• by February 23, 2001

With all this talk about geo-targeting, it will soon pay to know where your online target audience is logging onto the Internet from, or - more importantly - where they live.

Well, according to IDC's U.S. Consumer Internet Commerce map, California, New York, Texas, and Florida are at the top of the list of states with the most available consumer funds. IDC's evaluates states on the basis of either high average income or a large number of households, or both.

As it stands, U.S. consumer Internet commerce at the beginning of 2000 totaled $41.7 billion, with California and Texas ranking first and second, respectively, in terms of total consumer Internet commerce.

Not only do these two states have large populations and healthy average household incomes, but they also are in the group of states that spent more than 0.8% of their total household income on purchases via the Internet. The average for the United States was 0.69%, according to IDC.

New York and Florida together represented 13% of the country's consumer online spending although they spent a lower percentage than the leaders, 0.73% and 0.75% respectively, of their total household income online.

IDC also suggests that marketers look at the 13 states (excluding California and Texas) that as a group accounted for 18.7% of total U.S. consumer Internet spending. Each of these states spent more than 0.8% of its total household income on Internet purchases. These are New Mexico, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Arkansas, Arizona, Montana, Oregon, and Nevada.

IDC says the states where there is already an accepted pattern of purchasing via the Internet may be a more cost- effective use of marketing dollars than the "gold coast" states of California, Texas, New York, and Florida.

As IDC's Molly Upton wrote, "Taking a different tack might yield worthwhile results in marketing; it often does in sailing."