SmartBargains.com was the lone general retailer among the top 10 sites that saw the biggest increases in traffic for the week ending May 26, according to figures from Jupiter Media Metrix. The average number of daily unique visitors to SmartBargains that week was 397,000, according to Jupiter, a 164% gain over the average of daily unique visitors over the prior three weeks.
No specific event at SmartBargains triggered the spike, according to CEO Carl Rosendorf, other than ongoing marketing efforts that he calls "execeptionally aggressive."
"This is our normal growth and marketing programs hitting home," he says. "The viral element to our business is real – people telling people creates an energy around our site. Marketing programs such as our relationships with AOL, Yahoo, and MSN, plus our affiliate network and direct programs such as e-mail marketing, offer consumers value, and they get high response rates."
Jupiter noted big increases in traffic at diet sites such as ediets.com, which saw traffic increase 57% that week over the average of the prior three weeks, as it promoted a program to lose 10 pounds by July 4th.
In terms of the number of average unique daily visitors for the week rather than gains over the previous three-week period, the portals remained on top, dwarfing traffic at all other destinations. AOL logged 32. 5 million for the week, followed by MSN at 25.8 million and Yahoo at 22.8 million.
But as a category, retail sites offering consumer goods were the second largest gainers in traffic. Their traffic increased 19.1% for the week over the average of the prior three weeks, a gain that was exceded only by consumer health sites, which collectively saw a 40.1% gain. At 11.9%, retail sites that offer luxury goods and jewelry had the third largest increase in traffic over the average of the prior three weeks.
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