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.

View the segment below to learn more about the importance of multi-channel marketing, and how we’re helping marketers connect with their customers in this dynamic and complex multi-channel environment.

Bill also shares details and data on the most visited retail Websites, as well as the most popular products this holiday season in comparison to years past.

View additional broadcast segments and videos featuring our thought leaders and subject matter experts.

Experian Marketing Services

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:

1. Whitney Houston (196)
2. Justin Beiber (242)
3. Kim Kardashian (291)
4. Nicki Minaj (371)
5. Bobbi Kristina (397)
6. Miley Cyrus (432)

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

1. Breaking Dawn – Part 2
2. Magic Mike
3. The Dark Knight Rises
4. Prometheus
5. Dark Shadows

Music – the top five searched for artists/bands:

1. One Direction
2. Taylor Swift
3. Justin Beiber
4. Beyonce
5. Zac Brown Band

Branded Destinations – the top five search terms:

1. Disney World
2. Great Wolf Lodge
3. Disneyland
4. Hershey Park
5. Universal Studios Orlando

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

1. American Idol
2. Dancing with the Stars
3. The Voice
4. The Bachelor
5. 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

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.

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:

1. Uggs
2. iPad mini
3. iPad
4. Beats by dre
5. 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.

Regardless of age, texting is still, technically, the second most common activity that Americans engage in on their cell phone after talking. During a typical week, 95% of mobile adults talk on their mobile phone, while 59% text. Among adults ages 18-to-24, however, 89% talk on their phone and 85% text. Despite the increasing availability of mobile chat or instant message applications, texting remains the dominant means for exchanging short messages. Only 8% of all mobile adults use their phone to IM or chat.

The fastest thumbs

To get a more in-depth understanding of the texting habits of adults today, we leveraged data from the Simmons Connect mobile panel of 1,485 U.S. smartphone owners. Hands down, young adults text more than any age other age group. During a typical month, in fact, smartphone-owners ages 18-to-24 send 2,022 mobile text messages and receive another 1,831 for a combined total of 3,852 texts sent and received. With every age bracket we move up, the number of mobile texts drops by roughly 40%. For instance, smartphone owners ages 25-to-34 send, on average, 1,110 text messages a month and receive another 1,130 for a combined total of 2,240 messages.

We are also able to leverage the Simmons Connect smartphone panel to understand mobile calling behaviors. The data shows that while young adults hold the record for the most text messages sent and received, they actually make and receive few calls, by comparison. During a typical month, smartphone owners ages 18-to-24 make 119 calls on their mobile phone and answer another 64 calls. Adults ages 35-to-44 make and receive the most calls on their mobile phones in a given month. (Call counts do not include inbound and outbound calls that go unanswered.)

Text around the clock

Unlike television and radio, which have peak hours for reaching consumers, mobile text messages reach Americans throughout the day, providing advertisers with a medium to connect with consumers any time they want or need.

No surprise, young adults are the most likely to send and receive mobile text messages throughout the day. The smartphone panel data shows that during every hour between 8:00 A.M. and midnight, more than half of young smartphone owners are both sending and receiving mobile text messages. Even when most of us are asleep, young adults’ smartphones continue buzzing from inbound texts. In fact, 37% of 18-to-24 year-old smartphone owners receive texts at 4:00 in the morning. By comparison, just 20% of smartphone-owners ages 25-to-34 years-old receive texts at this late (or early) hour as do 17% of those 35-to-44, 15% of those 45-to-54 and 10% of those ages 55 and older.

Better to send or to receive?

During overnight hours, the share of young smartphone owners who send texts surpasses the share who receives them. However, by 8:00 A.M., the difference between those two figures narrows to the point that they are nearly equal. In fact, from noon until 11:00 P.M., young adults are more likely to send mobile text messages than they are to receive them.

Call or text?

While texting is still a secondary use of mobile phones after calling, that’s not the case all day, especially among young adults. In fact, while smartphone owners ages 18-to-24 are more likely to make an outbound call than they are to send a text from their phone between 7:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M., they are more likely to send a text between 11:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M., during hours when they might understandably wake the recipient. That should help us all sleep a little better.

• Details on consumer confidence going into this holiday season, and how marketers can leverage multi-channel marketing to better reach consumers
• Insights on traffic data for online retailers, including the most popular categories and products
• What our data is showing regarding mobile usage and the impact mobile shopping is having on this holiday season

For more holiday season insights, download The 2012 holiday marketing checklist and see what worked for marketers last year and what they planned for this holiday.

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%.

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.

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.