In the United States, Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15th through October 15th. The month is a chance to celebrate the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the United States. The United States Hispanic population was more than 57 million in 2016, or 17.8 percent of the total U.S. population. Hispanic population growth has accounted for half of the U.S. population growth since 2010. Hispanic Americans are the second-fastest growing demographic group (after Asian Americans). At $1.4 trillion, the U.S. Hispanic market is larger than the GDP of Mexico and if it were an its own country, would be the world’s 13th largest economy.
Quantcast owns and operates the world’s largest audience insights platform for the open internet – which we call Q – drawing on live data from more than 100 million online destinations. To mark this special month, we asked Q for insights that would allow us to understand the online behaviors of the Hispanic consumer. We further drilled down on two Hispanics audiences – those that are most sought-after by marketers – Hispanic parents with children under the age of 18 and Hispanic millennials without children. We compared both groups to the average Hispanic consumer. We see differences in all three groups in browser and site language, websites visit, and searches.
Some key takeaways:
- Mobile is key: Hispanic consumers are 1.5x more likely than other ethnicities to use mobile to browse, a trend seen across all age groups.
- Spanish language ads resonate: While 85 percent of browsers among this audience are set to English, they are still 2.4x more likely to convert on Spanish language ad.
- Mind the generational gap: Hispanic millennials are 20 percent more likely to look at English language sites than other age groups in this audience. However, their parents more likely to look at Spanish language sites.
Browser & Site Languages
While 85 percent of Hispanic consumers have their browsers set to English language, it’s Spanish ads resonating with Hispanic consumers: they are 2.4x more likely to convert on Spanish language ads compared to English language ads.
Hispanic parents are 10 percent more likely than the average Hispanic consumer to have their browser set to Spanish while Hispanic millennials are 10 percent more likely to have their browser set to English.
Searches
Language plays an important difference in online behavior for the Hispanic consumers. While English-language searches are focused on lifestyle topics like beauty and fashion, Spanish-language searches are focused on more practical topics like logistics. We see a similar trend for Hispanic millennials, who search for topics related to studying and events in English but search topics like news and work in Spanish.
Website Visits
Hispanic parents are more likely to look at Spanish sites and their searches and websites are very child-oriented.
Hispanic millennials are less likely to look at Spanish sites and their searches and websites are focused on lifestyle topics.
$9.2 billion was spent in 2017 on marketing to Hispanic consumers, and these insights show a one-size-fits-all approach with such a varied demographic will not fly. Hispanic consumers are a complex audience with a unique blend of culture and language. Understanding their online behaviors is key to marketing to them successfully. While some assumptions can be made, data-backed, real-time insights will give you the tools you need to reach this audience.