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Blog. Search versus Econometrics Modeling |
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Friday, 10 August 2007 |
Web Strategy &
Web Analytics
Search is redefining the use of econometric modeling, surveys, polls,
and statistical modeling in web strategy. Why are the number of searches on the
Internet are two order of magnitude lower than their corresponding
statistical and survey estimates? The
Influence Diagram
below links the
hard data from search engines along with the numbers produced by
surveys and studies, i.e. Stanford Health insurance Study,
PIP Health Survey
, and
Harris Poll Interactive
. A sound web strategy must include
different channels of data to discover and understand
apparent orders of magnitude difference in the data. For example comScore's panels are consent web users, while Hitwise's data includes all web users with certain Internet service providers, i.e. Comcast.
QUESTIONS:
1. What are the changes (and why) in demand (from models) and search
(hard data) for health insurance in each state?
2. What health insurance products should be marketed to what
population in what state this month?
3. What marketing campaigns should be carried out (for each segment,
each state, this month)?
4.
How to categorize web visitors in real time and act
accordingly?
(serving what pages? what banners?). Once visitors provide
certain
information, what behaviors can be predicted (by segment, by state, by
time of day, by day of the week, etc..) - 4b. How to read meaning into
categorized web visitors (from clustering) from weblog for the first
time?
5. What paths through the website are users taking?
6.
What percentage of visitors buy the health insurance products (reach
'thank you' page) (by time of day, day of week, cities and states, age,
sex)?
REFERENCES
Reaching The Online,
Uninsured Healthcare Consumer (February 14, 2007)
Which Health-Related Web Sites Are The Uninsured Visiting, And What Do
These Consumers Research?
by Julie Hanson, Bradford J. Holmes
The millions of uninsured consumers in
the United States constitute a market that no plan can ignore. In fact
uninsured consumers are online, and they are actively visiting
health-related sites to research numerous health-related topics.
Forrester found that uninsured, online consumers are becoming
increasingly comfortable with the Internet, spending more time online
and showing similar, if not greater, levels of technology optimism than
the average consumer. To best reach this consumer group, marketers in
the healthcare industry should favor the channels and sites that the
uninsured favor today to promote their products and services.
Read more...
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,41474,00.html
The Harris PollŽ
#59, August 1, 2006
Number of "Cyberchondriacs" - Adults Who Have Ever Gone Online for
Health Information - Increases to an Estimated 136 Million Nationwide
"Searching the Internet for health care information has become more
widespread in the past year after three years of little growth. Use of
the Internet to search for health-related information by online U.S.
adults has increased markedly both in terms of percentages (from 72% in
2005 to 80% now) and in numbers. This brings the number of all U.S.
adults who have ever searched for health information online (Harris
InteractiveŽ refers to them as "cyberchondriacs") to 136
million, a 16 percent increase from 117 million in 2005."
Read more...
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=686
Online Health Search 2006
"Eighty percent of American internet users, or some 113 million adults,
have searched for information on at least one of seventeen health
topics. Most internet users start at a general search engine when
researching health and medical advice online. Just 15% of health
seekers say they 'always' check the source and date of the health
information they find online, while another 10% say they do so 'most of
the time.' Fully three-quarters of health seekers say they check the
source and date 'only sometimes,' 'hardly ever,' or 'never,' which
translates to about 85 million Americans gathering health advice online
without consistently examining the quality indicators of the
information they find. Most health seekers are pleased about what they
find online, but some are frustrated or confused."
Read more...
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Online_Health_2006.pdf
Consumer-Directed Health
Insurance Products: Local-Market Perspectives
Read more...
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/3/766
Internet Audience up 10
Percent Worldwide
By Enid Burns , March 6, 2007
The Internet reaches 747 million people worldwide. The data are
according to numbers released by comScore Networks's World Metrix
service. http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625168
Accounting for the Cost of Health Care in the United States - McKinsey Global Institute
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/rp/healthcare/accounting_cost_healthcare.asp
Percentage of People
Without Health Insurance Coverage by State Using 2- and 3-Year
Averages: 2003 to 2005.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/hlthin05/hi05t10.pdf
Income, Poverty, and
Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf
Computer and Internet Use
in the United States: 2003 - issued October 2005
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf
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