The Olympic teams’ site visitors tend to be men.  The swimming site attracted the largest share of male visitors at 60%. Basketball and track & field close behind with 58% of visitors being male.

A lifestyle and psychographic look at site visitors shows varying profiles for the fans of each sport.  Using Experian’s Mosaic USA lifestyle segmentation solution, we are able to better understand what the fans of each sport are all about. The following are the top lifestyle segments driving traffic to the respective websites.

At the top of the podium for the USA swimming site is the Booming with Confidence target:

• Prosperous, established couples in their peak earning years living in suburban homes. This group is upscale, experienced travelers, brand-aware, loyal and sports enthusiasts.

For track & field, the Promising Families group leads the way:

• Young couples with children in starter homes living child-centered lifestyles. They have solid incomes and busy lives. They are young and active – especially with child centric activities, team sports are a big part of their lives as well as other activities for the children.

And the USA basketball site has two groups that are most interested in the latest dream team – Booming with Confidence (described above) and Suburban Style.

• Middle-aged, ethnically-mixed suburban families and couples earning upscale incomes. Suburban Style have rich leisure lives and enjoy family centric activities and sports. They are community minded and brand conscious.

Segmenting the lifestyle of a website’s visitors helps to us to create a rich profile of each site’s audience. For advertisers, it presents an opportunity to target audiences that are most relevant to their product or service and create timely, tailored campaigns for each segment.

Related posts: Track ahead of the competition – who will make it to the finish line?; Let the marketing games begin

USA Track & Field took the gold in consumer interest with the highest visits from June 21^st to July 1^st, when qualifying trials were held. USA Swimming took silver , as their trials were held at the same time.  The peak in traffic was during the week ending 6/30, when most of the finals and interesting competitions occurred. Traffic to USA Basketball is still rising. Though the team did not have official trials, it held exhibition games against other nations’ teams.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Where else do the fans spend their time online?

Although the USA Track & Field site clocked the most visitors during trials – the USA Swimming site  visitors are more enthusiasts of the sport. Four of the top ten downstream sites from the Olympic swimming site were related to the sport.  After visiting USA Swimming, fans went to the Omega Timing site, the official timekeeper of the Olympic games. The site hosted live timing and the results of the trials. And, one-third of the traffic to Omega’s site was new visitors; a big win for Omega. With a spike in traffic of 57% along with 49% new visitors during the final week of trials, their sponsorship of the games is successfully working as an acquisition channel.  Additionally, there was interest in the USA Gymnastics site as visitors jumped over to this site from the swimming site and about one-third of those visitors were new to the gymnastics site.

Source: Experian Hitwise

The USA Track & Field visitors most often went to search engines and social media sites after the site, with only a few sites related to the sport.

USA Basketball visitors went to a variety sites including, ESPN, Netflix and Culver’s fast food restaurant. Leveraging the sites visited after your site to find sites and products where your audience has an affinity helps to develop a more targeted marketing campaign.

Successful marketers are like Olympic athletes – it takes focus, preparation and knowing your competition to win.  By knowing the interests and site behavior of your customers and having insights into the campaigns of your competitors – you can win the competition in your industry.  Timely, accurate data is invaluable to ensure you can react to changing behaviors and emerging trends in your industry. Hold on to your gold or break out from silver by staying ahead of the competiton and in front of your best customers and prospects.

One of the top generic terms to the real estate category is ‘houses for sale’, which when trended over time to compare search activity by Hispanics to the online population, reveals significantly more search volume from Hispanics during the first part of 2012. The peaks in search activity by Hispanics are also far more prominent, particularly during January through March and May. Surprisingly, various Spanish language equivalents of search queries did not yield significant volume and English-language queries were more common within the Real Estate category, possibly due to fewer options available in Spanish.

The websites visited after a search for ‘houses for sale’ also revealed different preferences in terms of destinations. Trulia.com captured the highest share of clicks from Hispanics based upon a rolling average of 12 weeks ending May 26, 2012. The volume of search clicks from Hispanics was nearly 4.5 larger than the online population. Hispanics also showed a much higher propensity to visit Google Maps, suggesting a preference for mapping functionality while shopping for homes online.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Specifically, when the last Canadian-based NHL team was eliminated from the playoffs (the Ottawa Senators on April 26^th), NHL-related searches within Canada decreased 7% when compared with the most recent week. Up until that point, Canadian NHL searches continually increased since the beginning of the playoffs.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Against all categories, share of visits to the Sports – Hockey category have declined 56% since the elimination of Senators (highlighted in red) and 21% year-over-year.

Source: Experian Hitwise

In the US, however, NHL-related searches are up 35% year-over-year. This is a substantial increase and suggests the sport’s increasing popularity in the States.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Is it possible that the NHL is more popular in the US than Canada? Not so fast. As a percentage of total searches in each respective market, NHL-related searches in Canada were 12.8 times more popular than in the US during the 12 weeks ending May 19^th, 2012. While there is much debate in the US about which professional sport is the most popular, there is no doubt that in Canada the NHL reigns supreme.

For the most recent 12 weeks, NBA-related searches were the most popular in the US, followed closely by NFL-related searches. Keep in mind that this likely attributable to the NBA playoffs. NHL-related searches ranked last in the US among top professional sports.

Source: Experian Hitwise

For more information about Experian Hitwise, click here.

Although the holiday is still 4 weeks away, Experian Hitwise data shows that consumers are already going online with dad in mind, as search term variations for Father’s Day have steadily risen since April 14th, and increased 125% week over week.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Data from Experian CheetahMail supports the ‘start early’ insight.  The two weeks prior to Father’s day represent the highest email  volume and revenue for the holiday.  For Mother’s Day, peak mailing volume and sales occur one week before the actual holiday. One hypothesis around the different shopping behavior is that the difference in timing is driven by who is doing the shopping. For Mother’s Day, men are more likely to be doing last minute shopping to buy flowers and gifts for their wives and moms, while for Father’s Day the women are purchasing gifts for husbands and dads.  Women may more typically plan ahead, and make their purchases sooner which would, in part, explain the difference in the search behavior.

Source: Experian CheetahMail

Whatever the reason, consumers are in-market and looking for that perfect Father’s Day gift.

Among the top keywords being searched around Father’s Day, “gifts” accounted for 11% of search clicks and had the highest paid rate, as of May 19, 2012.   This represents a 36% increase in paid search clicks for the term “gifts” versus the same week last year, suggesting heavier competition in 2012 for paid traffic from these keywords .

Searches for  variations of “gifts” are also on the rise.  Clicks for “fathers day gifts” saw a 76% increase during the most recent 4 rolling week time period versus the same period in 2011.  “Cheap father’s day gifts”, “father’s day gifts from preschoolers” and “fathers day church gifts” emerged as new variations this year.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Gifts.com and PersonalizationMall, both of which specialize in personalized items are among the top sites that received traffic from Father’s Day “gift” variations during the 4 rolling weeks ending May 19^th and both sites were also top recipients of Father’s Day search traffic last year.   UncommonGoods.com, a site that offers unique and creative gifts, and two Christian-themed websites round out the list of the top five sites that received  traffic from the portfolio of Father’s Day “gift” terms.

PBS has been the key beneficiary of searches for “Downton” variants, but shops and media outlets are also capturing traffic from the “Downton” effect. Amazon and the PBS Shop are capturing their share through paid search, as consumers seek out their own copies of the series on DVD and the companion guides for the series. Hulu has recently entered the paid search game for “Downton” terms, as Hulu Plus is airing “Downton Abbey” season one.

Search behaviors indicate that I’m not the only person dying to know whether Anna and Bates will finally rid themselves of the scurrilous charges brought against everyone’s favorite valet. Insatiable appetites for the series have web-users not only seeking out the Christmas special episode, but also looking for season three of the series. “Saturday Night Live’s” mock “Downton Abbey” advertisement has also caught attention with its hilarious take on how the show would be seen on Spike TV.

“Downton Abbey” has been a boon to PBS and to anyone who loves a good drama.

Thanks to Margot Bonner, Analyst with the Strategic Services team (and Downton Abbey fan!) for today’s analysis.

An analysis of the top 25 search terms containing “Superbowl” or “Super bowl” in the week ending January 28, 2012 reveals five variations around the date and time of the game, four variations of party planning and recipes (in fact, “Super bowl party games” was the top paid term on the list), along with two searches on “tickets”. Celebrity multi-million dollar bets also made the list of top 15 search terms for the game, specifically “Lil Wayne 5 million Super Bowl bet” and “Birdman Superbowl bet”. These searches refer to a tweet by hip-hop artist Birdman (whose rap mentor is Lil Wayne) wherein he announced his intentions to bet $5 million dollars on a New England Patriots win.

Among the search terms with the highest year-over-year growth for the week before the Super Bowl, two variations included adding 2012 for the most recent information. Searches around super bowl food ideas, squares (for the office & party Super Bowl pools) and ads also increased significantly from the same week last year.

Online consumers are also searching for championship jerseys for both teams and quarterbacks. Search term variations for “Patriots jersey” increased more than 5 times week over week while corresponding search variations for “Giants Jersey” were up only 260% during the same time period. In a showdown between quarterbacks, search variations for “Tom Brady jersey” increased 33% as compared with the previous week while the variations on “Eli Manning jersey” were flat.

Thanks to Lauren Rice, Analyst with the Strategic Services team for today’s analysis.

Despite ongoing volatility in the stock market and global economies, consumers are once again paying for luxury items, even as some brands raise prices. Some 2011 forecasts indicate that global sales of luxury goods will grow 8% or more this year.

To better assess this renewed interest and activity for luxury brands, PM Digital recently released Trend Report: Luxury Brands Online. Leveraging data sourced from Experian Hitwise, as well as independent work undertaken by PM Digital Research, our latest study shows a shifting landscape as luxury e-commerce growth continues.

Below are a few highlights from the 2011 study:

- The ten largest luxury brands captured almost 90% online market share, based on total visits to 42 luxury brand sites studied for the report. These include iconic brands Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, and Gucci, which attract a wide audience of aspirational Internet browsers as well as core buyers.

- Most luxury brand websites support e-commerce, and online traffic favors them. Only 19% (1 in 5) of the luxury brands studied do not have online stores; they get just 2% of total visits.

- Search engines dominate as a source of traffic to luxury brand sites, accounting for one-third of all referrals. The second largest source of traffic comes from shopping sites (e.g. department store sites). There is very little cross-visiting from other luxury brands (just 2%) indicating a critical loyalty at the individual brand level.

- Luxury brands saw a larger share of visits from search (31%) than Apparel & Accessories sites in general (27%), but with a smaller paid search ratio. Organic traffic dominates, and some luxury brands still have no paid search strategies. Hermès and Ralph Lauren are notable exceptions (both are 55% paid).

- Shoes, handbags and accessories are driving more search clicks for luxury brands than apparel. Shirts are the top clothing keyword (driven by Ralph Lauren’s many clicks from polo shirts), followed by dresses.

- Social media accounts for nearly 10% of traffic to the luxury category. Facebook is the most significant player, with its share ranging from 4% to 10%. Facebook “like” counts for luxury brands have seen tremendous growth over the past year, with most brands more than doubling. Dior “likes” grew over 1,000%.

Overall, the study finds that successful luxury brands are striving to provide consumers with a consistent brand image across channels. Supported by engaging content, video and events, luxury brands can capture a real-time experience, unlike that of offline media, and drive sales demand within a consumer’s shopping event.

To download a complete copy of the 2011 Trend Report for Luxury Brands Online, click here.

In comparing the search terms driving traffic to unemployment websites year over year, the term “unemployment benefits” experienced a 25% increase in search clicks. Online users are still heavily searching for unemployment benefits by state, in particular Ohio and New York. Georgia and Florida also appeared in the top searches related to unemployment, two states with rates above the national unemployment rate.

When comparing the visitors of employment websites with unemployment websites, “Hope for Tomorrow” was the Mosaic 2011 Type that over-indexed against the online population for visiting the websites of unemployment websites as well as employment listings. Using Experian Mosaic Lifestyle segmentation, a household-based consumer lifestyle segmentation system that classifies all U.S. households and neighborhoods into unique segments, we can understand a more robust view of online consumers who are visiting these websites, including their preferences and habits. For example, the “Hope for Tomorrow” Mosaic Type is characterized as young, single parents living modest lifestyles in smaller cities. Likewise, “Meager Metro Means” and “Rolling the Dice” are also most likely to be visiting both employment and unemployment websites; both groups are described as lower educated urban dwellers with low incomes.

Thanks to Lauren Rice, an Analyst with the Strategic Services team at Experian Hitwise for today’s analysis.

Among the categories driving the growth in traffic on Cyber Monday were Department stores (e.g. Amazon and Wal-Mart) Rewards & Directories, Apparel & Accessories, Appliances & Electronics (e.g. Best Buy) and Video & Games (e.g. Game Stop). All the categories saw double-digit growth on Cyber Monday 2011 vs. 2010.

Below is a list of the top visited retail sites on Cyber Monday: All of the major retail websites experienced double-digit growth on Cyber Monday, including the top 10 sites. In fact, digging further into data shows that 91 of the top 100 sites (or 172 sites out of top 200) retail sites saw year-over-year traffic increases on Cyber Monday 2011 vs. 2010.

Our previous analysis is here for: Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.