Gasta Tech Update: Hitwise North America Newsletter

Gasta Hitwise North America Newsletter - June, 2010

Feature Article
Google Share of Searches at 71 Percent for April 2010
Experian Hitwise announced that Google accounted for 71.40 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending May 1, 2010. Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask received 14.96 percent, 9.43 percent and 2.18 percent, respectively. The remaining 78 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 2.03 percent of U.S. searches.

Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, were flat between March 2010 and April 2010. The same time period showed that shorter search queries - those averaging one to four words long - also were flat from month to month. Two-word searches comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 23.06 percent of all queries, and increased 1 percent in April 2010.

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Search Terms Analysis
Fast Moving Search Terms to Travel
Hitwise Search Intelligence™ data reveals the top fast moving search terms for the Travel industry. The results are ranked by largest increase for the week ending May 15, 2010 versus the week ending April 17, 2010.
Fast Moving Search Terms for Travel Industry for the week ending 05/15/10 versus 04/17/10
Rank Search Term
1. jetblue 10 dollar flights
2. jacksonville nc hotels
3. greyhound bus station locations
4. vacation packages to las vegas
5. bolt bus
6. magic kingdom ticket prices
7. discount airfare websites
8. pet friendly vacation rentals montana
9. wild waves
10. myrtlebeach.com


Fast Movers
Yves Rocher USA - www.yvesrocherusa.com

Rank week ending - May 15, 2010 - 7
Rank week ending - May 8, 2010 - 44
Positions jumped - 37

The Yves Rocher USA website moved up 37 positions in the Lifestyle - Beauty Industry visited by U.S. Internet users (week ending May 15, 2010) to rank number 4 and number 3,339 among all websites. Of the website's total traffic, 53 percent consisted of returning visitors. The top three websites visited after the Yves Rocher USA website were My Points, secureorder.yvesrocherusa.com and T.G.I Friday's.

The top DMA® (Designated Marketed Areas) of visitors to the Yves Rocher USA website were from New York, NY (5.76%), Los Angeles, CA (4.15%) and Boston, MA (2.62%). The majority of visitors to the website were female (78%), aged 25-34 years (26%) with a household income of $30-$60K per year (35%) for the four weeks ending 05/15/10. Other websites with a similar demographic profile to the Yves Rocher USA website were BettyCrocker.com, QualityHealth.com and yourAVON.com.


Leveraging Competitive Intelligence
Understanding Competitors' Advertising Strategies by Comparing to Your Audience

By using Hitwise Demographics and Lifestyle tools, you can identify the differences between your website's audience and your competitors, industries and overall online population. For example, if you are IngDirect.com and your competitor is Etrade.com, by conducting an audience 'Compare With' report you will compare the key differences between two websites. In the chart below, you can see how ING Direct's audience profile differs from E* Financial by age. The representation index is highest for the 25-34 age brackets, where IngDirect.com attracts 14.17% more of the audience than Etrade.com with a share of 26% for the four weeks ending 05/15/2010. This insight is invaluable for gaining a competitive edge over your direct competitors.

For Hitwise clients who would like to discuss this product further, please contact Hitwise Customer Support. To learn more about Hitwise Demographics, view the Hitwise Demographics Product Fact Sheet.

Category Spotlight
Entertainment - Television
Any sites related to TV are listed in this category, including the official websites of TV shows, television stations, ratings guides, program TV production companies and cable information. The data below is based on All sites - Weekly rankings for the week ending 05/15/2010 - Ranks by 'Visits.'
Entertainment - Television - All sites - Weekly rankings for the week ending 05/15/10 - Ranks by 'Visits'
Rank Website
1. The Weather Channel - US
2. MSNBC
3. CNN.com
4. ESPN
5. Hulu
6. Fox News
7. FOX Sports on MSN
8. ABC
9. Yahoo! TV
10. QVC.com

Local Competitiveness Index

97.5%
of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.


Top 10 Upstream Industries
Rank Industries Upstream Clicks
1. Computers and Internet 57.83%
2. Search Engines (Computers and Internet) 23.42%
3. Entertainment 17.54%
4. Portal Frontpages (Computers and Internet) 17.15%
5. News and Media 11.59%
6. Social Networking and Forums (Computers and Internet) 10.87%
7. Television (Entertainment) 10.59%
8. Email Services (Computers and Internet) 5.24%
9. Sports 4.55%
10. Broadcast Media (News and Media) 4.25%

Top 10 Downstream Industries
Rank Industries Downstream Clicks
1. Computers and Internet 28.28%
2. Entertainment 25.02%
3. News and Media 17.13%
4. Television (Entertainment) 13.99%
5. Sports 11.83%
6. Social Networking and Forums (Computers and Internet) 10.84%
7. Broadcast Media (News and Media) 8.44%
8. Search Engines (Computers and Internet) 8.14%
9. Lifestyle 6.53%
10. Business and Finance 6.22%





Online Segmentation Snapshot
The Most Popular Real Estate Websites for Hispanic Women
Using Hitwise Lifestyle, which incorporates MOSAIC USA, a leading household segmentation system, you can identify the most popular sites in an industry that attract a specific segment. For example, the top three websites in the Business and Finance - Real Estate category that attracted the largest volume of Hispanic women in the "Nuevo Hispanic Families" segment were Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), MRMLS Central Site and Movoto, Inc for the four weeks ending 05/15/10.

The Nuevo Hispanic Families Type consists of young Hispanic family households living in working-class neighborhoods, and they are generally under 45 years old. They earn lower-middle incomes from jobs as food service workers, retail clerks and construction laborers. As a family, they are frequent shoppers who like to browse stores patronizing retailers that sell athletic attire, such as, Finish Line, Nike and Footlocker. What Nuevo Hispanic Families may lack in money, they more than make up in their passion for various media. They love to watch network and cable television, especially family-friendly fare including Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network. Lifestyle data is available on over 30,000 websites.

To learn more about Hitwise Lifestyle, contact Hitwise.
Top Business and Finance - Real Estate Websites visited by Hispanic Females for the four weeks ending 05/15/10
Rank Site Domain Gender % Mosaic USA Type %
1. Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) www.naca.com 56.14% 5.15%
2. MRMLS Central Site www.imrmls.com 46.64% 4.96%
3. Movoto, Inc www.movoto.com 45.28% 4.57%
4. Westfield Shopping Centres - United States www.westfield.com 49.57% 3.79%
5. RoomMates.com www.roommates.com 52.05% 3.50%

Hitwise Intelligence Blogs
Canadian Searches for Loans and Credit Cards See Gains
June 2, 2010 - Heather Hopkins

Canadian internet searches for loans and credit cards showed gains year over year in the first quarter of 2010, reflecting the financial strain felt by consumers. Year over year, searches for loans increased 19.2% to the first quarter of 2010. Searches for loans showed a quarterly increase (comparing Q4 2009 and Q1 2010) of 42.5% likely a result of consumers searching for post-holiday shopping financial assistance.

This analysis was assembled for the Experian Insight Index that we recently published in the US, identifying key internet search trends against today's economic backdrop. I posted the first set of findings from the Canadian market a couple of weeks ago.

Media queries at Hitwise
If you are interested in using Hitwise content and statistics in publications and presentations, we encourage you to do so. Please source the content as "Hitwise North America - www.hitwise.com/us".
Additionally - if you require assistance with statistics or content, please feel free to contact Matt Tatham at press@hitwise.com.

About this Newsletter
This monthly e-mail Newsletter is designed to provide Hitwise subscribers with analysis of new developments, industry trends and competitive activity. The powerful real-time web intelligence capabilities of Hitwise and a continual flow of additional research findings make this an indispensable business resource.

Gasta Tech A viral strategy for using paid search

Gasta Tech A viral strategy for using paid search
By Seth Sarelson
March 12, 2010



* Each paid search click for a multi-channel merchant is more valuable for in-store revenue than for online revenue
* A coupon that's no better than your competitors' coupons or your standard everyday coupon isn't going to go viral
* Add a sense of urgency to your campaign by having a short-term expiration date on your coupon

Paid search has, and continues to be, one of the most effective ways of driving online sales. What you may not know is that paid search may actually be much more effective at driving in-store sales than it ever has been for ecommerce.

Co-author Jonathan Treiber is CEO and co-founder of RevTrax.

Data from a comScore and Yahoo study (PDF) actually suggest that consumers exposed to only search spent $16 in store for every $1 they spent online. Analysis of cross-channel conversion data by RevTrax has yielded the same conclusion -- that each paid search click for a multi-channel merchant is far more valuable for in-store revenue than it is for online revenue.

Given this data, it's no surprise that marketers are looking more and more to paid search as an incredibly cost-effective tool to drive in-store sales via use of a printable coupon. By combining paid search with consumer-initiated social media and email to facilitate virality, marketers can set the stage to make a big impact at a low cost in a way that is impossible with other marketing strategies -- especially print.

Here are five tips to help you use paid search to make your coupons go viral:

1. Dig deep. Give a high value offer. A coupon that's no better than your competitors' coupons or your standard everyday coupon isn't going to go viral. If you want to go viral, you're going to need to push your limits and create an extraordinary offer.

2. Search + social media + email = viral. Each time a consumer prints your coupon, you'll want to prompt him or her to either A) share the coupon via social media, B) email friends, or C) both. A social media interaction that's generated by a consumer recommending your coupon to friends is far more valuable than anything marketers can do on their own. You can easily accomplish this by adding a social media widget on the page where consumers print your coupon.

3. Offers should expire quickly. Add a sense of urgency to your campaign by having a short-term expiration date on your coupon. If consumers know that your coupon expires in several days, they'll engage more quickly than if it was outstanding for a month before expiring.

4. Measure thoroughly, optimize frequently, and repeat. You should know which keywords are generating the greatest numbers of clicks, prints and, ultimately, sales. The same keywords that generate the heaviest click volume aren't necessarily the ones that generate the most coupons printed and in-store sales. There are technologies available to help you measure the full conversion funnel from paid search ads to in-store sales for each individual keyword to optimize your bidding. Also, the more frequently you measure the data (i.e., daily versus weekly), the quicker you can optimize bid-management and drive better results.

5. Geo-target. Run campaigns with a tight radius around each store. You probably have a good sense for how far consumers will travel. Optimize your campaigns by setting a geographic radius around each store if possible. If you have too many stores or this is not possible, at least make sure that you exclude regions where you do not have a physical presence.

In addition to the things you can do right, there's one big thing to avoid:

Don't make the consumer jump through hoops. It's one thing to ask a consumer to give a name or email address to build your database. Do not ask the consumer for endless amounts of registration data that you won't use. Also, do not force the consumer to download software to print the coupon. These roadblocks are the killers of conversion rates and viral marketing. The rule of thumb is that keeping it simple will keep your customers happy.

As marketers make the transition from traditional media to search and other types of digital media to drive in-store sales, it's critical that marketers utilize best practices to increase ROI and make it easy for consumers to engage and share coupons with friends. When executed correctly, a search campaign driving traffic to a printable coupon can be one of the most effective and targeted ways to generate in-store sales with incredibly high ROI.

Seth Sarelson is COO and co-founder of RevTrax, where co-founder Jonathan Treiber is CEO.