comScore Introduces comScore Segment Metrix, a Powerful New Audience Segmentation Capability

comScore Introduces comScore Segment Metrix, a Powerful New Audience Segmentation Capability

RESTON, Va., July 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) , a leader in measuring the digital world, today introduced comScore Segment Metrix, a new tool that works with a variety of consumer segmentation schemes to give marketers the ability to track, analyze and report Internet activity by their most important consumer groups. The product will provide the flexibility to integrate behaviorally defined segments, geo-demographic segments, and proprietary, client defined segments with the comScore online panel. The key benefits of comScore Segment Metrix include:

   -- Media owners will be able to determine if they are getting their fair       share of heavy users of their category of sites.   -- Agencies and advertisers will have better insight into how to reach       important target customers.   -- Advertisers can now integrate their offline marketing segmentation       schemes with comScore's online panel allowing them to track, analyze       and report online behavior by these important (offline) consumer       segments.   

"Consumer segmentation is not new -- it is an important part of marketing, and over the years comScore has conducted a great deal of custom segmentation work," said Bob Ivins, comScore executive vice president. "comScore Segment Metrix enables segmentation on a broad scale, offering marketers the ability to analyze online trends by key consumer segments and from several different perspectives for themselves and their competition."

Heavy Internet Users Visit More Sites and Consume a Disproportionate Share of Pages

The first segmentation to be offered is one defined by online behavior. This approach, called comScore Segment Metrix H/M/L, will allow marketers to analyze online activity by heavy, medium and light users of the Internet and of any category of sites reported by comScore. The Heavy segment group will be defined as the top 20 percent of consumers, based on time spent online at the category of sites; the Medium group will be defined as the middle 30 percent; and the Light users are the lightest 50 percent. H/M/L user segments will be available in all 32 countries where comScore syndicated data are available and across all 110 comScore defined categories and sub-categories of sites.

   Total U.S. Heavy, Medium and Light Users   May 2007   Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations  Source: comScore Segment Metrix                                                                 Average No.                      Total Unique    Average       Average      of Sites                         Users        Hours per     Pages per    Visited per                         (000)          User          User         User   Total Internet:   Total Audience      177,487         28.8          2,586         65  Heavy Internet   Segment              34,152         96.9          8,468        176  Medium Internet   Segment              53,785         27.5          2,593         79  Light Internet   Segment              89,550          3.6            339         14    

"Medium and Light Internet users can be just as important to advertisers as Heavy Internet users. Knowing where to find these less active consumers will help our advertising customers build incremental reach more cost-effectively -- which is a good thing. Having this behavioral understanding is a huge advantage," said Lynn Bolger, VP, Advertising & Sales Insights, Yahoo!.

Travel Industry Example

An analysis of Heavy visitors to the travel category revealed that the 10 sites with the highest Heavy visitor concentration were, not surprisingly, travel sites led by US Airways Group (67.2 percent concentration of Heavy travel visitors), United Airlines (60.9 percent) and Delta Airlines (60.7 percent). The airline sites are appealing particularly to the heaviest travel category users, while online travel agency sites have a lower proportion of Heavy travel category users but a larger visitor base. Marriott is the only hotel company to appear in this group of travel sites that attract the highest proportion of Heavy travel site users.

   Top Sites*  Visited by Heavy Travel Category Visitors   May 2007   Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations   Source: comScore Segment Metrix                                         Heavy Travel                           Total        Site Visitors        Heavy Travel                          Unique         as a Percent        Site Visitor                          Visitors       of all Site        Concentration                           (000)          Visitors           Index UV**    Heavy Travel Site    Users                 15,116               8.5                   100   US Airways Group        2,329              67.2                   789   United Airlines         2,356              60.9                   715   Delta Airlines          3,049              60.7                   712   Travelocity             5,895              56.1                   658   American Airlines       2,877              54.8                   643   Marriott                2,543              49.3                   579   Priceline.com    Incorporated           3,921              45.1                   530   Southwest Airlines Co.  4,521              44.5                   523   Travelport              7,616              40.1                   471   Expedia Inc             9,739              38.6                   454    * Based on sites with at least 15 percent reach among U.S. Internet users   ** Heavy travel site visitors as a percent of each site's total visitors      divided by 8.5 percent, the incidence of Heavy travel site visitors in      the Internet population.    

One might naturally assume that Heavy travel category visitors are so-called "road warriors," or frequent business travelers. However, a study of the large non-travel sites visited by Heavy travel category visitors reveals a very different profile. In fact, these non-travel sites fall into the shipping (FedEx, UPS and USPS), office supplies (Staples and Office Depot), and entertainment planning (Ticketmaster and Citysearch) categories, which is more indicative of visits by administrative assistants to the "road warriors" than the "road warriors" themselves.

   Top Non-Travel Sites Visited by Heavy Travel Category Visitors   May 2007   Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations   Source: comScore Segment Metrix                                           Heavy Travel Site Visitor                                             Concentration Index UV*   Heavy Travel Site Visitor                                     100   Ticketmaster                                                  259   FedEx                                                         229   USPS.COM                                                      228   Staples.com Sites                                             228   UPS Sites                                                     216   Office Depot                                                  215   Citysearch                                                    214    * Heavy travel site visitors as a percent of each site's visitors     divided by 8.5 percent, the incidence of Heavy travel site visitors     in the Internet population.    

"By definition, Heavy users of travel content spend a lot of time on travel sites," observed Mr. Ivins. "What is less obvious is the list of sites where these consumers congregate outside the travel category. With comScore Segment Metrix H/M/L, marketers can define consumers behaviorally and then identify where to find them across the web-making media and promotion plans more targeted, more efficient and more effective."

comScore Segment Metrix offers H/M/L segmentation data for 110 categories and sub-categories including Business/Finance (with 7 sub-categories), Career Development (4), Community (7), Directories/Resources (7), Education (2), Entertainment (9), Gambling (3), Games (3), Government, Health (3), Hobbies (4), ISP, News/Information (4), Portals, Real Estate, Regional/Local, Retail (21), Search/Navigation, Services (11), Sports, Technology (2), Telecommunications, and Travel (8).

Additional segmentation approaches, including customer defined segmentation and third-party geodemographic segmentation schemes will be announced in the future.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by more than 700 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, MBNA, Starcom USA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/.

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: comScore, Inc.

CONTACT: Andrew Lipsman of comScore, Inc., +1-312-775-6510,
press@comscore.com

Web site: http://www.comscore.com/

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Profile: International Entertainment