Report Finds Young Adults Using E-mail, Text Messaging Equally

The core group of young adults ages 18 to 24 send and receive just as much e-mail as they text. This was among the findings from a digital media report issued recently by Experian Marketing Services.

Analyzing information across Experian’s pool of consumer data as well as its e-mail and online marketing data sources, the report uncovered several trends in consumer and business use of digital media, including:

• Visits to social networking Web sites from U.S. consumers increased 4 percent in February 2009 from February 2008;
• younger adults use the Internet for information on sports, music and entertainment, while older adults use it more for travel information;
• the travel industry has the highest share of search-referred traffic;
• the number of consumers entering brand names and terms to navigate search engines increased 18 percent from the first quarter of 2005 to the fourth quarter of 2008; and
• in a comparison of site visits from February 2008 to February 2009, 35-plus-year-old visitors to Facebook increased 11 percent, while visitors from the same age group to MySpace declined 2 percent.

The report also found digital media use by marketers saw steady increases during 2008, especially in e-mail marketing. Additional findings from the report include the following:

• retailers that increased e-mail frequency to counter competition captured more market share; and
• publishers increased their e-mail volumes more than any other group in 2008 (70 percent), with multichannel merchants having the second largest increase (54 percent).

To access the full report, click here.

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