Easter and school holidays fuel interest in travel content with 16.9 million using travel sites and apps in April – Ipsos iris data
The time Australians spent on social networking sites rose to 55 hours a month in April
Women were more likely to use travel sites and apps than men, while people aged between 25 and 39 are the largest cohort engaging with online travel content. The over 55s, however, spent the most time using travel sites and apps at 33% more time per month than under 55s.
The chart below shows the Travel brands’ ranking during April 2023 by online audience size. The Travel category is a ranked list of brand groups and represents their total audience for travel content. Travel includes transport, airlines, hotel and booking sites and apps as well as travel news.
The other most consumed online categories were search, with 20.8 million using search sites and apps with eight hours spent per person, a decline of 7.8%. Technology was 20.7 million people and three hours during April spent online (down 1.5%), entertainment was 20.6 million and more than 13 hours spent online (up 5.1%), retail and commerce at 20.5 million and five hours (up 3.7%), news at 20.2 million people at six hours (up 1.2%) and finance at 20 million and two hours per month (down 1.8%).
The 25 to 39 year old age group was the largest cohort online, while people aged 40 to 54 spent the most time online in April.
In the News category, 20.2 million people used a news website or app in last month, with time spent engaging with online news content increasing by 1.2%, to almost six hours per month. This was fuelled by major news events such as the arrest of former US President Donald Trump, the death of comedian Barry Humphries AO CBE, the wedding of radio personality Kyle Sandilands, the lead up to the Coronation and the Federal Budget, and sports events such as the Autumn racing carnival and the AFL and NRL seasons.
The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.
The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during April 2023 by online audience size.
Overall, Australians aged 14+ spent 3.5 hours per day, or more than 107 hours, online on a PC/laptop, smartphone, or tablet device in March, and this is on par with time spent per day the month prior.
The most consumed online categories by total audience size in March included social networking (21 million), technology (20.8 million), search (20.8 million), retail & commerce (almost 20.7 million), entertainment (20.6 million), finance (20.4 million) and news (20.3 million).
The Ipsos iris data also found that people aged between 25-39 were the largest cohort online, while people aged between 55-64 spent the most time online in March.
Notes for editors:
- Ipsos iris is an independent source of truth for the media industry providing a level playing field for comparison of audience reach and characteristics and supporting the $14.2 billion Australian online advertising market*.
- Ipsos iris provides accuracy in solving cross-device deduplication, the biggest challenge in measuring online audiences, using a single-source multi-device panel measuring activity on 8,000 smartphone, PC, laptop and tablet devices
- Ipsos iris provides accurate data about the number of people who visit the content of digital publishers and platforms, along with the frequency of visits and time spent by tracking digital audience behaviour across desktop/laptop, smartphone, and tablets. It uses a hybrid methodology that combines metered data from a high quality, nationally representative, single-source passive panel with site-centric census measurement via media owner tagging.
- Later this year CTV audience currency integration from a data partnership with OzTAM will provide total unduplicated digital audience currency data for CTV, smartphones, tablets, and computers.
- Ipsos iris is fully privacy compliant and cross-media ready and will continue to evolve with a roadmap of enhancements over 2023 and beyond. It will also be adaptable to changing requirements as the industry develops in future years.
- The launch of Ipsos iris with monthly data from January 2023 was the culmination of extensive work by the IAB and its Measurement Council that commenced in early 2021 with a strategic review of industry requirements. Ipsos was awarded the IAB’s endorsement, having best met the standards on criteria across all areas of product along with criteria for operations and a future roadmap.
- Further information can be found at: https://iris-au.ipsos.com/
*Source: IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER CY2022) prepared by PwC Australia