Quick Tip: Are they loyal or offer-driven?

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Gary recently used Compete.com to analyze how one of his client's traffic compared to its closest competitor. He quickly discovered:

"Never mind the actual numbers: a clear trend emerged. While our client's traffic stayed stable, the competitor's bounced up and down like a SuperBall. Intelligence received. Our client had a loyal following; the competition was offer-driven."

Gary Stein is director of strategy for Ammo Marketing. He has been working in interactive advertising for nearly a decade, writes a column for ClickZ, and maintains a blog on advertising and media trends. Gary lives in San Francisco with his family.

Have a story or tip to share? e-mail them to membersupport@compete.com We'd love to hear from you!

Source: Blog compete

What are shoppers searching for on Walmart.com?

The answer to that question in a moment, but first some context:

Say the word "search" and most people think immediately of Google and its dominant market share. Despite this, one form of online searching remains largely out of Google's ever-extending reach. While garnering much less attention (read: none) on-site search (what people search for once they arrive on a website) offers a revealing look into what matters most to site visitors.

Case in point: Walmart.com. The world's largest retailer attracted 22M U.S. visitors to its website in October, over half of whom conducted at least one search on the site. The table below lists the top 40 terms Walmart.com visitors searched for in October.

Observations:

• The top searched for term on Walmart.com in both September and October was "tires"! As in the lowly vulcanized rubber tubes we ride on each day. Over 1% of all searches on Walmart.com were for "tires" in October. While this came as a surprise to me, it certainly isn't a secret to everyone, judging by the nearly 250,000 visitors that Walmart.com's tire center attracts each month.


• Seasonality has a significant affect on searches on Walmart.com. For example, Halloween related terms made up 3 of the top 13 searches in October.


• Video gamers love Walmart. The "wii" was 2nd only to "tires" on the list of top search terms in October, while "xbox 360" was 12th on the list. The struggling PS3 ranked #54 in October, up from #97 in September, after a mid-month $100 price cut.


• Consumer electronics related search terms accounted for half of the top 40 search terms in October.

Source: Blog compete

The Myth of Cyber Monday: Busted.

It's time to stick a fork in the notion of "Cyber Monday." In terms of traffic, there's no doubt that the holiday season represents a period of peak activity for retailers of all shapes, sizes and online penetration, but idea that a bevy of internet users will start frantically clicking the "add to cart" button on the Monday after Thanksgiving is just wrong. However, the weeks leading up to cyber Monday gives a really interesting perspective on how people use the web to shop.

The chart below shows the retail sector's daily reach* and daily attention** from the 15th to the 26th of November, for a set of the top 50 online retailers in the U.S.

By considering both total visitors (Daily Reach) and total time (Daily Attention), it's possible to expose any high-level changes in actual shopping behavior.

• There is a significant ramp up in both Attention and Reach from the period of November 15th through the 23rd, before both begin to trail off. On Thanksgiving, nearly 30% of every U.S internet browser visited one of the top 50 online retailers.


• A widening gap begins to develop between the two metrics on the 18th, indicating that visitors are spending less time per visit at retailers. A major factor in this could be related to research (more on this later).


• Interestingly, while Daily Reach peaks on the 22rd, Attention remains stable through the 25th indicating a trend of more involved site visitors on the 25 and 26th. Strangely, on "the biggest online shopping day of the year" Attention falls dramatically.

Debating whether to sleep outside Bestbuy or Walmart


Almost every brick and mortar store offers some sort of "Door Buster" deals on Black Friday, and for some crazy reason, people are willing to hang out in the freezing cold for 10 hours to save $50 on an mp3 player…go figure.

But the internet is now heavily immersed in consumer shopping, if only to point people in the direction of the biggest sale. The table below shows Daily Reach to two sets of sites: the top 5 online retailers (in terms of site traffic) that have a network of physical stores, and the top 5 online retailers who have litter or no offline presence.

While both groups show dramatic growth during a the 11 day period (nearly 100% for both groups from start to finish) they have dramatically different growth trends.

• Top retailers with physical stores experienced an over 100% growth in Daily Reach between November 21st and 22nd.Given the dramatic spike, it appears that almost all of these incremental visitors were researching in-store "Black Friday" deals and not actually shopping for goods online.


• In contrast, retailers with a predominately internet based model saw steady growth, actually peaking on the 24th (the day after Black Friday). This could likely be related to shoppers missing deals at offline retailers, and turning to the internet to look for savings, a theory substantiated by the spike in traffic to Overstock.com.

Given the way people are using the internet for holiday shopping, does it make sense for the solely online stores to compete with their offline brethren? I know if Amazon had offered a select few of it's "Customer vote" items at 5:00 in the morning I would have stayed home for it…okay I stayed home anyway, but at least I would have rolled out of bed.

* Daily Reach is defined as the total number of visitors to a domain as a percentage of all unique U.S internet users on a specific day.


** Daily Attention is defined as the total time spent on a domain as a percentage of the total time spent online by all U.S. internet users on a specific day.

Source: Blog compete

Computers to 'read the minds' of users

Tufts University scientists are in the process of developing techniques that could allow computers to respond to users thoughts of frustration too much work or boredomtoo little work. Applying non-invasive and easily portable imaging technology in new ways, they hope to gain real-time insight into the brains more subtle emotional cues and help provide a more efficient way to get work done........
Source: Technology blog

Fighting phishing attacks with phishing tactics

Early findings by Carnegie Mellon University scientists suggest that people who are suckered by a spoof email into visiting a counterfeit Web site are also people who are ready to learn their lesson about phishing attacks. Phishing attacks have become a common method for stealing personal identification information, such as bank account numbers and passwords. Lorrie Cranor, associate research professor of computer science, said phishing often is successful because a number of people ignore educational materials that otherwise might help them recognize such frauds........
Source: Technology blog

Researcher traces history of the personal computer

Carbon paper? Punch cards? What are those? The Internet, personal computers, word processing and spreadsheets are so embedded in todays society that its hard to remember that just 35 years ago they didnt exist. Thomas Haigh, assistant professor of information studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), is among a very small number of computer experts in the world who are also historians, studying the role of technology in broader social change. These new experts are tracing how computers have changed business and society........
Source: Technology blog

Vocal Joystick uses voice to surf the Web

The Internet offers wide appeal to people with disabilities. But a number of of those same people find it frustrating or impossible to use a handheld mouse. Software developed at the University of Washington provides an alternative using the oldest and most versatile mode of communication: the human voice........
Source: Technology blog