Gadgets will reign across many ages

Tablets including LeapPads, Tabeos, iPads, Kindles and others will continue to be a popular gift this year, with more choices than ever. On the list of top product-related search terms driving traffic to the Retail 500 category of sites, Kindle Fire HD and Windows 8 top the list as new products. Additionally, Meep!, a child friendly tablet appeared in the top fifteen. Accessories for both phones and tablets will also be popular, especially as the variety grows for iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. A reoccurring favorite gift for the holidays is UGGs which shows a decrease year over year. However, another brand with a similar product is Bearpaw, which is in the top ten searches and has seen big growth year over year.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Dolls, video games and Furbys, oh my!

To identify the popular toys for gifts this year, we researched product-related search terms driving traffic to ToysRUs.com compared to last year’s holiday season.  We uncovered trends in the doll category, Doc McStuffins as number one on the list, along with the classic Barbie, which saw a growth in searches year over year. The Furby is making a strong comeback at the number two spot with a reboot and new features. Another trend here is tablets, from branded searches like LeapPad and Kurio there is also the generic term ‘tablets for kids’. In the video game category, the new Wii U that is debuting just in time for Black Friday and should be a big gift this year, along with searches for PS3 games and the Nintendo 3ds xl are all in the top 20 searches.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Keywords of the consumer to identify demand

Beyond product names, it is important to understand the actual way people search, using key phrases and questions. Last year, for example, there was a lot of activity around ‘in-stock’ products, such as the LeapPad explorer, which was hugely popular and quickly sold out in many stores. Retailers and marketers should monitor this throughout the season and make sure to optimize for in stock if there is a popular product that they have available.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Consumers also focus on what is the ‘best’ – so we see search activity around ‘best place to buy’, particularly around electronics. Questions such as ‘where to buy a’ specific product are also common, such as ‘where to buy a kindle’. These phrases offer opportunities to boost search campaigns by considering how consumers phrase their questions to ensure to capture these searches.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Quick tip: In the retail category there will tend to be a lot of retail branded store terms but to keep up with holiday search behavior and help make analysis quick, create portfolios of branded terms to easily exclude those from a certain category. When you strip out all the variations of that term you are able to gain insight into product searches that are most popular to a certain site or category.

For more insight on the hot product trends for this year from our Hitwise trend-spotters, watch our webcast.

Younger, middle income group and less credit-worthy

This group is evenly split by gender, which is similar to the online population. Their age skewed younger, with 18-34 year-olds making up the largest share of visits and the greatest difference versus the online population. This audience also skewed younger when compared to the visitors to the Retail 500 during this time.

Source: Experian Hitwise
Demographic summary  Black Friday shoppers for the week ending November 26, 2011

In terms of income, the highest concentration of Black Friday shoppers was in the $30-$99k income range, and they over indexed versus the online population in terms of visits from the $60-99k income bracket. This skews less affluent when compared with the Retail 500, which over indexes on visits from those with household incomes of $100k+.

With regard to Vantage Score, the concentration is fairly evenly distributed amongst those with scores of B, C, D and F, while the smallest share comes from A, the most credit worthy group. Black Friday shoppers over-indexed slightly in visits from the least credit worthy groups versus the online population. This is also in contrast to Retail 500 shoppers – 44% of them are in the A or B Vantage Score range while just 35% of Black Friday 2011 shoppers fell within those groups.

Concentrated in large DMA markets and Midwest

Source: Experian Hitwise
Demographic summary  Black Friday shoppers for the week ending November 26, 2011

Geographically, the highest concentration of visits comes from large DMA markets and states – CA, NY, TX and IL. Among the top 10 states by visits share, those with the highest index versus the online population were from Ohio and North Carolina. Overall the highest index of Black Friday shoppers was from Kentucky and West Virginia.

Lifestyle segmentation of Black Friday shoppers

To learn a little more we’ve looked at the Mosaic® USA groups of Black Friday shoppers the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, along with the index for each group against the online population.

Source: Experian Hitwise
Demographic summary  Black Friday shoppers for the week ending November 26, 2011

The Family Union group accounts for just over 9% of the Black Friday 2011 shopper segment and over-indexes against the online population – the segment is 31% more likely than the online population to fall within this Mosaic group. Family Union is described as mid-scale, middle-aged and somewhat ethnically diverse families who work in blue collar occupations. This group is value conscious and financially cautious.

We also see Group B – Flourishing Families – at the top of the list with the highest index versus the online population. These folks are more affluent than their Family Union counterparts, although they are similarly middle-aged. While this group is brand aware and financially secure, they too are deal seekers when it comes to holiday shopping.

Watch our recent webcast with Black Friday and Cyber Monday insights as our experts shared traffic drivers, search trends and critical insights that will improve your ability to target and engage high value consumer segments. Learn more about what, how and when consumers search and buy online during the holiday season.

Potential voters are highly engaged online during this election.  Statistics show that an ever-increasing amount of campaign spending is going towards online advertising and social media – where campaigns are targeting specific audiences for their messages.   Political advertisers are realizing what other marketers have already embraced, that it is critical to target advertising messages and dollars online to reach the high value consumers that you want to reach.

Experian Hitwise took a look at where to reach party loyals as well as key swing voters online. The segments highlighted in this post include the Super Democrats and Ultra Conservatives segments, which represent the most party loyal voters for Democrats and Republicans, respectively. And one of the important swing voter segments during this election cycle, Green Traditionalists.

The segments come from the Experian Simmons PoliticalPersonas consumer segmentation system, which classifies U.S. adults into one of 10 unique segments based on the individual’s political outlook and party ID as well as their attitudes and opinions towards key topics.

Source: Experian Simmons
We looked at each of the segments and their share of visits to various print, broadcast news media and political websites to see how they differ. The rankings below are based on share of visits for each segment and compared to the online population.

For the Super Democrats group USA Today captured the largest share of visits in the print news and media category, followed by The New York Times. When comparing this segment’s news consumption to the online population they have a stronger propensity to visit local news sites in Northern California, Seattle and New York centric publications.

In the broadcast news & media category, CNN.com received the largest share of visits from the Super Democrats segment but interestingly for a more liberal group, Fox News is second along with other various Fox News sites which may reflect that they are going across various properties to gather different perspectives on the news.

Source: Hitwise AudienceView

Within the print news and media category, Ultra Conservatives had some similarities to Super Democrats in terms of sites that captured the largest shares like USA Today and The New York Times.  When comparing to the online population, Ultra Conservatives are less likely to be reading The New York Times and more likely to read The Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Other sites like Taste of Home, Reader’s Digest and Galveston County Daily News may be smaller sites but are effectively capturing a high share of visits from this group.

Source: Hitwise AudienceView

In the broadcast news & media category, not surprisingly Fox News captured the largest share of visits from this segment and CNN.com as the number two site. Ultra Conservatives are far more likely to visit sites across the Fox News properties when compared to the online population.

Source: Hitwise AudienceView

For the key independent voter segment Green Traditionalists, the political websites they are more likely to visit is interesting to see where they are getting news about the candidates and issues. The highest share of visits is to the NBC election news site and they are far more likely to monitor election coverage here than the online population. Environment issues are a driving force for this group and that is reflected in the appearance of Governor Cuomo’s site as one that they are more likely to visit during the four weeks ending August 11. Cumo has been in the news recently related to the passing an anti-fracking bill and this group seems to have particular interest in the health and environmental impacts of processes like this. Green Traditionalists are clearly independent as they do visit websites on both sides of the spectrum with right leaning sites as well as some of the more liberal sites with environmental focus such as Care2Petition.

Source: Hitwise AudienceView

Publishers and campaign advertisers can drive strategic planning and highly targeted ad spend based on these insights.

View our webcast for more on insights on the PoliticalPersonas. For more political trends updated weekly – check out our Trend Center .

The growth of e-commerce over the past several years has included the emergence of Black Friday as one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. Experian Hitwise has tracked site visits over the last eight years. Each year, two days have consistently captured the title of busiest shopping days of the year: Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday). Last year this all changed and Cyber Monday claimed the prize as the busiest shopping day of the year, growing from 138 million visits to 177 million visits to the Retail 500 index of sites, a 29% growth comparing 2010 to 2011.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Within the key retail categories for these holiday shopping milestones, sites within the Apparel & Accessories, House & Garden and Toys & Hobbies saw the most growth on Cyber Monday year over year. These key categories all saw growth on Thanksgiving & Black Friday as well except for Toys & Hobbies which has a slight decrease year over year.

Source: Experian Hitwise

What do these and other trends mean for your holiday season? Join our webinar on September 26^th, as our experts share more on traffic drivers, search trends and critical insights that will improve your ability to target and engage high value consumer segments. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about what, how and when consumers search and buy online during the holiday season.

For the week ending August 18^th, McKayla Maroney, the gold medal gymnast – who has been on the publicity circuit and making headlines for hanging with celebrities and the “Not Impressed” Meme – saw an increase in ten percentage points and claimed the top searched U.S. Olympian, accounting for 22.5% of searches. As we noted in our previous post, McKayla stayed on this list from the first week of the games and her share of searches grew a total of 222% since then.

Last week, appearing in the top were Serena Williams and Kobe Bryant, two Olympians who have popular professional athletic careers outside the Olympics and are considered very marketable. With the buzz from the U.S. Open which began earlier this week, Serena dominated the number one spot accounting for more than one-third of the U.S. Olympians searched. Serena maintains huge endorsement deals with companies such as Nike and Gatorade and has appeared on several Forbes lists – Top 100 Celebrities and Highest Paid Female Athletes.

Also of note, swimming medalist Ryan Lochte appeared back in the top ten for the first time since the week one of games. For the weeks ending August 18 and August 25 he held his position at four and five while others around him fluctuated. He had some buzz pre-games in the number two spot the week before the games stared – this could indicate people will remain interested in news about him moving forward. Search terms around Lochte seem to be skewed towards a heavy interest in his personal life, as many are related to having a girlfriend and his sister who recently made headlines for a controversial interview.

The Olympics are a great stage for athletes and marketers, and this year’s summer games were more digital than ever before. Many fans went online and to social networks for news about their favorite athletes, which is a great opportunity for all marketers, not just official sponsors. Marketers should see athlete endorsements as a huge opportunity to expand their reach, as well as put products in front of new audiences, so it is important to evaluate who would be a good candidate. Even if athlete endorsements don’t fit with your brand, search intelligence can help you identify consumer trends and opportunities that arise from big events, like the Olympics, in order to benefit from terms that drive traffic in your industry.