Digital consumers in a digital age

The internet has become an integral part of so many activities – whether that is paying bills, booking holidays, shopping or even finding love – and its use is only continuing to grow.

While there are plenty of ways of segmenting audiences along more traditional lines and channels, with an element of online behaviour considered, what there has not been is a simple way to create reliable audiences that can be reached through all channels. Obviously marketing to consumers in this way is subject to regulatory requirements being met by brands and marketers. Now using advanced segmentation, Experian has identified 15 dominant online behavioural types from ‘Trackers’ – those who keep up to date with their investments and the financial markets online – to ‘Techno Geeks’ – the most prolific online community who spend time gaming and blogging.

The most affluent group in UK society is the Mosaic group known as ‘Alpha Territories’. Most commonly found in the wealthy and fashionable areas of London, this group is cash rich but time poor – so do not expect them to spend time trawling through the internet; they know what they are looking for and will look to get straight to the relevant pieces of information.

Using our online insight we can see that there are three behaviours that dominate their online activity. They are:

Newshounds – spend a high proportion of their time online visiting news and information websites
Trackers – more than twice as likely to visit investment and premium banking websites as the UK average.
Armchair Travel Researchers – more likely than any other group to research and book travel online, although some of this time is checking on Transport for London to check the journey into the city

Being able to identify and interpret online behaviour in this way allows brands to leverage digital insight for true cross channel marketing. Brands can identify geographic hot spots to target in new customer acquisition direct marketing campaigns – including direct mail, email and telemarketing. It affords them the ability to determine prime locations for local area marketing activity such as in store promotions, local press and outdoor advertising and define custom audiences to reach online, based on location and demographic insights.

The new behavioural types are not new consumers – but such is the impact of digital technologies that people’s habits and activities have and continue to change considerably. Marketers must recognise these developments, understanding the impact on their marketing efforts. Indeed, with the right insight into these emerging groups, marketing can become better targeted, more cost-effective and ultimately deliver greater ROI.

By DMA guest blogger Danny Thompson, Product and Propositions Manager, Data and Analytics, Experian Marketing Services