Yahoo, the Web portal and marketing company, is rolling out two new offerings. One will allow marketers to identify consumers with high propensity to buy specific products within three months. The other will steer marketing campaign decisions based on “buzz”–online interest in the products, in some cases before they are released.
What drives these is Yahoo’s 238 million worldwide registered-user database. Of this number, 98 million have used Yahoo within the last 30 days.
By analyzing a variety of consumer data from its registered users, such as sites visited, content viewed and time spent, the company has been able to generate the Yahoo! Purchase Intender, an analysis program that predicts consumer propensity to make certain purchases within a 90-day period.
In tests, a large electronics company evaluated the likelihood that a test group would purchase either a desktop computer or a personal digital assistant. After Yahoo! identified, aggregated and scored and ranked the test cell, the electronics marketer found that the sample was three times as likely to have purchased a desktop computer–and four-and-a-half times as likely to have bought a PDA.
The second tool is the Yahoo Buzz index, an interactive market research tool that uses search data and browser behavior to predict trends. Movie sites, for instance, that generate a lot of traffic can cause studios to shift their marketing dollars–or even pull them entirely, pre-release, if the film is not generating the word of mouth the promoters feel it should.
The benefit of this is that marketers gain insight into unaided awareness of the product, based on unique Yahoo member searches and page views. “It’s a completely passive form of scientific research,” said Carolee Reiling, Yahoo’s senior director, business management and development, data solutions group.
Reiling detailed the two new offerings at a Tuesday morning keynote presentation at the National Center for Database Marketing conference in Philadelphia. The conference ends today.
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