Demographics of the Average AC Visitor

If you target them, they will come. The question is... who exactly are 'they'? They are the visitors to Associated Content. Think of them as your guests. They found one of your articles (most likely through a search engine), clicked on it, and suddenly they are one of the 4.3 million unique visitors a month to come to AC.

While most of the focus on AC deals with creating better content, very little of it seems focused on who you are creating content for - the average Joe wandering in off the internet. The demographics of just who is clicking on your articles may surprise you.

The Average AC Visitor
Statistically, the average person clicking on your articles will be a 25 - 44 year-old Caucasian woman. She'll be college educated, earn $30k to $100k a year and have no children between the ages of 6 to 17.

Obviously an individual content producer's articles may skew differently, but this is the average person who clicks on an AC article. Take a look at her. Take good care of her. She's likely to be your guest.

The AC 100
To break down AC site demographics, let's examine an average 100 AC visitors. If the average AC visitor deviates substantially from the average internet user, this will be noted in parentheses.

Gender
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

57 visitors are women. (10% higher than the internet average)

43 are men. (12% lower than the internet average.

What this means: Far more women than men visit AC.

Age (only adults over 18 are measured)
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

14 visitors are between the ages of 18-24. (12% lower than internet average)

24 are between the ages of 25 - 34. (21% higher than internet average)

21 are 35 - 44 years old. (10% higher than internet average)

19 are 45 - 54 years old.

13 are 55 - 64 years old.

7 are over 65. (31% lower than internet average)

What this means: AC content delivers a middle aged visitor fairly well, but is behind in younger demographics and woefully under-servicing older demographics.

Ethnicity
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

82 people are Caucasian

9 are African-American (17% higher than internet average)

5 are Hispanic (22% lower than internet average)

3 are Asian (18% lower than internet average)

1 person does not fit into any of the above categories.

What this means: AC content scores well with African-American users but does not do well with other minorities.

Household Income
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

15 earn less than $30k a year.

32 earn between $30k and $60k a year.

32 earn between $60k and $100k a year.

21 earn over $100k a year.

What this means: Aside from a slightly higher than average draw among those earning $60 - $100k a year, AC reflects the internet average.

Head of Household Education Level
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

40 did not attend college. (10% lower than internet average)

44 went to college. (8% higher than internet average)

15 have gone to graduate school. (5% higher than internet average)

What this means: AC content does better than average with more educated individuals, but fares rather poorly with internet users who have not gone to college.

Users with Children ages 6-17 in Household
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

67 do not have children between 6 and 17 living at home.

33 have children ages 6 to 17 living at home.

What this means: This reflects internet average, although AC content fares slightly better than the internet average with visitors who have children ages 6 - 17. This may also mean that information regarding children ages 6 to 17 may not fare as well with the average AC user.

Additional Statistics

Audience Composition
Out of 100 people who visit AC:

88 have not visited AC before during the last month.

12 are regular users.

Share of Visits (groups that account for the total number of clicks on the site)

Passers- by account for 69% AC hits

Regular users account for 24% of AC hits

Addicts (most likely CP's) account for 6% of AC hits. These users visit the site more than 30 times a month.

What Do These Demographics Tell Us?
Some of these numbers really stand out for the content producer.

Audience Composition
A whopping 88% of AC visitors are classified as "passers by". These internet users are not repeat visitors (over the course of a month), but rather just visit the website once during a 30-day period.

These are the people clicking on your articles and then going off to explore other sites online. They may stay awhile and click on your other articles, but otherwise, they only visit AC content once in a month.

What does this mean?
Nearly all visitors to AC are passers by. Only 12% of AC visitors are regular users. This means that the bulk of potential page views does not come from repeat customers, but from well-placed content.

This also means that 88% of your potential audience gives you one chance a month to make an impression. Make sure your writing is at its best.

Gender
Far more women visit AC than men. Approximately 57% of AC visitors are female, compared to 43% male. This statistic is particularly telling when you consider that slightly more than half of all internet users are men.

What does this mean?
That's a matter of debate. It probably means that more of AC's content is geared toward women. It may also indicate that the more successful (in terms of page views) content producers are likely to be women, or at least writing content that women search more for than men.

Interestingly, if you take a look at the content producers with the most page views on the AC front page, you'll typically find that 8 out of 10 are female.

Interpreting AC's feminine slant is a bit like the old chicken and egg which came first argument. In other words does AC attract more female views because it has more female-oriented content? Or do female authors concentrating on female-oriented content do better because more women visit AC? Personally I think it's the content that gets the views.

Bottom Line: The women writers at AC are blowing away the men. Sorry guys.

Age
AC content reflects its content producers. It also reflects its users. AC does well within the 25 - 44 age group, but is lacking in under 25 appeal and is woefully lacking in the over 65 numbers. This seems to reflect a lack of content for the older demographic.

What does this mean?
Interpreting this one is a bit tricky, but overall I'd say that the younger demographics are doing things online that AC's information-based format does not service. You can't play games on AC, instant message on AC, or watch really stupid videos. AC's video performance is not its strong suit.

Weak performance in the older demographics is a bit more puzzling. As 'The People's Media Company' it would seem that the people writing for AC do not generate as much content of interest to older internet users. In other words, most content producers are probably between the ages of 25 - 44 and produce content that would appeal to their age group.

Looking at AC's core age demographic, content producers do a good job generating content that appeals to 25 to 44 year olds looking online for information.

More Information
While AC's demographics reflect overall internet users, they only tell part of the picture. To target an audience, you need to know what that audience is looking for online.

Ever wonder why those craft articles do so well? Why product reviews generate page views? Want to know which content categories draw the greatest potential audience? Click HERE to read the companion piece to this article.

Source: Quantcast November, 2007 AC Statistics. Click HERE to visit this source.