Daily Research News Online no. 7504 - Hitwise Splits New and Returning Visitor Stats

Hitwise Splits New and Returning Visitor Stats

October 29 2007

Online competitive intelligence service Hitwise is launching 'New and Returning Visitors', the latest feature for its Clickstream service. The new data will split web site visitors into new and repeat traffic, with information on where each type comes from and goes to.

Clients can use the new data to determine if competitors are more focused on traffic-driving campaigns or retaining existing visitors; to gauge the effectiveness of online partners such as search engines, in driving their site's traffic; and to address churn using information about sites visited after their own.

The new data, compiled using proprietary software that determines whether an anonymous user has visited a web site in the previous 30 days, is updated daily, weekly and monthly. Data covers the top 10,000 web sites visited by Internet users from the firm's US sample of 10 million users, and is also available for the UK and Australia.

Sample stats released by Hitwise show that in the week ending Oct. 20:

6.23% of traffic to Facebook.com consisted of new visitors
24% of the traffic going to Netflix.com from Google was from new visitors, while for those coming from Yahoo! the corresponding figure was 34%.
52% of traffic to Ronpaul2008.com consisted of returning visitors, compared with just 28% of that to HillaryClinton.com.

President Chris Maher says the new addition constitutes 'a great way for online marketers to get smarter about online partnerships, and ultimately, understand the dynamics of customer churn.'

The company is on the web at www.hitwise.com.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.