By Marty Beard

   Because the web is still in its infancy in so many ways, marketers have yet to come to understand all the different ways consumers use the internet to gather information.
    There is still a tendency to assume that web users all behave in a similar fashion.
    Truth is, different people use the internet in very different ways. Similarly, an individual user may use the web differently at different times of the day. 
    There is no one model of web behavior, and in fact there could well be as many as seven, according to a recent study by Booz-Allen & Hamilton and Nielsen//NetRatings.
   The report coins a new term for this behavioral approach to web use: "occasionalism."
   While there is no technology out there that allows marketers to easily target users by behavior, the study suggests that marketers and internet retailers ought to come to appreciate these distinctions in anticipation of when such targeting capabilities will be available
    Yahoo and Amazon.com, the study says, come the closest to being able to target by behavior because they tailor their web sites to reflect users’ individual online experiences and purchases.
   Nonetheless, there are ways to take advantage of occasional segmentation.
   One, web retailers and marketers can gather statistics about occasions for site visitors and deploy ads based on the seven occasion categories.
   Two, advertisers and online retailers alike should examine their strategies and consider how they relate to the occasion categories. 
    It may be possible, for example, to give site visitors a way to indicate what their interests and goals are when they first arrive at a web site.
    Three, web capabilities can be altered to better cater to usage patterns. Web pages could be altered in real time to reflect how much time users are spending there.
   Finally, e-tailers can follow up with their customers after the fact to learn what type of occasion brought them to the web site.
   The study sets out four behavior variables -- session length, time per page, category concentration and site familiarity – and divides web surfing into seven categories: Quickies, Just the Facts, Single Mission, Do It Again, Loitering, Information Please, and Surfing.

Quickies, just like the name suggests, don’t last long, usually about a minute. During a quickie visit, a web surfer hits a page or two that he or she is familiar with, harvests tidbits of information such as stock quotes or box scores, and maybe dashes off a short email. The typical page view in this type of session lasts about 15 seconds.

Just the Facts sessions are essentially a nine-minute-long string of quickies. Web surfers in this frame of mind typically visit entertainment and leisure sites and might even buy something. Yet page views during this type of visit don't tend to last more than 30 seconds. Just the Facts sessions usually involve e-commerce sites such as travel agencies and clothing stores.

Single Missions last about 10 minutes. In Single Missions, users go online in order to pursue a specific task and then log off. Page views in Single Missions last about a minute and a half, and consumers typically visit unfamiliar sites within a single category, such as entertainment or sports.
   On a Single Mission, a consumer might go to a search engine for information about a college reunion, find the event's page, peruse the event’s schedule and leave.

In Do It Again sessions, consumers spend about 14 minutes online. Since, in this type of session, surfers already know what sites they're going to visit, they don't waste time with search engines. Do It Again page views last about two minutes.
   Ninety-five percent of Do It Again sessions occur at sites the visitor has visited at least four times before. Consumers engaged in these sessions typically download MP3 files, participate in chat sessions and carry out online banking transactions. Visits to auction, gaming and investing sites also characterize Do It Again sessions.

Loitering sessions clock in at 33 minutes, more than twice as long as Do It Again sessions. Web users who are loitering typically hit web sites for news, gaming, telecommunications/ISPs, and entertainment. Loitering page views usually last about two minutes.

Information Please and Surfing sessions are the longest. In the typical 37-minute-long Information Please session, web users gather data from a wide range of web sites. The average Information Please session takes place when, for example, a consumer is thinking of buying a car. The session might encompass visits to an automaker's web site, Consumer Reports and a local dealer's web site.
   When a user takes part in a Surfing session, he or she spends about 70 minutes online, visiting almost 45 sites and spending about a minute on each site. Users who are surfing this way don't spend much time on education or portals, but they do go to shopping sites, online communities and news sites.
   All of this means that marketers should try to grab web users when their behavior is right for the product. Ultimately, the longer the session and page view, the likelier it is that a user will absorb advertising messages.
    A user who's online for a Quickie will find a banner ad irritating. So marketing to quickie users will be a wash--especially if marketers are relying on click-throughs, since quickie users aren’t going to be clicking.
   Instead, marketers can make the most of the shorter occasions by building their brands with sponsorships, co-branded sites and innovative (read: non-banner) ads.
    But other types of sessions are more conducive to banner ads. In Loitering, Surfing, and Information Please sessions, users linger on-site and get exposed to different messages.
  Additionally, users engaging in Loitering, Surfing and Information Please sessions tend to shop and visit content-rich sites, such as Salon.com or Parentsoup.
    Booz-Allen and Nielsen//NetRatings analyzed click-stream data gathered between July and December of last year from 2,466 users and 186,797 individual user sessions.

April 10, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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