NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- When it comes to online shopping, conversions are king. But what kinds of searches, ads and content are consumers interacting with before and after a tech purchase? Purch, a digital content and commerce company, and comScore, a global media measurement and analytics company, partnered to determine the answer in a new study released today--PURCHase Report: Consumer Technology. The research examines more than 3,000 qualifying purchases over a 90 day period to track key influences and behaviors of U.S consumers before, during and after a technology purchase. Purchases tracked include popular products such as mobile devices, tablets and wearables from top online retailers and brands including Samsung, Apple and HP. Findings point to inefficiencies in ad delivery and consumer focus on tech reviews and content both ahead of and after making a purchase.

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To learn more about the research and share the news, click here: http://www.purch.com/purchase

"It's critical for brands and marketers to gain a detailed understanding of the many factors that influence a consumer shopping for a tech product," said Erin Kapczynski, Vice President of Marketing at Purch. "The Purch and comScore PURCHase Report goes a long way toward providing a more comprehensive understanding of the consumer path to purchase and helps marketers and publishers better service them via advertising, search, and editorial. The media landscape is saturated, but tech content stands out as a go-to resource in the month before consumers land directly at online retail destinations to make purchases."

Data sources analyzed in the study include search, ad exposure, visitation, mobile and e-commerce. Key findings from the PURCHase Report include:

OVER HALF OF IMPRESSIONS OCCUR AFTER A PURCHASE
The majority (52 percent) of relevant ad impressions took place after the consumer had already made a purchase. This indicates significant opportunity to retune ad strategy and messaging to consumers for tech items such as smartphones, laptops and storage devices - to place the right ads at the right phase in the consumer journey.

TECH MEDIA IS CONTENT KING
On the content side, tech media sites are the most widely consumed content throughout the purchase journey (pre- and post-purchase), pointing to trust in product reviews and testing by neutral parties that relay accessible information. Tech media site consumption is followed by multi-category retailer and tech retailer sites.

TECH REVIEWS TRUMP NEWS
On tech media sites, buyers read 80% more reviews/buying guide pages than news pages. Both reviews and news article readership were split fairly evenly by platform, with 53 percent of pages views on PCs and 47 percent of pages viewed on mobile devices.

TECH RETAILER SEARCHES RISE AS PURCHASE APPROACHES
As consumers move into the final phases of their research and look to complete purchases, they shift their search behavior to retailers' sites. The majority of their searches --67 percent - took place on retail sites rather than search engines on the day of purchase.

BEHAVIORS VARY BY DEMOGRAPHIC
Men dominate tech forums and women consume a slight majority of tech how-to pages, but the genders are split evenly when it comes to time spent on reviews/buying guides - indicating that reviews play an equal role in both genders' decision making processes.

GEN X-ERS BUY MORE TECH PRODUCTS, BUT MILLENIALS OUTSPEND
Gen X consumers (age 35-54) accounted for 45 percent of the tech purchases in this research. Millennials however, were the big spenders, spending an average of 8% more per purchase than older consumers.

The PURCHase Report uniquely provides in-depth information about relevant online behavior leading up to and following actual tech purchases. The research considers digital influencers holistically, with a look at ad exposure and other types of content important to consumers as they research products, i.e. reviews, news and searches across retailers' sites, search engines and deals resources. The insight gleaned from this data is a valuable tool for advertisers and marketers seeking to connect with consumers in the right way during the purchase process. View the full report.

Study Methodology:
Purch and comScore partnered on an in-depth analysis of relevant digital activity on desktop and mobile devices by comScore U.S. panelists who purchased a consumer tech product online. comScore's behavioral measurement software on panelist PCs identified over 3,000 qualifying purchase events in a 90 day period (May 2015 - July 2015), in any of 11 tech product categories ranging from laptops and mobile phones to wearable fitness devices.

To find out more about Purch, visit www.purch.com, or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

About Purch
Purch is a portfolio of digital brands that helps make buying decisions easy for 100 million consumers and businesses monthly. Its respected sites such as Top Ten Reviews, Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, and Live Science natively integrate commerce and content in more than 1000 product categories so consumers can make better choices before, during, and after an important purchase. The company helps marketers achieve their branding and performance objectives in a high-quality, brand-safe context. Its sites connect in-market shoppers with more than 7,000 marketers and sellers, driving industry-leading conversion rates and $1 billion in commerce transactions annually. Purch is a high-growth, privately held company with more than 350 employees and offices across the U.S. and Europe. For more information on Purch, visit www.purch.com or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

About comScore
Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Reston, Virginia, comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global media measurement and analytics company that makes audiences and advertising more valuable. We help media buyers and sellers understand and make decisions based on how consumers use different media, such as TV, video, mobile, desktop and more. Through its products and partnerships, comScore helps its more than 2,500 clients understand their audiences, know if their advertising is working, and access data where they want and need it.

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SOURCE Purch