This week’s key findings:

• More promotional mailings are being sent on weekends. The average weekend this holiday season had 43% promotional and 57% trigger campaigns. This past weekend, 47% were promotional campaigns, a 9% increase from the 43% average.
• Although still a small percentage of mailings, the number of campaigns offering gift cards in subject lines more than doubled compared to the same week in 2011.
• The top 5 ranked Websites, in the Hitwise retail 500 by visits share, for the week ending 12/8 were Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and J.C. Penney.
• “Shutterfly coupon codes free shipping” and “Harry and David free shipping” topped the free shipping search term list for the week ending 12/8.

Email highlights and trends:

Christmas day mailings:

Only one third of brands sent promotional mailings on Christmas day in 2011 and, of those, about half of the campaigns included an offer in the subject line. Christmas day offers for post holiday sales actually did quite well, receiving double the transaction rate compared to the mailings without offers (transaction rate of 0.17% with offer in subject line compared to 0.08% without an offer).

If you do plan to mail on Christmas, make sure that you mail early in the day:

Post-Christmas week:

Promotional mailings with offers also did well in the post-Christmas week (December 26th – 31st).

The transaction rate for mailings with offers in their subject lines was 0.09% compared to 0.08% for mailings without offers. Revenue per email was also higher for the campaigns with offers.

The 4:00 AM time slot received a much higher percentage of total revenue than its percentage of volume, making it the best time to mail.

Morning mailings also did well on post-Christmas days. The 4:00 AM time slot received a much higher percentage of total revenue than its percentage of volume, making it the best time to mail.

Online consumer insights:

While Peak Week last year, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, saw big spikes in online retail traffic, there was another spike in traffic the day after Christmas. In 2011, there was a 3% increase in online retail traffic on Christmas and a 33% increase the day after Christmas.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

In 2011 we saw a spike on Christmas day occur in both social and search driving traffic to the Retail 500 sites.

As we noted last week, interest in gift cards peaks during the final weeks leading up to Christmas. While searches for gift cards last year reflect that pattern, it should also be noted that searches for gift cards during the week after Christmas were also at higher levels than those seen at the start of the season.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Key findings:

Online traffic numbers climbed this year compared to last:

• Thanksgiving Day increased 6%
• Black Friday increased 7%
• Cyber Monday increased 11%

Search played a bigger part in Cyber Monday traffic this year compared to 2011:

• Downstream traffic from search engines to Retail 500 Websites increased by 5%

There’s still time to capitalize on email transactions this holiday season:

• Last year, December 16^th – 9 days before Christmas – ranked 4^th for email transactions

This week’s key findings:

• All peak days, from Monday 11/19 through Cyber Monday (11/26), saw increases in total email transactions and revenue. Email marketers experienced a 28% increase in the number of email transactions, and a 38% increase in revenue.
• There has been a 33% increase in the number of email campaigns with “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” in their subject lines this season compared to 2011.
• Personalization in email subject lines has increased 27% over 2011.
• Coupons in subject lines have increased by 58% this season.
• Cyber Monday search terms increased by 16% the week ending 11/24/2012 versus 2011 and by 5% the week ending 12/1/2012 versus 2011.
• For the week ending 12/1/2012, the top Cyber Monday search terms include “Cyber Monday deals 2012,” “Cyber Monday deals,” “Cyber Monday” and “Walmart Cyber Monday deals 2012″.
• 40% of Cyber Monday search terms contained 4 keywords in a search term.

Email highlights and trends: Peak Week performance:

Total email transactions and revenue increased every day of Peak Week compared to 2011, for a total increase of over 28% in transactions and 38% for revenue.

The largest email transaction and revenue increases are seen in the three industries that are the most ‘holiday’ and gift driven:

Online consumer insights:

Search was a big driver for the Retail 500 websites on Cyber Monday this year.

• Search engine downstream traffic to Retail 500 websites on Cyber Monday increased by 5% compared to 2011
• For Cyber Monday search terms over 12 weeks ending 12/1/12, the paid rate of generated traffic was 20.36% and the organic rate of traffic was 79.64%

• Mailers started earlier, with the Monday (11/19) before Thanksgiving having the largest percentage increase (20.6%) in volume.  Black Friday, Sunday 11/25, and Cyber Monday all had double digit increases in volume over last year.
• Forty-five percent (45%) of holiday season emails are being opened on mobile – up slightly from the 44% we saw just before the season began.
• Led by Black Friday offers, campaigns with offers in the subject line made up almost 30% of all campaigns sent this past week.
• Black Friday search terms increased by 107% between the weeks ending 11/17/2012 and 11/24/2012.
• For the week of 11/17/2012, visits to Cyber Monday websites increased by 259% compared to last year. Additionally, visits for the week of 11/24/2012 increased by 190% versus 2011.
• Cyber Monday search terms increased by 606% between the weeks of 11/17/2012 and 11/24/2012.

Email volume

During peak week, mailers started earlier, with the Monday (11/19) before Thanksgiving having the largest percentage increase (20.6%) in volume.  Black Friday, Sunday 11/25, and Cyber Monday all had double digit increases over last year.

Gift guides and gift cards
As the holidays get closer, more and more shopping is focused on gifts. Two popular gift-oriented ideas for email campaigns are gift guides and gift cards. Gift guides are popular and effective ways to present many products to undecided consumers, and they generate higher transaction rates than other promotional mailings.

Describing your brand as ‘Best’ in the subject line leads to the highest open and click rates for gift guides.

Last minute shoppers, and those looking for gifts for ‘hard to please’ folks, are often drawn to gift cards. In 2011, we saw the number of gift card emails double in the two weeks prior to Christmas. Forty-two percent (42%) of US adults have purchased gift cards in the past year.

Teens are notoriously difficult to shop for. No wonder, purchases of music/entertainment gift cards are highest among parents of teens. In fact, parents of kids ages 12 to 17 are 86% more likely than the average adult to have bought these types of gift cards.

Online consumer insights:
With the busiest holiday shopping weekend behind us – let’s recap what happened online. So far this past holiday week of online traffic from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday to retail sites is up 8% compared to last year. Cyber Monday, for the second year in a row, was the busiest of the three milestone days and looks to be tracking as the busiest day of the year in online retail visits.

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.

Black Friday online traffic increased 7% year-over-year as the top 500 retail sites received more than 193.8 million total US visits.

Online traffic on Cyber Monday increased 11% in 2012 compared to last year, as the top 500 retail sites received more than 206.8 million total US visits.

Top product searches by milestone days

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%.

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.

For the holiday insights we’re already seeing this season, watch our ‘Tis the season for holiday marketers webcast on demand. This real-time data will help you tweak your current holiday email, search, mobile and social campaigns to keep up with consumer response.

• 66% of marketers expect 2012 holiday season sales to be higher or much higher than in 2011.
• 26% plan to start 2012 holiday marketing activities in September, 23% plan for October.
• In 2011, for the first time ever, Cyber Monday surpassed Black Friday as the biggest online shopping day of the year.
• Pinterest adoption rates show the biggest increase, as 71% plan to use it during the 2012 holiday season – a 137% increase over 2011.
• 4 of the top 5 biggest movers are mobile tactics.
• 54% of those who used email marketing reported their campaigns were extremely or very successful; 42% reported moderately or slightly successful.
• 39% of marketers plan to incorporate ratings and reviews into their customers’ holiday shopping experience.

Key take-aways:

• Cyber Monday surpassed Black Friday as the biggest online shopping day of the year
• Email marketing, paid search and display advertising were the most successful marketing tactics last holiday season
• Marketers are planning to invest more in Pinterest this year
• Adoption of mobile-optimized websites is on the rise over last year

The growth of e-commerce over the past several years has included the emergence of Black Friday as one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. Experian Hitwise has tracked site visits over the last eight years. Each year, two days have consistently captured the title of busiest shopping days of the year: Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday). Last year this all changed and Cyber Monday claimed the prize as the busiest shopping day of the year, growing from 138 million visits to 177 million visits to the Retail 500 index of sites, a 29% growth comparing 2010 to 2011.

Source: Experian Hitwise

Within the key retail categories for these holiday shopping milestones, sites within the Apparel & Accessories, House & Garden and Toys & Hobbies saw the most growth on Cyber Monday year over year. These key categories all saw growth on Thanksgiving & Black Friday as well except for Toys & Hobbies which has a slight decrease year over year.

Source: Experian Hitwise

What do these and other trends mean for your holiday season? Join our webinar on September 26^th, as our experts share more on traffic drivers, search trends and critical insights that will improve your ability to target and engage high value consumer segments. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about what, how and when consumers search and buy online during the holiday season.

Online traffic to the top 500 retail sites for Peak Week 2011 increased 9% compared to Peak Week 2010. One trend that emerged from this past week is that Thanksgiving could become the Black Friday of online retail. Numerous retailers extended their Black Friday deals online early in the week and several major retailers opened their stores on Thanksgiving Day in an effort to attract budget-minded holiday shoppers. The bet paid off.

Thanksgiving Day was once again the busiest day during Peak Week among retail sites as online visits increased 9% compared to 2010 with more than 173 million total US visits. Thanksgiving Day provides a captive audience for retailers as our data has shown in the past and this year retailers took advantage. We previously noted that Black Friday ended Thanksgiving Day’s five-year reign as the number one day for visits to retail sites. The takeaway from this is simple – consumers are accustomed to shopping online from home and finding the best deal possible whether that means shopping at midnight on Thanksgiving or just researching online. Expect retailers to extend deals the same way next year and for other major holiday sales going forward.

The same online trend held true for email activity too, as Peak Week email volume increased 30% in 2011 vs. 2010. The total email transactions increased 26% year-over-year and total revenue from email increased 27%. The eye-catching stat from the chart below is the 61% growth in email volume on Thanksgiving Day. All the days during Peak Week had double-digit volume gains and nearly the same was true for both transaction and revenue. We talked about this in our previous post as Thanksgiving Day ranked #6 in transactions for the 2010 holiday season and #49 for volume. That represented a huge opportunity that retailers clearly pounced on. The same was true for Black Friday, as that day ranked #2 in transactions in 2010, yet #22 for volume. In 2011, email volume increased 31% on Black Friday.

How does email work with Internet traffic when it comes to big retail weeks like Peak Week? More than 8% of all email traffic during Peak Week 2011 went to the top 500 retail sites presenting a relative increase of 11% compared to 2010. The importance of this data is that it underscores how marketers can’t discount email campaigns when it comes to major retail holidays in order to drive sales. This was evidenced by the 30% increase in overall email volume for Peak Week this year.

The shopping behavior displayed this year shows that consumers are more deal-hungry than ever and retailers responded in kind, creating an opportunity for higher transactions. So Peak Week lived up to its name this year and it will be interesting to see how consumer behavior changes as we get deeper into the holiday season.