A new PersonicX Consumer Dynamics study released by Acxiom identifies a current consumer trend in which one in every three U.S. households is more likely to include a committed online shopper – insight that quantifies marketers’ online opportunities to improve marketing performance.

Acxiom’s proprietary study finds that 36 percent of U.S. households have a propensity to spend more than $1,000 a year online, often across diverse product lines. The study suggests that prioritizing marketing efforts to appeal to these consumers can improve return on investment of marketing dollars.

“As retailers develop e-commerce marketing strategies in the face of a struggling economy, it becomes increasingly important for them to understand online shopping behaviors and improve marketing efficiency,” says Louis Rolleigh, Acxiom’s senior manager for analytic, geospatial and segmentation products.

“In this study, Acxiom introduces an approach to analyzing online shopping behavior that can provide critical insight into consumers and examples of how this information can be applied to improve marketing efficiency.”

Committed online shoppers represent a range of life stages, and the relationship between demographics and online shopping behavior is neither straightforward nor intuitively obvious, the study shows. Among interesting and sometimes surprising insights from the report:

Life stages vary: Among the committed online shoppers surveyed, two-thirds of heads of household are at least 40 years old, compared with about 25 percent who are 50 or older.

No definitive link to income: While there is a strong correlation between higher incomes and increased online spending, the relationship between the two is neither as direct nor as definitive as one might believe. For example:

–The “Established Elite” population segment, one of 23 identified in the study, enjoys the largest mean income and yet three other segments are likely to spend more online, notably including “Hard Chargers” whose income averages 42% less

–The “City Mixers,” an upper middle income segment, is more likely to be an above-average online spender than 11 affluent and wealthy clusters

Traditional retail stores are still important: E-commerce continues to grow, but it is still only a small portion of total retail sales. Even in categories where consumers show a strong interest in shopping online, they are still likely to walk into a store.


Titled “The Committed Online Consumer,” Acxiom’s study is powered by Acxiom PersonicX, which provides precise and actionable household-level segmentation with a life stage framework. This framework can be linked to consumer research and visualization tools, providing the detail and insights necessary for sophisticated consumer analysis. Based on historical improvement rates, PersonicX can deliver increased marketing ROI of up to 20 percent.


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