Women online will help Google create ad content

Study says that women who are online are relatively more affluent and younger-75% are in the 15-34 age group, with over 24 mn women accessing Internet daily

Google India has been reading Internet usage data and releasing reports that help advertisers get an insight on the search patterns and transaction habits of consumers in specific sectors. We have seen the technology major discussing automobiles and e-commerce earlier.

But recently, it has launched a report that talks about 40 per cent of users on the Internet in India today. 'Women on the Web' is the report that looks at usage, search and even transaction patterns of women online.

Rajan Anandan, managing director at Google India, says Google could use it to guide content creation by advertisers. "We have been partnering closely with media agencies and these statistics are bound to help," Anandan adds.

He points to how the study shows that advertisers' fears about there not being enough women online are unfound. Around 72 per cent of the women online are SEC A and B. Of the 150 million surfers in India today, 60 million were shown to be women. As many as 24 million of them surf the Internet daily and 5 million have been shown to have transacted or shopped online.

The report compiled by Google based on its internal search and usage statistics during April, 2012-March, 2013, industry reports such as iCube 2012, Comscore, May, 2013 and TNS Australia's primary research with 1,000 online female shoppers (18-65 years of age).

Most of the surfers are also relatively young, with 75 per cent of the universe aged 15-34 years, who, Google says, are the ones defining the trends of the day. One in every four of their online searches are done on a handheld device.

The categories which came up trumps include apparels and accessories, food and beverages, hair care, skin care, and the surprise of the lot, baby care. While apparels may be the biggest category, skin, hair and foods are the fastest-growing.

Baby care was searched by 64 per cent of the women while hair care by only 30 per cent, a trend that the report says is a result of the quality of websites and the ecosystem that has been built. Young parents, with their numerous queries, have led to the creation of baby care as a breakout category in e-commerce. One in four women shoppers have purchased baby products online atleast once.

Anandan, explaining why advertisers need to take these trends into account, says, "Remember that 72 per cent of the audience get influenced through the digital medium on skin care, making it worthwhile to create beauty content for online consumption." Baby care sees 69 per cent of the universe getting influenced online, hair care 65 per cent, food and beverages 64 per cent and oral care 53 per cent. Overall, more than 50 per cent of the universe was seen as getting influenced by the digital information, while the nature of queries by women comprised 'how tos' to a large extent, across categories.