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.

This week the study finds:

• Email campaigns with offers in the subject line make up 28.6% of campaigns this holiday season – a 6% increase over the 27% of campaigns with offers seen last year.
• Offers in subject lines for percent off, dollars off, BOGO, gift cards and coupons have increased as a percent of total offers, while flash sales, free shipping and urgency make up a lower percentage of offers than they did last season.
• 87% of traffic generated by search terms containing “free shipping” was organic traffic during the week ending 12/15.
• Hot Products: top search terms to appliance & electronic sites were “beats by dre” and “otterbox” for the week ending 12/15.
• Multi-channel retailers, catalogers, and publishers had double digit increases in volume for the week of 12/9 – 12/15 compared to 2011.
• The increases in revenue per email we have seen this year over last year are holding as we approach the last 2 weeks of the season.

Highlights and trends: continue the conversation

As the holiday is almost here, it is important to expand upon and continue the relationships you have achieved with subscribers and buyers this season. Email is an excellent way to have multi-channel conversations with your customers

Social media:

Encourage subscribers to share their holiday gifts and experiences on your social media sites. Facebook and Pinterest are the most popular social media sites to appear in subject lines, and both received higher than average open and click rates during this holiday season.

Ratings and surveys:
Continue the conversation with your subscribers by sending surveys and/or requests for ratings and reviews of your products and services. Strong open and click rates on these types of mailings indicate that subscribers welcome the chance to interact with you in this way.

Thank-you mailings:
For a ‘quick win’ at the end of this holiday season and throughout the year, include campaigns with the words ‘thank-you’ in the subject line. Mailings sent to thank folks for subscribing to a list, or joining a loyalty program, or purchasing a product had more than 2.5 times the open rate and over 3 times the click rate of the average for all season mailings.

In addition to generating high open and click rates, ‘thank-you’ mailings provide exceptional transaction rates and revenue per email. Sending a ‘Thank-you for purchase’ mailing in addition to any order confirmations, can provide 6.5x higher revenue per email than the average for all season mailings.

Online consumer insights

Monday, December 17 was Free Shipping Day – which marks another major e-retail day as shipping deadlines approach to ensure timely holiday deliveries. Leading up to this day, variations of ‘free shipping’ search terms have  been rising since November, and have increased 91% since the week ending 11/3.

Continuing our watch of gift card searches as we get closer to the Christmas holiday, we see that searches containing ‘gift card’ increased 42% in the past week.

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.

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.

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.

Today we released the newest Experian Marketing Services’ Consumer Expectation Index (CEI) analysis of the first half of 2012. As noted in the release, during the first six months of 2012 we reported that consumer optimism has reached an all-time high over the last four years, beating 2008 by 8 index points.

The CEI provides us with unprecedented insight into our economic outlook by who we are; men versus woman, age, household income and employment status, to name a few of the 60,000 variables that we have access to.

What’s most striking about today’s release is that optimism is up across the board among men and woman and all age groups; even the unemployed increased their economic outlook from an index of 87.6 to 88.0 from the first half of 2011 to the same period this year.

As we approach the holiday season, the latest CEI figures indicate a strong seasonal performance for retailers. The CEI figure for the week of Sept. 3, 2012, (the most recent single week for which data is available) was 7.4 points higher than it was at the same point last year and higher than it has been heading into the holiday season since 2008.

This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell

Further, key consumer groups are even more optimistic. On Sept. 3, the CEI of those adults who made an online purchase in the past year was 2 percent higher than the national average and 8.1 points higher than the CEI recorded for online shoppers at this time during 2011. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell, since the CEI among adults planning to make a big-ticket purchase hit 117.9 the week of Sept. 3, 2012, compared with 103.5 the same week in 2011 and 100.5 in 2010. In fact, a CEI above 100 indicates that consumers are more confident than they were during the base line period, which was the first half of 2004, years before the recession began.

Perhaps it’s all the talk of the looming fiscal cliff that makes today’s release appear to be counter-intuitive. In fact searches for “fiscal cliff” increased over ten-fold comparing last week to the week ending November 3^rd.

However, if we look for what people were searching for using search term variations, the top searches were “what is the fiscal cliff” and “fiscal cliff definition,” showing that consumers are still learning what the fiscal cliff is and what it means for them.

As the population becomes more educated on the looming crisis, we’ll keep tabs on any resulting changes to consumer optimism, specifically which demographics are most concerned.

Learn more about the CEI here.