U.S. Presidential Race Drives Americans Online for Election News
Halloween and Early Holiday Browsing Boost Traffic to Retail Sites
RESTON, VA, November 20, 2008 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for October 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The U.S. presidential election, Halloween and the approaching holiday season were significant drivers of Internet traffic for the month.
“The historic presidential race had millions of Americans glued to their computers for the latest news during the final stretch of the campaign,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “Prospective voters were able to get up-to-the minute information on candidates, important issues and the latest poll results as they prepared to check off the box in the voting booth on November 4.”
Politics Category Tops Fastest-Growing List in October
October saw a significant surge in traffic to the politics category, as Americans tuned in closely to the presidential and local congressional races. The category grew 40 percent to 28 million visitors in October, making it the fastest growing category for the month.
BarackObama.com was the most visited site in the category with 8.5 million visitors, up 59 percent versus the previous month, followed by JohnMcCain.com with 3.8 million visitors (up 29 percent). October marked the largest audiences of the season for both of the candidates. Other sites generating substantially higher traffic in the month included: CatholicVote.com (up 410 percent to 1.5 million visitors), GOP.com (up 111 percent to 1.2 million visitors), and Factcheck.org (up 96 percent to 1 million visitors). Voting advocacy sites VoteforChange (up 62 percent to 2.4 million visitors) and RocktheVote.com (up 46 percent to 1.1 million visitors) also saw strong gains.
Saturday Night Live’s election comedy sketches, including Tina Fey’s popular impersonation of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, helped NBC Universal rank as one of the top 10 gaining properties for the month. NBC Universal’s online channel for Saturday Night Live (SNL) content surged 85 percent to 4.4 million visitors in October.
Approaching Holidays and Halloween Cause Traffic Boost at Retail Categories
The combination of Halloween and the looming holiday shopping season resulted in strong traffic increases to several retail categories in October.
Retail – apparel sites grew 13 percent to more than 67 million visitors as people searched for Halloween costumes, early holiday deals and the latest seasonal apparel in October. The category was led by BuyCostumes.com, which witnessed a 107-percent increase to 9.5 million visitors. Several other costume-related sites also experienced gains in October, including CostumeSuperCenter.com (up 110 percent to 2.6 million visitors) and Costumzee.com (up 161 percent to 2.1 million visitors).
In addition to costume retailers, several other apparel retailers experienced strong traffic growth during the month, including Zappos.com (up 18 percent to 5.1 million visitors), Gap Online (up 24 percent to 4.2 million visitors) and AE.com (up 18 percent to 3.3 million visitors).
With the holidays quickly approaching, traffic to the retail – toys category surged 17 percent to more than 25 million visitors as Americans searched early for this year’s top toys. Toysrus sites led the category with 9.3 million visitors, a gain of 28 percent, followed by Barbie with 3.4 million visitors (up 10 percent) and The LEGO Group with 2.7 million visitors (up 22 percent). Several other popular toy brands also experienced double-digit growth in October, including AmericanGirl.com (up 51 percent), Fisher Price (up 43 percent) and LeapFrog.com (up 90 percent).
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in October with 147 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 144.9 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 123.5 million visitors. All of the top ten properties maintained their positions from September. New arrivals to the ranking this month included NBC Universal, which entered at position #33 with nearly 25 million visitors and JPMorgan Chase Property, which rose to position #41 with the addition of Washington Mutual, bringing the property’s combined audience to more than 23 million visitors.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform-A led the October Ad Focus ranking reaching 91 percent of the 190.6 million Americans online. Yahoo! Network followed reaching 86 percent and Google Ad Network captured the third position reaching 83 percent of Americans online. ValueClick Networks moved up one position to #4 reaching 82 percent of online users and Traffic Marketplace rose one position to #8 reaching 74 percent.
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)
October 2008 vs. September 2008
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Sep-08 Oct-08 % Change Rank by
Unique Visitors
Total Internet: Total Audience 189,468 190,616 1 N/A
TheStreet.com Sites 4,135 10,550 155 101
Spencer Gifts, LLC. 2,077 5,058 144 231
HULU.COM 2,850 5,342 87 214
Healthgrades 2,894 5,034 74 234
Everyday Health 14,930 25,781 73 31
BARACKOBAMA.COM 5,350 8,515 59 131
Cablevision 6,049 9,571 58 112
NBC Universal 16,034 24,896 55 33
Kayak.com Network 5,141 7,860 53 144
JPMorgan Chase Property 15,506 23,142 49 41
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*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in October 2008
TABLE 2
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
October 2008 vs. September 2008
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Sep-08 Oct-08 % Change
Total Internet: Total Audience 189,468 190,616 1
Politics 20,081 28,016 40
Retail – Flowers/Gifts/Greetings 33,659 40,358 20
Retail – Toys 21,461 25,195 17
e-cards 28,537 33,377 17
Entertainment – Humor 25,486 29,797 17
Retail – Mall 26,509 30,742 16
Gay/Lesbian 2,771 3,189 15
Retail – Apparel 59,354 67,144 13
Teens 28,765 32,505 13
Auto – Manufacturer 22,154 25,015 13
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Please visit the following link for Tables 3 & 4: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2593
About comScore Media Metrix
comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate
