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13 million Australians spend 18 hours a day online

12 July, 2012 – Australians are spending the majority of their time online. According to various sources* including ExactTarget’s Digital Down Under Report:

• 13 million Australians spend over 18 hours a day online
• One in five minutes (3.6 hours) a day is spent on social media.

Lee Hawksley, managing director of ExactTarget Australia said, “It is a fact that social media is revolutionising the way people communicate. These statistics show that people are increasingly spending more time online which creates a tremendous opportunity for businesses to connect with their consumers across the channels they use most.”

“Creating relationships between brands and consumers requires more than just a clever tagline and some posh marketing materials. To truly connect with customers, we need to understand their behaviour and motivations.”

“94 per cent of Australians are now internet users, with mobile device sales outnumbering PC’s for the first time in 2011. From the smartphone to the tablet, the digital revolution is affecting every corner of the globe. With the revolution happening now, it is important to understand how individuals in Australia are using social media, email, mobile, and the internet.”

ExactTarget has researched daily online behaviours in Australia. This is the first of a two part series, the second is around a day in the life of an online Australian including how motivations change throughout the day and how this impacts what they view online.

Average internet use by state
13.4 million Australians are online an average of 18.8 hours a day

• Western Australians make up 10 per cent of the internet population and spend 19.7 hours a day online
• Northern Territory residents make up 4 per cent of the internet population and spend 18.6 hours a day online
• South Australians make up 7 per cent of the internet population and spend 19.9 hours a day online
• Queenslanders make up 20 per cent of the internet population and spend 19.7 hours a day online
• New South Wales residents make up 32 per cent of the internet population and spend 18.1 hours a day online
• Victorians make up 25 per cent of the internet population and spend 18 hours a day online

How Australians spend their time online

• One in every five minutes spent is on social media
• 71 per cent of Australian consumers check email at the beginning of the day while only 17 per cent will check Facebook
• Consumers’ initial online activities tell us something of their priorities and motivations as they start their day. Understanding their mindset—whether it be business, social or news focused, as well as the lens through which they access their first online content—provides valuable insight into the most effective ways to reach consumers online.
• 47 per cent of Australian consumers will check email as the last thing they do online each day while 27 per cent will check Facebook
• Just as it is important to analyse morning behaviour to understand the priorities and motivations of your consumers, it is important to examine how consumers end their digital day in order to better comprehend how channel usage shifts throughout the day. When evening rolls around, consumer priorities tend to shift from business to leisure. Email usage decreases in the evening, but it remains the most popular channel for Australian consumers.

The Australian Facebook user
Australian consumers like Facebook - a lot. According to ExactTarget’s Digital Down Under report Aussies are more active on Facebook than either the US or UK consumers surveyed.

• Facebook users visit the site on average 16 times a week
• Australia has 9,800,000 unique visitors to Facebook each month (42 per cent of the Australian population)

The Australian Twitter user
Twitter users tend to be some of the most active online consumers. Of those who are active on Twitter, 51 per cent check it at least once per day, and 18 per cent report using Twitter consistently throughout the day.

• Twitter users visit the site on average 23 times a week, significantly more frequently than Facebook users
• Australia has 1,100,000 unique visitors to Twitter each month (4.8 per cent of the Australian population)

Lee Hawksley said “Examining the online behaviour of Australia is crucial for marketers as it gives insights into consumers to deliver the right message, to the right audiences, through the right channel, at the right time. Understanding your customer is the first step in designing a marketing campaign.”

The full Digital Down Under report is available upon request.

About the Digital Down Under report
Based on a survey of more than 1,400 online Australian consumers (ages 18 and older), ExactTarget’s Digital Down Under report is the latest research report in ExactTarget’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers series to explore consumer behavior across email, Twitter and Facebook.

Digital Down Under research provides marketers exclusive insight into consumers’ online preferences and motivations for interacting with brands on email, Facebook and Twitter.

Other sources include; *Australian Bureau of Statistics, AIMIA Sensis Social Media Report, Stephen Cater Social Media in Australia, Australian Direct Marketing Association.

About ExactTarget
ExactTarget is a leading global provider of email marketing and cross-channel interactive marketing software-as-a-service solutions that empower organizations of all sizes to communicate with their customers through email, mobile, social media and websites. ExactTarget’s powerful suite of integrated applications enable marketers to plan, automate, deliver and optimise data-driven interactive marketing and real-time communications to drive customer engagement, increase sales and improve return on marketing investment. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana with offices across North America and in Europe, South America and Australia, ExactTarget trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ET.” For more information, visit www.ExactTarget.com.

Media contact
Kathryn Bramwell
Recognition PR
02 9252 2266
kbl@recognition.com.au