Some affiliates and merchants may not have asked this question, but it’s definitely a good time to start thinking about it. A recent article on Marketing Vox confirms what is already known: Women, in particular, those with children under 18 in the US, spend quite a bit of time on the internet. These US moms devote an average of three hours online every day. Just what are they doing for those three hours? Well, they are logging into email, paying bills, checking the news and weather, as well as comparing prices on products (click to enlarge):
In the past, some of our blog posts on Share Results have highlighted the importance of considering various ethnic communities when it comes to affiliate marketing. MV demonstrates that a web and mobile user’s gender and ethnic background is highly important, as the same article cites that “60% of moms use text messaging, and African-American moms and Hispanic moms text more than Caucasian moms.”
Undergroundhiphop.com is just one example of how well a merchant knows its customers. For instance, they know that White males in their early 20s are often searching online for the best in hip-hop merchandise. White males make up a large percentage of consumers or hip-hop-related products, particularly music. Additionally, a merchant like eLearners knows that working mothers in the late 20s and older are more likely to pursue an accredited degree online than men. This does not mean that eLearners and Undergroundhiphop.com neglect other web users outside of their respective demographics. They simply know their target market, and tools such as banner ads and even landing pages play a major role in their brand exposure.
If you don’t think that ethnicity is an important factor to consider, simply look to RushmoreDrive.com, a search engine tailored for the Black community’s Web 2.0 users. Launched in April 2008, industry critics questioned whether there is a need for a “Black” search engine, or what role race or gender play online.
A CTV.ca news article featuring RM highlights why one size does not fit all on the world wide web:
Someone challenged me, `Why do you think we need a black Google? We don’t have a white Google.’ And I said, `Of course you do, it’s called Google,”‘ says Johnny Taylor, CEO of the North Carolina-based site, which started last year.
“It’s not because Google is somehow racist. It’s that search engines are proxy for the majority.”
Google crawls the web and ranks pages by, among other things, how often they are clicked and how many other sites link back to them.
The moral of the story is that affiliates and merchants are going to need to learn more about their audience. There could be some important potential customers out there who are being neglected. Habits are obviously affected in some way by factors such as income bracket, education level, gender, and yes, even race.
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