This type of information is very useful when allocating budgets, search engine selection, and the targeting components within your Search Engine Marketing plan.

Forrester Research ( subscription required) analyzed data from almost 47,000 US households. Some findings: Mass-affluent 25- to 39-year-olds prefer Google, and affluent 70+ year-olds are the most frequent AOL visitors.

To determine affuence segments, Forrester examined consumer’s investable assets — excluding any assets held in retirement accounts. Using this information, they divided consumers into three segments: Mainstream (less than $100,000), mass-affluent ($100,000 to $1 million), and affluent (more than $1 million).

Excerpt from study:

25- to 39-year-olds prefer Google, not AOL. Mass-affluent 25- to 39-year-olds are more likely to visit Google (20% above the average for Google across all segments), MSN (17% above the MSN average), and Yahoo! (16% above the Yahoo average) than other search portals. This group of young mass-affluent consumers also turns out to be the segment least avid about AOL (20% below the AOL average).

40- to 54-year-olds prefer Netscape. Mass-affluent 40- to 54-year-old consumers are significantly more likely to visit Netscape (25% above the Netscape average across all segments) and Google (16% above the Google average).

55- to 69-year-olds prefer Netscape, not MSN. The percentage of mass-affluent 55- to 69-year-olds who visit Netscape is 50% higher than the Netscape average across all segments. At the other end of the spectrum, the portion of this group that visits MSN is 19% below the MSN average across all segments.

70+ year-olds prefer AOL but none of the others. Mass-affluent 70+ year-olds only visit one portal at an above-average rate: AOL (19% above the AOL average). This older segment has a significantly below-average percentage of consumers visiting the other sites — bottoming out with MSN (52% below the MSN average).

Here is the breakdown in more detail:

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