Online Lead Generation in North America

North America and the Internet

Strictly speaking North America refers to 23 countries in the North American region including parts of the Caribbean, although the top 3 countries in terms of GDP (PPP) are the United States, Mexico and Canada. North America covers an area of 9.5 million square miles with a population of almost 529 million people. It is the world’s third-largest continent in terms of area and fourth-largest in terms of population. The United States has the largest and most developed economy in North America and the world with a GDP (PPP) per capita of $US48’147. Canada is second with a GDP (PPP) of $US40’457 per capita and Mexico third with a GDP (PPP) per capita of $US15’121. There are more than 272 million internet users in North America of which 218 million are on Facebook. North American internet users are reported to account for 15.9% of the world’s total online population. The most popular search terms in all three of the main North American countries are “facebook” and “you tube” which lends some support to the emerging concept that “Facebook is the new Google” due to the fact that news and ideas find internet users rather than the other way around. Social media in North America is now reaching close to 100% penetration in terms of the online population.

Search Engine Market Share in North America

Search engine market share in the main North American economies are generally dominated by Google although the United States shows a Google search engine market share of 77%, much lower than in Europe where the average Bing and Yahoo each represent a 9% search engine market share in the United States with AOL and ASK with 2% and 1% respectively. Google market share is at least 90%. Mexico has a larger Google market share at 90% with Bing and Yahoo accounting for a 5% and 3% share respectively. The remaining 2% share is divided between several country specific Google websites and smaller engines such as Ask, Meta Crawler and 7search. Canada’s search engine market share is 88% Google, Bing 7%, Yahoo 3% and Ask 1%. The remaining 1% is shared across other country Google sites, AOL, Ask, 7search and Meta Crawler but with more Google country sites than any other search engine.

Ecommerce in North America

According to ComScore 2011, Amazon.com and Apple.com received the majority of their visitors from North America with 35.4% Amazon visitors and 32% Apple visitors coming from the continent. Amazon.com received an average of 15 million unique visitors every day from the US by the end of 2011, up from 10 million visitors a day at the beginning of 2011. Mexican visitors to Amazon.com average at around 70,000 visitors a day while Canada has an average of around 270,000 unique visitors to Amazon.com each day. It is reported that Canada has the highest penetration of retail websites in the world with 89% of its audiences visiting them. The US is not far behind with 86% retail site penetration. In Mexico 15% of internet users shopped online during 2010, three times the amount in 2009 and the Mexican ecommerce industry is predicted to grow by 50% every year offering tremendous potential for lead generation campaigns. Mexican ecommerce is expected to reach $US3.4 billion by the year 2016.

Online Ad Spend in North America

The US online ad spend grew by 23% to a staggering $US32.03 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $US39.5 billion (a 23.3% rise) during 2012 while print ad spend is projected to fall by more than $US3 billion during the same period. The greatest increases in online ad spend is expected to come from the online and mobile video markets with Google being the leader in terms of revenue generated by online video. This is hardly surprising since Google now owns YouTube and uses video marketing to generate advertising revenue. This trend is not predicted as much for Canada where online marketers spend less on digital video which is reported as 2% of Canada’s online advertising revenue compared to almost 5.5% in the US. Online ad spend in Mexico is reported as $US273 million or 7% of overall advertising revenue and is projected to reach 10% by 2012.

Social Media in North America

Canada has a higher Twitter penetration than the Mexico and the US although Mexico has a higher Twitter penetration than the US. The United States has more Facebook users than any other country in the world and currently stands at more than 155 million users which is a 65.08% penetration rate in terms of the online population. The average Facebook CPC is $US0.59 and the top Facebook sites are Starbucks and McDonalds. Facebook users in the US comprise of 55% females and 45% males, and the most Facebook users can be found in the state of California with more than 20 million users. Mexico comes second in terms of the number of Facebook users with 32 million users but this figure represents saturation point (104%) in terms of Facebook penetration of online audience. The average Facebook CPC in Mexico is just $US0.14. The top two Facebook properties in Mexico are Blackberry and Starbucks and the Facebook user sex divide is 50/50 although there is a higher percentage of younger users between the ages of 18 and 24 (33%) compared to the US (24%). Canada has the same Facebook penetration rate as the US (65%) but has 17.1 million users. The Facebook sex divide in Canada is similar to the US with 54% female and 46% male, and the age groups most represented are the 18 to 24 year olds (25%) and the 25 to 34 year olds (25%). This is comparable to the US with 24% for both age ranges. The top two Facebook internet properties in Canada are Sour Patch Kids and Crown Royal. Sour Patch are a brand of sour sugar sweets and their Facebook page gets an average of 9,750 new fans every day. Crown Royal is a famous Canadian brand of whiskey.

Search Trends, Traffic and Lead Generation

Lead generation campaigns in Mexico that utilize Facebook have an ideal opportunity to reach 100% of the online population for a very low CPC rate. Facebook receives more than 15 million unique visitors from Mexico every day and the top two search terms in Mexico are “facebook” and “youtube”. You Tube receives an average of 10 million Mexican visitors a day, an increase of around 8 million visitors since the beginning of 2009 which supports the trend of online video becoming more popular with advertisers in North America. A rising search in Mexico is “blog del narco”, a Mexican news blog that is becoming increasingly popular. In Canada the top two search terms are “facebook” and “youtube” with unique daily visits of 15m and 7m respectively. A rising search term is “minecraft” a popular PC game which can be played on and offline. The two most popular search terms in the US are also “facebook” and “youtube” with 130m and 70m visitors each every day. Rising searches in the US are “skyrim” and “minecraft”, both PC games. Lead generation campaigns in North America would benefit immensely from incentives such as offering credit towards certain online games and utilizing Facebook and You Tube to generate followers. These social media efforts will also fit well into the rapidly growing video marketing landscape in Mexico and the rest of North America. Online interest in food and drink appears to be a re-occurring theme throughout the region covered suggesting a ready audience for lead generation campaigns using food and restaurant reviews or guides.