Three consumer spending trends for the 2024 holiday season

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that President Barack Obama signed into law in early 2010, healthcare providers are expanding their outreach to as many Americans as possible. In an effort to improve overall care, state and local healthcare agencies are performing health information exchanges (HIEs), electronically exchanging patient data. HIEs provide a new level of access to health information, but data quality needs to be of paramount importance. Patients’ medical records include contact information, such as mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Entering this data into forms is a process rife with opportunities for human error. Data fields are often riddled with incorrect formatting, typographical errors and contacts that are correct but outdated. Patients’ medical records must be corrected in order to ensure quality care. Several precautions must be taken before an HIE migration. Before outstanding paper records are digitally imported, records should be wiped clean of any mistakes and software tools should be used to verify addresses and eliminate duplicate records. Review this new HIE infographic to better understand the role data quality plays in HIE migrations.

If the time spent on the Internet for personal computers was distilled into an hour then 27 percent of it would be spent on social networking and forums across the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. In the U.S., 16 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums, nine minutes on entertainment sites and five minutes shopping. Global comparison In the UK, 13 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums, nine minutes on entertainment sites and six minutes shopping. Australian Internet users spend 14 minutes on social sites, nine on entertainment and four minutes shopping online. Across all three markets, time spent shopping online grew year-over-year, but the UK market emerged as having the most prolific online shoppers, spending proportionally more time on retail Websites than online users in the U.S. or Australia. British Internet users spent 10 percent of all time online shopping in 2012, compared to nine percent in the U.S. and six percent in Australia. This was in part due to a bumper winter holiday season in the UK where 370 million hours were spent shopping online, 24 percent higher than the monthly average. Consumption of news content also increased across all three markets with Australian users emerging as the most voracious consumers of news online. Six percent of all time spent online in Australia in 2012 was on a news Website, compared to five percent in the UK and four percent in the U.S. Meanwhile, the time spent on social media proportionate to other online activities declined across all three regions. The U.S., which has been the most dominant market for social media consumption in the last three years dropped from 30 percent of all time spent online to 27 percent. In Australia time spent on social dropped from 27 percent to 24 percent while in the UK it dipped from 25 percent to 22 percent year-over-year. This highlights the rise in access via 3G and 4G networks as consumers spend increasingly more time online while on the move. "Understanding consumer behavior across channels is more important than ever as more visits are being made on the move, particularly among social networking and email,” says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services. "With smartphones and tablets becoming more powerful, our data clearly indicates the difference between mobile and traditional desktop usage further enabling the ‘always on’ consumer mentality. Marketers need to understand these differences, as well as regionally, to ensure campaigns can be tailored for better and more effective engagement.” Mobile browsing When looking at the U.S. browsing data for mobile devices, email accounted for the largest time spent on average, for the same categories for Q1 2013. Email made up 23 percent of time spent on mobile devices for Q1-13, while social networking accounted for 15 percent. Entertainment had the third highest time spent with 13 percent, followed by shopping with 11 percent and travel with 9 percent. The mobile data does not include app usage, but does include mobile browsing within an app. Read more of the latest consumer trends in The 2013 Digital Marketer Report Learn more about consumer online behavior by visiting our Online Trends page Learn more about the author, Matt Tatham

The 2013 Digital Marketer Report is almost here. One section of the report includes key segments of the consumer landscape. In a previous post we looked at budget and luxury travelers and in this excerpt we focus on millennials – specifically tactics to target early adopter millennials: The generation of 18- to 34-year-olds known as millennials is an increasingly influential group that impacts many aspects of the American lifestyle, including fashion, technology, entertainment and beyond. Almost one-quarter (24 percent) of millennials have a college degree, 34 percent are married and many (60 percent) own a home. They have an average discretionary spend of $11,317 annually. Brands and marketers are taking notice of millennials and the fact that they communicate and behave differently than other generations. Marketers increasingly understand that they need innovative marketing programs in order to engage this important segment of the population Early adopter millennials Fifty-two percent of millennials rank far above or above average when it comes to being early adopters of technology. That means more than half of adults ages 18 to 34 want to be the first to have the latest electronic equipment, are willing to pay almost anything for an electronic product and actively want to be a source of information on electronic equipment to others Marketers trying to reach this group can look at the types of Websites driving millennials to online retailers in order to understand other sites that would be effective partners, advertising outlets and content providers: Millennials are more likely than the online population to visit search and social Websites before visiting a retail Website They are less likely to look at email or visit reward and directory sites before visiting a retail Website They are more likely to visit fashion content and portal sites before visiting a retail Website There is a major opportunity to reach early adopter millennials via mobile, as they spend 14 percent more time engaged with their mobile devices in an average week than their generational peers. Early adopter millennials are 20 percent more likely to use a tablet and 32 percent more likely to IM/chat than the average millennial. Other top activities include reading media, listening to music and email. Source: Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons®   Source: Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons Source: Experian Marketing Services’ Simmons For more insights on millennials and other key consumer segments, pre-order The 2013 Digital Marketer Report.