New York, N.Y., Nov. 26, 2008 — According to new data from Experian® Marketing Services, consumers have started to look for Black Friday deals early with online traffic to a custom category of Black Friday advertising Web sites increasing 58 percent for the week ending Nov. 22, 2008, versus the week ending Nov. 17, 2007 — the week prior to Thanksgiving last year. Further indication that retail traffic has rebounded to the same level as last year is the 1 percent increase in online visits among the top 500 retail Web sites overall for the first time in 11 weeks.
Based on data from Experian Hitwise® and Experian CheetahMail®, Thanksgiving Day has traditionally been the busiest day online, as traffic increased 15 percent in 2007 compared with 2006 among the top 500 retail Web sites. Black Friday traffic increased 13 percent, and Cyber Monday visits increased 22 percent. This is also reflected by the volume of emails sent out on Thanksgiving Day which, according to CheetahMail, grew between 2006 and 2007.
Other highlights:
“As online traffic continues to grow, we also anticipate an increase in email volume on and around Thanksgiving day, despite this year’s tough economy,” said Ashley Johnston, vice president of marketing for Experian Marketing Services. “In general, we have seen significant growth in the number of companies leveraging email marketing to drive online and offline sales.”
| Top visited Black Friday Web sites | Pre-thanksgiving weeks | ||||
| Rank | Web site | Domain | Week ending 11/22/2008 | Week ending 11/17/2007 | Year-over-year change |
| 1 | BlackFriday.info | www.blackfriday.info | 34.96% | 20.08% | 74% |
| 2 | Black Friday Advertisements | www.bfads.net | 30.98% | 44.72% | -31% |
| 3 | Black Friday Ads | www.theblackfriday.com | 10.33% | 11.45% | -10% |
| 4 | Black Friday | www.black-friday.net | 8.44% | 4.71% | 79% |
| 5 | Black Friday @ GottaDeal | www.blackfriday.gottadeal.com | 8.09% | 10.66% | -24% |
| 6 | BlackFridayAds.com | www.blackfridayads.com | 3.40% | 6.13% | -45% |
| 7 | BlackFriday.fm | www.blackfriday.fm | 2.57% | N/A | N/A |
| 8 | Blackfday.com | www.blackfday.com | 0.48% | 0.73% | -33% |
| 9 | iBlackFriday.com | www.iblackfriday.com | 0.26% | N/A | N/A |
| 10 | Deals of America — Black Friday | blackfriday.dealsofamerica.com | 0.21% | 0.15% | 40% |
N/A — not available
Source: Hitwise, an Experian company
For more information on buying behavior and e-mail trends, contact us at marketingally@experian.com.
Experian CheetahMail and Experian Hitwise are a part of Experian Marketing Services. Experian CheetahMail is the trusted service provider of email marketing and customer intelligence technologies for top enterprises worldwide. Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service providing its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with more than 1 million competitive Web sites and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.
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Contact:
Matt Tatham
Hitwise, an Experian company
1 212 380 2939 Telephone