News In Brief
Americans Turn To The Internet In Search Of Fuel Conservation And Lower Gas Prices
Gas prices are skyrocketing, but Internet searches for lower gas prices and fuel conservation are soaring even faster. According to Hitwise data, searches for several key terms related to gas prices increased 300 percent or more for the week ending March 26, 2005 versus four weeks earlier (week ending Feb. 26, 2005). Terms with significant increases in searches included: "electric cars" up 2,900 percent; "gas prices" up 559 percent; "fuel economy" up 333 percent and "gas mileage" up 300 percent.
At the same time, the market share of visits to the sites www.fueleconomy.gov, www.gasbuddy.com, and www.gaspricewatch.com increased by 334 percent, 214 percent, and 282 percent, respectively.
"toyota prius" is third most popular search term driving traffic to Toyota.com
Searches for "hybrid vehicles" were flat, but searches for "toyota prius" increased 36 percent. Interestingly, after "toyota" and "toyota.com," "toyota prius" was the top search term driving traffic to www.toyota.com in the four weeks ending March 26, 2005. Toyota.com is the most popular automotive manufacturer web site (week ending March 26, 2005). In addition, five of the top fifteen search terms that drove traffic to Lexus.com were hybrid related - "hybrid cars," "hybrid suv," "hybrid vehicles," "hybrid" and "lexus hybrid" (four weeks ending March 26, 2005).
"Search behaviors are a window into the consumer psyche," said Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise. "While it doesn't take a genius to see a market opportunity amidst astronomical gas prices, the fact that "prius" is such a dominant search term for Toyota suggests the tremendous significance its hybrid model has in its retail lineup."
Google Dominates Auto Search Referrals
Search engines are an important source of traffic for automotive sites - 19 percent of Automotive category visits originated at a search engine (week ending March 26, 2005). Google dominated search referrals, contributing 54 percent of search visits to automotive sites for that week. Yahoo! Search followed with 28 percent of search referrals and MSN search garnered 5 percent.
Search Terms to Automotive Sites
While searches relating to fuel economy have increased in recent weeks, the majority of terms driving visits to sites in the Hitwise Automotive category were related to automotive purchase research.
Analysis of the top 500 terms that resulted in visits to automotive sites reveals that 43 percent of searches contained a brand name of an automobile, auto part or accessory. Generic terms comprised 21 percent of the top 500 searches, with terms such as "used cars" and "auto parts". Terms related to automotive research and classifieds sites made up 21 percent of category searches. The remaining 15 percent of search terms related to motor sports, automotive retailers, and automotive services such as insurance and car registration.
Top Search Terms that resulted in Visits to Automotive Web Sites
Period - 4 weeks ending March 26, 2005
| Brand | Generic | Research & Classifieds |
|---|
| 1. | honda | used cars | kelly blue book |
| 2. | toyota | cars | autotrader |
| 3. | nissan | tires | ebay |
| 4. | ford | cars for sale | ebay motors |
| 5. | hyundai | used car | auto trader |
| 6. | chevrolet | used cars for sale | kelley blue book |
| 7. | bmw | auto parts | blue book |
| 8. | mazda | car insurance | autotrader.com |
| 9. | harley davidson | auto insurance | nada |
| 10. | suzuki | motorcycles | cars.com |
These findings are from the 2005 Hitwise Online Automotive Report. To request a complimentary copy, please click here.
Sony PSP Launch Drives Internet Search Frenzy
Sony Computer Entertainment launched their new, highly anticipated PSP (PlayStation Portable) in the US on March 24. The PSP is the first ever integrated portable entertainment system including games, music, movies, communication and wireless networking. Hitwise analysis of search intelligence data show the popularity of the PSP among US Internet users.
The share of US searches on the term "psp" increased by 367% when comparing the week ending 4/2/05 to week ending 3/19/05, and the share of Internet searches for "sony psp" increased by 119% in the same period.
Interestingly, the PSP was more popular online than Nintendo or iPod. For the week ending 4/2/05, the share of searches for "psp" was 1.4 times greater than searches for "nintendo ds" (at its peak during the week ending 12/11/04), and 2.3 times greater than the share of searches for "ipod" at its peak (also the week ending 12/11/04).
For the 4 weeks ending 4/2/05, the term "psp" was the 2nd most popular term driving traffic to shopping.yahoo.com and the 5th most popular term that drove traffic to both Circuitcity.com and Gamespot.com. "psp" was also the 6th most popular term driving visits to Shopping.com and the 53rd most performed search on Google during that time period.
Domains Receiving Traffic from "psp" search Period – 4 weeks ending 4/2/05
| Domain | Share of traffic
from “psp” |
|---|
| 1. | www.us.playstation.com | 25.27% |
| 2. | psp.ign.com | 8.44% |
| 3. | www.freegiftworld.com | 5.60% |
| 4. | www.circuitcity.com | 4.22% |
| 5. | news.google.com | 3.72% |
| 6. | www.psp4.us | 2.51% |
| 7. | shopping.yahoo.com | 2.38% |
| 8. | www.freepsps.com | 1.84% |
| 9. | gamesdomain.yahoo.com | 1.81% |
| 10. | www.gamespot.com | 1.81% |
Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveal the most popular search terms which resulted in visits to various categories for the 4 weeks ending April 2, 2005. The results are ordered based on the volume of searches (see table below).
Top 10 Generic Search Terms Driving Traffic to Travel Agency Web sites Period – Four Weeks Ending 4/2/05
| Search Term | Volume |
|---|
| 1. | airline tickets | 1.65% |
| 2. | travel | 1.41% |
| 3. | cheap tickets | 1.27% |
| 4. | cheap airline tickets | 0.98% |
| 5. | hotels | 0.83% |
| 6. | airfare | 0.67% |
| 7. | cheap airfare | 0.6% |
| 8. | cheap flights | 0.57% |
| 9. | flights | 0.45% |
| 10. | airlines | 0.44% |
Keyword Breakdown of search terms that delivered traffic to 'Travel Agency' Web sites. Period – Four Weeks Ending 4/2/05
| Words per key phrase | Percentage |
|---|
| | 1 word | 28.66% |
| | 2 words | 29.05% |
| | 3 words | 19.30% |
| | 4 words | 11.57% |
| | 5 words | 6.03% |
| | 6 words | 2.84% |
| | 7 words | 1.24% |
| | 8+ words | 1.29% |
Fast Mover - The Vatican
www.vatican.va
Rank week ending March 26 - 62
Rank week ending April 2 - 7
Positions jumped - 55
On Saturday April 2, Pope John Paul II sadly passed away after months of medical complications. Catholic flocked not only to St. Peter's Square in Rome or their local church, but also to the Internet. Market share of visits to The Vatican's Web site (www.vatican.va) increased by 452% and rose 55 ranks in the Hitwise Religion category (week ending April 2, 2005).
Industries contributing the majority of visits to www.vatican.va for the 4 weeks ending April 2, 2005 were Search Engines and Directories (55.7%), religion sites (7.73%) including Catholic.net contributed 7.73%, and Broadcast Media sites (3.34%), including CNN.com. Hitwise demographic data show that the predominant demographic profile of visitors to www.vatican.va (for the 4 weeks ending April 2, 2005) were men (55%), aged 45-54 years (25.8%), with a household income between $30,000 and $60,000 per year (29%). The states with the highest representation of visitors to The Vatican's web site were Connecticut, North Dakota and The District of Columbia.
Category Spotlight: Travel - Destinations & Accommodation
This category features travel/holiday accommodation and destinations including resorts, tourist locations and hotels. The following data is based on Weekly rankings for local sites for the week ending 04/02/2005, ranked by 'Visits'.
Case Study: Benchmarking
Major League Sports Team
A major league baseball team's online marketing manager was enthusiastic about online traffic levels leading up to opening day. Visits to their website increased and it seemed that their new promotions were paying off. However, using the Hitwise 'Charting' tool to benchmark their performance against other sites in the baseball category told another story.
Although the baseball team did receive an increase in traffic according to their site centric data, so did all other websites in their industry. By viewing the Hitwise 'Rankings' and 'Charting' tools, the marketing manager was able to instantly understand that fantasy baseball websites were dominating the category and taking market share away from their team site.
Hitwise 'Search Terms' data also revealed that the keyword 'sports fantasy' was fourth most popular search term successfully driving visits to the Sports - Baseball category.
Only with Hitwise timely and comprehensive data was the marking manager able to:
- Quickly and affordably monitor the effectiveness of their promotions
- Gain insight into the behavior and preferences of visitors to baseball and sports-related sites
- Uncover new opportunities for content development and programming
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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, April 2005
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Hitwise United States Newsletter - April 2005
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