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Exelate Data Tracks iPad Echoes
Posted Thursday, February 11, 2010
As Seen In: Digiday Daily
by John Gaffney
With the deluge of behavioral and demographic data being collected in the digital marketplace, several companies are releasing sections of that data for industry consumption. Myxer started a report on mobile usage two weeks ago, and MocoSpace followed last week. Now behavioral targeting company eXelate has launched a report called the “eXelate indeX” that plays some important cards from its DataLab.
“We’ve been collecting data on how consumers intend to purchase and how they develop that interest for about two years,” says Chief Revenue Officer Mark Zagorski. “At least on a quarterly basis we’re going to let marketers know some of the key trends that we’re finding.”
Of course, eXelate will get some attention from other marketers and potential clients for their efforts. Its first report shows unique data on the response to Apple’s iPad and Google’s Nexus One mobile phone. Though both launches generated a lot of buzz, observations gathered from eXelate behavioral data indicate that the iPad launch not only generated increased purchase intent activity for all Apple products it also did so for the entire portable computing space.
The DataLab audience shopping trends showed that the iPad launch event on Wednesday, January 26 created a positive impact for Apple’s entire roster of products. It also helped generate purchase intent and interest that lifted the entire portable computing segment. eXelate’s Lab did not observe a noticeable impact on technology purchase intent segments queried for Google’s January 5 launch of their Nexus One mobile phone. According to purchase intent activity gathered from eXelate’s Shopping Intent segment, on Wednesday, January 27, the date of the iPad announcement, consumers seeking to purchase currently available Apple products surged 27%.
The iPad announcement also seems to have had a positive residual impact the “portable computing” category as a whole. Building up to, and peaking on the announcement day, the number of consumers interested in purchasing a laptop computer also grew. The eXelate Lab saw a 31% increase in activity from Tuesday Jan. 26 to Wednesday Jan. 27 in the Laptop segment. On a week to week basis, the jump was even greater at 57%. Interestingly enough, this expected “coattail” impact of the announcement actually lasted longer on non-Apple products, as we observed another increase of 26% on Thursday, January 28. Shopping intent activity during the Nexus One introduction may have been impacted by the launch date’s (January 5) proximity to Christmas and New Year’s Day, as well as the increased media clutter in the days leading up to the Consumer Electronics Show, where Google’s announcement was one of many technology launches to happen during the week.
Zagorski believes marketers can base promotional and advertising decisions based on this level of behavioral data. He says several eXelate clients have this over the past two years.
“Marketers can pick out the trends in purchase intent and capitalize on them, or even try to market to the target audience that is being influenced by them,” he says. “When I see the data that shows the whole portable computing segment s was influenced by Apple’s announcement I have to believe that other companies should be able to learn from that.”