Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: December 1 - 10 2005

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December 10, 2005

Online security survey findings

Some interesting data has been released via the second annual AOL/National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) Online Safety Study..

Some of the key findings:

• Phishing attacks aimed at identity theft are experienced by approximate 23% of USA online users months.

• 70% of those who received such phising emails thought they were from the actual company

• Only 42% of those surveyed were familiar with the term "phishing"

• 81% of home PCs lack either up-to-date AV software, spyware protection or a firewall 

• 56% had no anti-virus protection or had not run updates in the previous 7 days

• 83% of respondents believed that they were safe from online threats. 

• 55% stated that they had been infected by a virus at some stage. 

An interesting item that marketers should take note of:

• 70% of respondents use a pop-up blocker, up from 47% in 2004

This finding should be of special concern if you run a home based online business: 

• 69% of homes with children under age 18 had spyware/adware

Much of  my initial years in IT were spent repairing the havoc that children had wreaked on their parents computer. There's no doubt in my mind that generally speaking; children + computers + internet = a major security risk. It's the nature of children to push the boundaries, ignore parental instructions and to be adventurous. These tendencies are especially dangerous if your children use the same computer that you run your business from; even them being on the same network is a real risk.

Learn more about protecting yourself in my article, anti hacking tips for home based online business.

Increased Hispanic marketing budgets for 06

 A survey by Advertising Age survey of 479 marketing executives and their agencies shows that over 81% of participants stated an expectation for their Hispanic advertising budgets to grow over the next year. Nearly 17% expected for their budgets to remain static and only 2% felt that their budgets targeting the Hispanic market would decrease.

Read more on Advertising Age

December 9 2005

Podcasts gaining popularity

First off, what is a podcast? The term is a little misleading these days. The word was made up from "iPod" and "Broadcast"; but podcast adoption is by no means confined to iPod users. The formats can be played on many digital media devices, including a computer.

Podcasting is a set of methods used for distribution of audio/visual content to a user via a publisher/subscriber model. I often see the term used in relation any audio/video file that's available for download. For a more detailed description of "true" podcasting, see Wikipedia.

In November, Bridge Ratings released their predictions on podcast user growth. The report states that 4.8 million people downloaded a podcast during 2005. Mightn't sound like many, but that's nearly 6 times the number of 2004.

Bridge ratings estimates that by 2010, that between 45 and 75 million people would have listened to a podcast. 

An interesting point brought out in their study is that less than 20% of users actually listen to their podcast content on an MP3 player or digital device.

When people think of podcasts, they tend to immediately think of music/entertainment related items; but it goes way past that. Podcasting can be used to deliver info-shows, marketing materials, lessons and tutorials; in fact, I do believe the technology could give ebooks some stiff competition in the future.  Of course, many ebook authors already know this and are hot on the trail of utilizing the technology :).

Stay tuned for a more in depth article on the subject :).

Read more of Bridge Ratings podcasting report.

December 6 2005

Online holiday shopping sales up 24%

It seems to be shaping up to be a good season for US ecommerce. Comscore have released some very interesting data regarding the holiday season to date in terms of online shopping. In 2004, from November 1 to December 2, total sales excluding travel, auctions and large corporate purchases were at 7.84 billion dollars. This year, for the same timeframe, the figure was 9.75 billion - an increase of 24%.

The movers and shaker categories for holiday season 05 so far:

• Sports and Fitness - up 59%

• Furniture, appliances and equipment - up 50%

• Apparel and accessories - up 37%

• Home and garden - up 36%

• Video games, consoles and accessories - up 30%

I hope that you are one of the online retailers experiencing this type of growth! Comscore also estimates that total online retail spending in the US (non-travel items) during the 05 holiday season will exceed 19 billion dollars.

Read more - Comscore online holiday shopping update 

December 3 2005

Email marketing report results

Bronto Software reports that over a three month period ending November 20th, email marketing efforts averaged 95.5% successful delivery, just over 24% open rate and a 5% click through rate. 

The survey covered a dozen different industries. The top five industry segments for delivery rates, and their associated open/clickthrough statistics were:

Read more of the Bronto email marketing report (PDF)

Learn more about gauging email open rates

Autoresponder software  & mailing list managers Get more from your email marketing - tips, reviews  & free trial software/services.

18% of buyers drive 46% of online spending

Nielsen//NetRatings has reported that 18 percent of online purchasers, accounts for 46 percent of total online spending. These "power shoppers" which Nielsen//NetRatings refers to as MVPs (Most Valuable Purchasers) 

Those spending the least online and making the lowest numbers of purchases constituted 55 percent of online buyers accounting for only 21% of online purchases

Some of the common aspects of MVP's:

• Exensive use of comparison shopping tools

• Higher household income

• More likely to have a broadband connection

• Spend more time online

• Spend more time on retail web sites

Read more of Nielsen//NetRatings online buying report (PDF)

Learn more about minimizing shopping cart abandonment.

Streaming video/audio and the mature market

comScore Networks have released a report stating that US internet users aged 35 - 54 years constitute more than 45 percent of all online video watched in August 2005. Comscore's research also shows that this age group are 20 percent more likely to watch online video than the average Internet user, whereas the the 25-34 year demographic slice are 12% more likely to view streaming video feeds. The report is based on a survey of over 1.5 million US consumers.

Other key findings:

• Over 100 million U.S. users utilize online digital media per month

• Close to two thirds of U.S. Internet users streamed audio/video

• Nearly 50 percent streamed audio/video from an entertainment site

• Over 17% streamed content from a Music site
  Nearly 15 percent streamed content from a Retail site.

Read more of the ComScore streaming content report

Related: learn more about marketing to seniors.

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