Deal-advertising sites see traffic swell heading into the holiday weekend

Traffic at deal-promoting sites that advertise holiday specials rose last week as shoppers head into the post-Thanksgiving weekend, with visits to a group of 27 so-called Black Friday advertising sites touting deals for the weekend up 87% from the prior weekend, and up 4% over the same weekend last year, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

Traffic to Black Friday advertising sites drives referrals to retail sites to learn about sales and promotions. Walmart.com by far garnered the largest share of referred traffic from the Black Friday sites for the week at 13%, Experian Hitwise found, a gain of 77% in referrals from the same advertising sites over the previous week.

Following Walmart.com in the percentage of referrals from the Black Friday sites were Target.com, which received 4% of referred traffic or 27% less than referrals from the sites the previous week.

BestBuy.com, at 4% of referrals down 20% from the previous week; and Sears.com, at 3% of referrals was down 4% from the previous week.

Toysrus.com received only 3% of all traffic referred from the Black Friday sites for the week, but that was a 63% gain in referrals from the same sites the previous week. Black Friday site referrals to J.C. Penney’s JCP.com, at 1% of referrals for the week, nevertheless represented a gain of 1,229% for the retailer from the previous week.

Amazon.com received less than 1% of Black Friday site referrals for the week, down 44% from the previous week. However, Amazon received the most traffic from all sources including direct visits for the week: 15% of all visits to top 500 web sites for a gain of 1% over the previous week, according to Experian Hitwise.

Other most-visited sites in Experian Hitwise’s top 500 were Walmart.com, at 7% of all traffic, up 9% over the previous week; Target.com at 5%, flat with the previous week; and Sears at 3%, down 2% from a week earlier. Fandango received the largest increase in visits week over week, 42%.

Overall, visits to the Top 500 retail sites were up 6% for the week over the previous week, the data found.