damages
10. the simpsons

Not surprisingly, TV shows dominated the top 100 search terms for the week on Hulu.com with 83 search terms with 8 referring to various versions of Law & Order. The majority of the search terms were for specific titles of TV shows and movies, and in some cases, specific episodes, with very few searches for actors.

Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Top Searches on Hulu.com

We often see these correlations between online and offline data in the financial services world. For example, searches for ‘house prices’ broadly follow real house prices: increasing in the boom times, but falling as the credit crunch began to bite. But what about interest rates: how have people responded the massive drops that have taken place over the last six months? The chart below illustrates two data sets: the pink line represents the Bank of England interest rate over the last 3 years; the blue line is the weekly UK search volume for the term ‘interest rates’.

Up until Autumn 2008 – broadly speaking – searches for term ‘interest rates’ increased in line with actual interest rates. There were obviously weekly fluctuations and noticeable peaks during the weeks when interest rates actually changed, but the correlation is there to see.

However, searches for interest rates increased dramatically last Autumn, as the Bank of England’s monthly decreases became more significant. Searches for ‘interest rates’ reached their highest ever level following the 1.5% drop at the start of November 2008 and since then they have peaked each time that the rates have changed. But the height of those peaks has decreased in line with falling interest rates, re-instating the correlation between searches and actual rates.

It is also interesting to see where people go after searching for interest rates – and how this has changed over time. Looking back to the boom times and picking week when the Bank of England increased interest rates (w/e 11/11/06), 40.7% of people searching for ‘interest rates’ went to a website in our Banks and Financial Institutions category, while 29.6% went to a News and Media site. Fast forward to the last downward adjustment – w/e 07/03/09 – and more people (50.9%) went to a News and Media site than visited the Banks and Financial Institutions category (29.6%).

So, the general increase in ‘interest rate’ searches is as much down to curiosity as people making financial decisions. Presumable this is because interest rate changes are now perceived to have a wider economic significance than simply feeding into mortgage rates. Then again, it may be that news websites have realized that the economic crisis is a good story, and have therefore become more effective at picking up traffic from economic search terms. The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in between these two explanations.

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Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Interest rates: the relationship between online and offline behaviour

The case still remains that MapQuest is a strong brand and is the leading search term driving traffic to the Maps category, but there appears to be some erosion that has taken place over time. The share of traffic from the search term ‘mapquest’ (which represents 32% of the clicks driving traffic to MapQuest) to the Maps category has declined 32% for the 4 weeks ending April 11, 2009 when compared to the same time frame one year ago.

Albeit amidst some controversy following the launch in the UK, the Google Maps feature ‘Street View’ has been very popular and the share of searches on ‘street view’ increased 29% for the 4 weeks ending April 11, 2009 when compared to the same timeframe one year ago. Not surprisingly, Google Maps is the main beneficiary of the searches and received 74% of the traffic from the search term during the same timeframe.

With a tight race between Google Maps and MapQuest, will innovations such as street views be the deciding factor?

Copyright Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs – Google Maps Surpasses Mapquest in Visits