comScore Introduces comScore Segment Metrix, a Powerful New Audience Segmentation Capability
RESTON, Va., July 26, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ --
comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today introduced comScore Segment Metrix, a new tool that works with a variety of consumer segmentation schemes to give marketers the ability to track, analyze and report Internet activity by their most important consumer groups. The product will provide the flexibility to integrate behaviorally defined segments, geo-demographic segments, and proprietary, client defined segments with the comScore online panel. The key benefits of comScore Segment Metrix include:
-- Media owners will be able to determine if they are getting their fair
share of heavy users of their category of sites.
-- Agencies and advertisers will have better insight into how to reach
important target customers.
-- Advertisers can now integrate their offline marketing segmentation
schemes with comScore's online panel allowing them to track, analyze
and report online behavior by these important (offline) consumer
segments.
"Consumer segmentation is not new -- it is an important part of marketing, and over the years comScore has conducted a great deal of custom segmentation work," said Bob Ivins, comScore executive vice president. "comScore Segment Metrix enables segmentation on a broad scale, offering marketers the ability to analyze online trends by key consumer segments and from several different perspectives for themselves and their competition."
Heavy Internet Users Visit More Sites and Consume a Disproportionate Share of Pages
The first segmentation to be offered is one defined by online behavior. This approach, called comScore Segment Metrix H/M/L, will allow marketers to analyze online activity by heavy, medium and light users of the Internet and of any category of sites reported by comScore. The Heavy segment group will be defined as the top 20 percent of consumers, based on time spent online at the category of sites; the Medium group will be defined as the middle 30 percent; and the Light users are the lightest 50 percent. H/M/L user segments will be available in all 32 countries where comScore syndicated data are available and across all 110 comScore defined categories and sub-categories of sites.
Total U.S. Heavy, Medium and Light Users
May 2007
Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Segment Metrix
Average No.
Total Unique Average Average of Sites
Users Hours per Pages per Visited per
(000) User User User
Total Internet:
Total Audience 177,487 28.8 2,586 65
Heavy Internet
Segment 34,152 96.9 8,468 176
Medium Internet
Segment 53,785 27.5 2,593 79
Light Internet
Segment 89,550 3.6 339 14
"Medium and Light Internet users can be just as important to advertisers as Heavy Internet users. Knowing where to find these less active consumers will help our advertising customers build incremental reach more cost-effectively -- which is a good thing. Having this behavioral understanding is a huge advantage," said Lynn Bolger, VP, Advertising & Sales Insights, Yahoo!.
Travel Industry Example
An analysis of Heavy visitors to the travel category revealed that the 10 sites with the highest Heavy visitor concentration were, not surprisingly, travel sites led by US Airways Group (67.2 percent concentration of Heavy travel visitors), United Airlines (60.9 percent) and Delta Airlines (60.7 percent). The airline sites are appealing particularly to the heaviest travel category users, while online travel agency sites have a lower proportion of Heavy travel category users but a larger visitor base. Marriott is the only hotel company to appear in this group of travel sites that attract the highest proportion of Heavy travel site users.
Top Sites* Visited by Heavy Travel Category Visitors
May 2007
Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Segment Metrix
Heavy Travel
Total Site Visitors Heavy Travel
Unique as a Percent Site Visitor
Visitors of all Site Concentration
(000) Visitors Index UV**
Heavy Travel Site
Users 15,116 8.5 100
US Airways Group 2,329 67.2 789
United Airlines 2,356 60.9 715
Delta Airlines 3,049 60.7 712
Travelocity 5,895 56.1 658
American Airlines 2,877 54.8 643
Marriott 2,543 49.3 579
Priceline.com
Incorporated 3,921 45.1 530
Southwest Airlines Co. 4,521 44.5 523
Travelport 7,616 40.1 471
Expedia Inc 9,739 38.6 454
* Based on sites with at least 15 percent reach among U.S. Internet users
** Heavy travel site visitors as a percent of each site's total visitors
divided by 8.5 percent, the incidence of Heavy travel site visitors in
the Internet population.
One might naturally assume that Heavy travel category visitors are so-called "road warriors," or frequent business travelers. However, a study of the large non-travel sites visited by Heavy travel category visitors reveals a very different profile. In fact, these non-travel sites fall into the shipping (FedEx, UPS and USPS), office supplies (Staples and Office Depot), and entertainment planning (Ticketmaster and Citysearch) categories, which is more indicative of visits by administrative assistants to the "road warriors" than the "road warriors" themselves.
Top Non-Travel Sites Visited by Heavy Travel Category Visitors
May 2007
Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Segment Metrix
Heavy Travel Site Visitor
Concentration Index UV*
Heavy Travel Site Visitor 100
Ticketmaster 259
FedEx 229
USPS.COM 228
Staples.com Sites 228
UPS Sites 216
Office Depot 215
Citysearch 214
* Heavy travel site visitors as a percent of each site's visitors
divided by 8.5 percent, the incidence of Heavy travel site visitors
in the Internet population.
"By definition, Heavy users of travel content spend a lot of time on travel sites," observed Mr. Ivins. "What is less obvious is the list of sites where these consumers congregate outside the travel category. With comScore Segment Metrix H/M/L, marketers can define consumers behaviorally and then identify where to find them across the web-making media and promotion plans more targeted, more efficient and more effective."
comScore Segment Metrix offers H/M/L segmentation data for 110 categories and sub-categories including Business/Finance (with 7 sub-categories), Career Development (4), Community (7), Directories/Resources (7), Education (2), Entertainment (9), Gambling (3), Games (3), Government, Health (3), Hobbies (4), ISP, News/Information (4), Portals, Real Estate, Regional/Local, Retail (21), Search/Navigation, Services (11), Sports, Technology (2), Telecommunications, and Travel (8).
Additional segmentation approaches, including customer defined segmentation and third-party geodemographic segmentation schemes will be announced in the future.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by more than 700 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, NestlA(C), MBNA, Starcom USA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com.
SOURCE comScore, Inc.
Andrew Lipsman of comScore, Inc., +1-312-775-6510, press@comscore.com
http://www.comscore.com
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