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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America
Analyst Weblog
iPhone 4 Launch in Canada
August 11, 2010
On Friday July 30, the iPhone 4 was launched in Canada and Hitwise data reveals that Canadians turned to social networks, blogs and retailers after searching for the highly coveted phone.
In the week after the launch (week to 7 August 2010) "iphone 4" was the top Canadian search term that included the word "iphone", followed by "iphone" and "iphone 4 canada". The top downstream websites from the search term "iPhone 4" were Apple.com, Telus Mobility and Bell.ca.
Social networks were popular sources for information and reviews In the week of the launch (week to 31 July 2010), Facebook was the #2 downstream website from searches for "iphone", receiving 20% of clicks. Last week, YouTube was the #4 downstream website (after Bell.ca), receiving 5% of searches.
I created a Search Term Portfolio to look at downstream websites for the top 100 search terms that included "iphone 4" in the past twelve weeks. Again, Apple.com was the #1 downstream site receiving 14% of iphone 4 clicks. Telus was #2 with 12% of clicks and Bell.ca #3 with 8% of clicks. The popular blog, iPhoneinCanada.ca had been the #1 recipient of iphone 4 searches two weeks before the launch but took the #4 spot last week. Facebook and YouTube were again among the top 10 downstream websites for iphone 4 searches.
As the following chart illustrates the traffic to Bell.ca and TelusMobility.com from iPhone 4 searches spiked up post-launch indicating that paid search marketing was employed to capture visits. This is also a nice case study of how important social networks and blogs were to information gathering and decision making in the lead up to the launch.
On a separate note, this will be my last blog post for a while as I will be on maternity leave as of the end of this week.
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Posted by Heather Hopkins at 09:38 AM
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In Categories Canadian Insights | Search | Shopping & Classifieds
How Canadians Reach Retail Websites
July 28, 2010
Canadians are heavy users of search engines and as we see in most markets, Search Engines are the top source of upstream visits to retail websites. In the month of June 2010, one third (33.21%) of upstream visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites came directly from a Search Engine. But, that is down year over year. In June 2009, Search Engines accounted for 39.18% of upstream visits, a 15% decline. What is making up the difference?
The following chart shows the top sources of upstream Canadian visits to retail websites in the month of June 2010 compared to June 2009. As illustrated in the chart, we have seen a slight increase in visits from other Shopping and Classifieds websites (shopping comparison in particular), Social Networks and Business and Finance.
The largest increase among these top industries was from Social Networks, up 37% year over year. Last week, the top downstream Shopping and Classifieds websites downstream from Facebook.com were mainly Classifieds websites (eBay Canada, various Kijiji and Craigslist city websites). Also among the top 30 were Sears Canada, Avon Canada, Amazon Canada, Ticketmaster Canada, and Walmart Canada.
This is an interesting mix of retailers, and not necessarily those you'd expect to be getting the most downstream traffic from Facebook. Stay tuned for more on social networking and retailing in Canada.
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Posted by Heather Hopkins at 09:01 AM
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In Categories Canadian Insights | Search | Shopping & Classifieds
Heat Wave Sends Canadians to Weather Websites and in Search of Air Conditioners
July 14, 2010
We Canadians are notorious for our weather talk. Last week's heat wave in Ontario and Eastern Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal in particular, drove our obsession to new heights. Weather websites accounted for more than 1 in every 100 Canadian internet visits. Canadians were twice as likely to vistis Weather websites last week than were Americans (many of whom also suffered the same heat wave).
The following table lists the top 10 Weather websites last week.
The heat wave also drove up searches for air conditioners and other ways to cool down. The #1 Fast Moving Search Term sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites last week was "climatiseur portatif" (portable air conditioner). At #3 was "climatiseur" (air conditioner). These were also the #1 and #2 Fast Moving Search Terms sending visits to House and Garden websites. Also among the top 10 Fast Moving Search Terms to this category were "air climatise", "air conditioner" and "swimming pools".
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Posted by Heather Hopkins at 09:14 AM
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In Categories Canadian Insights | News and Media | Shopping & Classifieds
Google Travel - ITA Acquisition
July 07, 2010
Google Thursday announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, a flight information software company. We at Hitwise have been waiting for such an announcement for some time. In 2006 when Google Finance was launched, we looked at the top downstream industries from Google and noticed an obvious gap: Travel. Then again in 2008, when Google Health was launched we did the same analysis and pointed out the same gap.
The following table shows the top 20 downstream industries visited after Google in June 2010. Google's presence is obvious in most: Search Engines (Google.com), Entertainment (YouTube), Shopping and Classifieds (Google Shopping, Google Base), Business and Finance (Google Finance). Google's presence is perhaps less obvious in others: Social Networking and Forums (YouTube, Orkut, Google Talk), Education (Knol, Google Book Search, Google Scholar), Lifestyle (Blogger).
While Maps is an important component of our Travel category, Google has so far lacked a presence in the Travel subcategories of Travel Agencies or Destinations and Accommodations.
Travel industry executives are reportedly wary of the deal, concerned that Google will wield too much power. In June, Google was the #1 source of traffic to Travel Agencies, accounting for 15% of upstream visits. Google accounted for nearly 4 times the share of clicks to Travel Agencies compared with the #2 source of clicks, Yahoo! Search.
Destinations and Accommodations websites are even more reliant on Google for visits, with 32% of upstream clicks in June coming from Google.com. This is more than 6 times the share of clicks coming from the #2 traffic source, again Yahoo! Search.
It may have taken four years since our initial analysis for the acquisition but what does clickstream data tell us about Google's next potential foray? Games. After Travel, the next biggest downstream industry from Google.com is Games and Google does not yet have a presence in that industry. Stay tuned...
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Posted by Heather Hopkins at 09:04 AM
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In Categories Search | Travel
