CHICAGO – Performics (http://www.performics.com), a leading performance marketing agency, today announced that Black Friday online retail sales driven by search engine marketing programs increased over Black Friday 2007 and outpaced Cyber Monday for the first time on record.
“The economic climate is pushing more bargain shoppers to market this season. Advertisers responded by refocusing scarce resources, making tough decisions about margins, and executing deep online and offline discounts around Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” said Nick Beil, CEO for Performics. “Meanwhile, consumers consolidated some of their shopping behavior to capitalize on the deal-intensive period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.”
In addition to outperforming Cyber Monday 2008, Black Friday 2008 retail sales from search engine marketing surpassed the highest single-day sales mark of 2007. Cyber Monday 2008 also generated impressive year over year growth, with retail sales from search engine marketing increasing 43 percent from Cyber Monday 2007.
“What remains to be seen is whether the initial year-over-year growth can be sustained throughout the rest of the season or if consumers consider their shopping to be finished already,” said Beil. “Savvy advertisers will focus on ’follow up‘ or ’don’t forget‘ shopping behavior—appealing to consumers to finish the shopping they have already started.”
Performics used sales per advertiser data to determine these growth metrics. Performics figures Sales per Advertiser by taking total sales and dividing by the total number of active retail search engine marketing programs.
Historically, Performics’ search programs have experienced their busiest day of online holiday shopping on the second or third Monday after Thanksgiving. Due to the necessary heavy discounting around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this dynamic may play out differently in 2008. Performics will continue to monitor search data to analyze the impact that the deep discounts and earlier, Black Friday heavy shopping have on sales throughout the remainder of the season.
About Performics
At Performics, we create opportunities and drive success for more than 200 of the world’s top brands. Our innovative approach to paid and natural search as well as user experience, emerging media and digital strategy fully integrates all aspects of performance marketing program management from analytics and conversion optimization to tracking, reporting and technology.
Our commitment is to deliver more qualified consumers and a better return on investment. Performics works diligently and efficiently on behalf of our clients to boost the effectiveness of their digital marketing efforts.
Headquartered in Chicago with offices around the world, Performics is the performance marketing expert inside Publicis Groupe’s Vivaki Nerve Center. Visit us: www.performics.com
