Marketing Forward » Matt Tatham

Christmas Day 2012 retail visits increase 27% compared to 2011

Matt Tatham — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:51:36 +0000

The home stretch for the holidays is nearing as second wind for retailers is just starting as Experian Marketing Services analyzes the post-Christmas retail trend. Christmas Day 2012 saw a 27% increase in online traffic to the top 500 retail sites compared to 2011. The top retail sites received more than 115.5 million total U.S. visits. To date the holiday online traffic for the past 7 weeks to retail sites are up 10% for 2012 vs. 2011.

Each retail holiday milestone day saw online traffic increases so far this season.

Amazon remained the top visited site among retailers for this past week ending Dec. 22, 2012 and was also the top visited site on Christmas Day. Walmart, Target, BestBuy and Macy’s round out the top 5 most visited sites. The chart below includes the top 10 results:

As tablets dominated our weekly top product search lists all holiday season it wasn’t surprising to see that the Apple iTunes site visits increased 193% and Apple.com visits increased 155% on Christmas Day 2012 vs. Christmas Eve 2012. The top product search terms sending traffic to the Apple.com site were iPod Nano, iPad Mini and iPad 4. Amazon.com visits increased 24% on Christmas Day 2012 vs. Christmas Eve 2012 as the top product search terms sending traffic to their site were Amazon Kindle, Kindle Fire and Kindle

Also seeing growth were gift card searches as the year-over-year total search volume for “gift card” variations increased 6.1% this year compared to 2011. The big spike in searches happened last week (as online shoppers passed shipping deadlines). Below are the top 10 gift card searches for last week.

We will continue to publish retail site data and insights through this holiday season. Please leave us a comment below if you have any specific questions along the way.

UPDATE: The top 500 retail sites received more than 129 million total US visits on Dec. 26^th, an increase of 1% compared to 2011 and 12% compared to Christmas Day 2012. Amazon was the top site followed by Walmart, Target, BestBuy and Macy’s. JCPenney, QVC and The Home Depot all moved into the top 10 on the day after Christmas.

Facebook was the top search term in 2012 for fourth straight year

Matt Tatham — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:19:19 +0000

Experian Marketing Services analyzed the top 1,000 search terms from Hitwise data for 2012 , and Facebook was the top-searched term overall in the US. This is the fourth year that the social networking Website has been the top search term overall, accounting for 4.13 percent of all searches, a 33 percent increase from 2011. Four variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 10 terms and accounted for 5.62 percent of US searches overall, a 27 percent increase from 2011.

Among the top 10 terms, the top two terms stayed the same with facebook the top search term and “youtube” ranked at number two. The search term “craigslist” moved up from the fourth spot in 2011 to the third spot in 2012. “Facebook login” was the fourth most-searched term in 2012, followed by “facebook.com” and “yahoo.” The search term “amazon” moved into the top 10 terms for the first time. Analysis of the search terms revealed that social networking–related terms dominated the results, accounting for 6.03 percent of the top 50 searches. This is an increase of 44 percent compared with 2011.

When combined, common search terms for Facebook — e.g., facebook and facebook.com — accounted for 5.84 percent of all searches in the United States among the top 50 terms, which represents a 27 percent increase compared with 2011. YouTube terms accounted for 1.67 percent, representing a 23 percent increase compared with 2011. Google terms (including YouTube) accounted for 1.91 percent — an increase of 20 percent compared with 2011. Yahoo terms accounted for 0.79 percent — an increase of 34 percent compared with 2011.

“Navigational searches continue to dominate the top search results as users continue to visit their favorite sites via search engines instead of directly entering a web address into their browsers URL bar,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services. “Single-word searches grew 16 percent in 2012 as a result of continued reliance on search engine’s suggested results. Other top 2012 searches reflected the ongoing infatuation with celebrities online.”

Other highlights include:

The top 50 search terms accounted for more than 12 percent of all Internet searches in 2012 – representing a 30 increase compared to 2011.
New terms that entered the top 50 search terms for 2012 included: backpage, cool math games, fox news, pinterest and pof – an acronym for Plenty of Fish, the top visited dating site in the US.
The search terms yahoo and ebay have appeared among the top 10 since this ranking was started in 2006.

Top-visited websites in 2012

Facebook was the top-visited Website for the third year and accounted for 79.1 billion total US visits between in 2012. Google.com ranked second, with 78.5 billion total US visits — followed by YouTube (25.9 billion), Yahoo! Mail (22.2 billion) and Yahoo! (20.8 billion). eBay ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 2009.

The combination of Google properties accounted for 109.3 billion total. Facebook properties accounted for 79.1 billion total US visits, and Yahoo! properties accounted for 76.5 billion total visits. The top 10 Websites accounted for 276.3 billion total US visits or 32 percent of all U.S. Internet visits in 2012, which was slightly up compared with 2011.

Top public figure searches – Whitney Houston was the 196th most popular overall search term in the United States in 2012:

Whitney Houston (196)
Justin Beiber (242)
Kim Kardashian (291)
Nicki Minaj (371)
Bobbi Kristina (397)
Miley Cyrus (432)

Movies Titles – the top five searches from within the Movies category:

Breaking Dawn – Part 2
Magic Mike
The Dark Knight Rises
Prometheus
Dark Shadows

Music – the top five searched for artists/bands:

One Direction
Taylor Swift
Justin Beiber
Beyonce
Zac Brown Band

Branded Destinations – the top five search terms:

Disney World
Great Wolf Lodge
Disneyland
Hershey Park
Universal Studios Orlando

Top TV show searches – the top five primetime show searches from the Television category:

American Idol
Dancing with the Stars
The Voice
The Bachelor
South Park

Sports – The top searched-for athletes were Tiger Woods, Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning. The top searched for sports team was the Dallas Cowboys.

News and Media – The top non-celebrity search topics among News and Media sites in 2012 were hurricane sandy, iPhone5, election results and George Zimmerman.

If you are interested in more top 2012 data visits and fastest-moving searches, visit: the online trends page

Online retail visits increase 8% year over year week of Dec 9 – 15

Matt Tatham — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:00:26 +0000

With the busy holiday marketing season in full swing, Experian Marketing Services has released its online retail round-up for the week ending December 15.

The online traffic to the top 500 retail sites increased 8% for the period of December 9 – 15, compared to the same week in 2011.

Additionally, Amazon remained the top visited site among retailers, followed by Walmart and Target. The chart below includes the top 10 results:

Experian Marketing Services also tracks top product searches. Listed below are the top 10 product searches for the week ending December 15:

We will continue to publish weekly retail site data and insights through this holiday season. Please leave us a comment below if you have any specific questions along the way.

Online retail visits increase 5% year over year week of Dec 2 – 8

Matt Tatham — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:36:50 +0000

With the busy holiday marketing season in full swing, Experian Marketing Services has released its online retail round-up for the week ending December 8.

The online traffic to the top 500 retail sites increased 5% for the period of December 2 – 8, compared to the same week in 2011.

Additionally, Amazon remained the top visited site among retailers, followed by Walmart and Target. The chart below includes the top 10 results:

Experian Marketing Services also tracks top product searches. Listed below are the top 5 product searches for the week ending December 8:

Uggs
iPad mini
iPad
Beats by dre
Ipod touch

We will continue to publish weekly retail site data and insights through this holiday season. Please leave us a comment below if you have any specific questions along the way.

Cyber Monday online retail traffic increased 11% in 2012

Matt Tatham — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:33:44 +0000

Continuing the strong holiday push from this past holiday weekend online traffic on Cyber Monday increased 11% in 2012 versus 2011 as the top 500 retail sites received more than 206.8 million total US visits. So far this past Holiday week of online traffic from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday to retail sites is up 8% for 2012 vs. 2011.

Amazon.com remained the top visited retail site on Cyber Monday while Walmart received the second most visits. BestBuy was the 3rd most visited site with Target and JC Penney rounding out the top five. Among the top 5 sites, Amazon saw the biggest year-over-year growth at 36%.

Black Friday online retail traffic increased 7% in 2012

Matt Tatham — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 15:46:23 +0000

Black Friday online traffic increased 7% in 2012 versus 2011 as the top 500 retail sites received more than 193.8 million total US visits. So far this Holiday week of online traffic to the top retail sites is up 10% on average. Online retail traffic was up 1% on Black Friday compared to Thanksgiving Day 2012 traffic this year.

Amazon.com remained the top visited retail site on Black Friday while Walmart was the second most visited retail site. BestBuy moved up to the 3rd most visited site while Target was the 4th most visited site. JC Penney moved up from being the 8th most visited retail site on Thanksgiving Day to the 5th most visited on Black Friday. Among the top 5 sites, JC Penney saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 26%. Looking at the top 20 retail sites on Black Friday, the Apple Store site saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 99%.

Check back for CyberMonday insight and a weekly recap of this week.

Thanksgiving Day online retail traffic increased 6% in 2012

Matt Tatham — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 15:39:08 +0000

Thanksgiving Day online traffic increased 6% in 2012 versus 2011 as the top 500 retail sites received more than 192.5 million total US visits. So far this Holiday week of online traffic to the top retail sites is up 11% on average. Retail traffic also increased 43% on Thanksgiving Day 2012 versus the day before.

The top five visited retail sites all saw growth on Thanksgiving Day 2012 versus the previous day. Amazon.com was the top visited retail site on Thanksgiving Day followed by Walmart, Target and Best Buy. Sears jumped up to the top 5 after ranking 6th the day before. Among the top 5 sites, BestBuy saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 104%.

Thanksgiving Day ranked as 3rd highest transaction day in 2011 and perhaps there was an increase in email volume in 2012 as retailers got the word even more. In 2011, Cyber Monday, Black Friday and Thanksgiving were the top 3 Email Transaction days during the holiday season.

Keep checking back for more holiday updates as we share the latest insights.

Online retail visits increase 10% heading into the Holiday weekend

Matt Tatham — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:40:39 +0000

As we head into the busiest Holiday shopping weekend the total US visits to the top 500 retail sites increased 10% this past week compared to the same time in 2011. The top 500 retail sites received more than 666.8 million visits for the week ending Nov. 17, 2012. Retail sites have been steadily growing posting 4 straight weeks of growth heading into this holiday weekend. Retail visits increased 15% comparing this past week to the previous week and looking at data for Sunday and Monday of this week the total visits for those two days are up 9% compared to 2011.

As we noted from our CEI data that consumer optimism is at an all-time this holiday weekend and retailers could see traffic significant gains for 2012 versus 2011. Last year Cyber Monday claimed the prize as the busiest shopping day of the year, growing from 138 million online visits to 177 million total US visits to the top 500 Retail sites, a 29% growth comparing 2011 to 2010.

Perhaps seeing that optimism in action are the top retailers with the top 5 most visited retail sites all seeing traffic increases heading this key shopping weekend. Amazon.com was the top visited retail site in the US for this past week. Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Kohls round out the top five. Typically Amazon and Walmart have switched places as the top visited sites on Thanksgiving Day and then reverting back on Black Friday.

It will be interesting to see this year if the volumes of email increases on Thanksgiving Day as more and more retailers are opening their doors to consumers that night. Last year, Cyber Monday, Black Friday and Thanksgiving were the top 3 Email Transaction days during the holiday season.

Learn more about what the hot products are this holiday season, how and when consumers search and buy online during the holiday season, make sure to check back here for the latest insights for this holiday season.

Second presidential debate spawns new Internet meme

Matt Tatham — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:06:06 +0000

The second presidential debate took place on Tuesday, Oct. 16^th and both the Obama and Romney websites saw increases in total US visits the day after the second debate as Obama’s site saw a 41% increase and Romney’s site saw a 33% increase. Heading up to the debate the battle for swing state votes is critical and both candidates overall see a lot of their online traffic coming from those states. Of all Internet traffic from the swing states, Obama’s site receives 38% while Romney receives 34% of his online traffic from those states for the 4 weeks ending October 13, 2012.

The second debate also provided a new search term that was a popular query post debate that turned into latest Internet meme featuring graphics using the phrase, Amazon reviews of binders, dedicated websites and Tumblr pages. The search term “binders full of women” ranked as the 21^st most popular search term in the US on Oct. 17^th. The term was the #3 non-branded term as you can see in the table below behind “kate gosselin fired” and “pink loses 55 pounds. The term was the 2^nd most popular non-branded search term driving traffic to Facebook.com on Oct. 17^th and 32^nd overall. The term was the 20th most popular search term overall driving traffic to Twitter.com on Oct. 17^th.

Of all the searches performed on ‘binders full of women’, 52% were on Yahoo Search that day. The top sites to receive traffic from the search term that day include Yahoo.com, NBC Politics, Yahoo News, CNN Political Ticker and Facebook to round out the top 5. The Tumblr page devoted to the search term was ranked as the 20^th most popular downstream site on Oct. 17^th

Understanding flash trends like this can help marketers when planning real time search and ad campaigns and when developing new content. Learn more about consumer insights like these for your industry by visiting: Experian Hitwise

Google share of searches at 65% in September 2012

Matt Tatham — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:50:59 +0000

One-word searches increased 14% versus 2011 and eight word searches increase 6% versus August 2011

Google accounted for 65.26% of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending September 29, 2012 according to Experian Marketing Services. The combined Bing-powered search comprised 26.58% of searches for the month, with Yahoo! Search and Bing receiving 13.77% and 12.81%, respectively. The remaining 58 search engines[1] in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis report accounted for 8.16% of U.S. searches.

One word search queries increase 14% in September 2012

One word search queries increased 14% in September 2012 compared to September 2011. In September 2012, one-word searches comprised the majority of searches, too, amounting to 30.28% of all queries. Eight or more word searches saw 6% month-over-month increase. Shorter search queries — those averaging one to four words — increased 4% from September 2012 compared to September 2011.

Learn more about search here: http://hitw.se/QsTuKV