Valentine’s Day Brings Traffic to Personals, e-Cards, and Gift Sites
Tax Sites Continue to Grow As Filing Deadline Gets Nearer
RESTON, VA, March 19, 2010 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. Web activity at the top-growing properties and site categories for February 2010 based on data from the Comscore MMX service. Valentine’s Day celebrations sent millions of Americans to Personals, e-Cards, and Gifts Sites as they planned for the occasion, while millions also flocked to tax sites as the April 15 filing deadline inched closer.
“Online personals sites reached record levels in February as millions of Americans looked for the special someone to share Valentine’s Day with,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of Comscore MMX. “Visitation to tax sites also continued to build with the tax deadline getting closer and an increasing number of Americans turning to the Web for the convenience of filing their taxes online.”
Due to February being the shortest month of the year, gains in Internet usage across site categories were muted relative to typical months.
Valentine’s Day Romance Sweeps the Internet
e-Cards ranked as one of the top-gaining site categories in February, growing 7 percent to 23.1 million visitors, as consumers sent their loved ones Valentine’s Day cards. MyFunCards.com led the category with 6.3 million visitors, up 75 percent versus January. Evite.com attracted 5 million visitors during the month, followed by AG Interactive with 4.8 million (up 13 percent), 123Greetings.com with 3.0 million (up 15 percent), and Yahoo! Greetings with 869,000 (up 7 percent).
Flowers/Gifts/Greetings sites also saw a 7-percent gain in February, growing to 32.3 million visitors. AmericanGreetings Property grabbed the #1 position with 10.6 million visitors, while ProFlowers.com surged 412 percent to 5.3 million visitors. Gifts.com ranked third with 4.3 million visitors, followed by Hallmark with 3.2 million (up 12 percent). 1-800-Flowers.Com, Inc. closely followed Hallmark with nearly 3.2 million visitors (up 97 percent).
Online Personals sites also grew in popularity during the month, experiencing a 5-percent increase to 24.2 million visitors. eHarmony ranked as the #1 Personals site during the month, attracting 5.0 million Americans (up 82 percent), while Match.com Sites ranked second with 3.4 million visitors. PlentyOfFish.com attracted 2.8 million visitors, followed closely by SinglesNet.com with 2.6 million.
Tax Sites Guide Americans through Filing Frenzy
Tax sites saw another month of gains as the filing deadline approached and Americans looked for tax information or to file their returns online. The category attracted 32.1 million visitors in February, up 12 percent from January.
Auto Industry Rebound and Recalls Attract Consumer Interest Online
In February, auto consumers were occupied with government policy, recalls, new model releases, and special offers, which boosted traffic to Auto Manufacturer sites. The category saw 24.6 million visitors during the month, up 5 percent since January, with General Motors taking the top spot with 5.8 million visitors. Toyota ranked second in the category with 5.4 million visitors (up 7 percent), followed by Ford Motor Company with 4.8 million, Honda with 3.6 million (up 7 percent), Nissan with 2.5 million (up 24 percent), and Chrysler with 2.1 million (up 7 percent).
Table 1
Comscore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)February 2010 vs. January 2010Total U.S. – Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jan-10
Feb-10
% Change
Rank by Unique Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience
208,940
209,749
0
N/A
URBANDICTIONARY.COM
5,365
12,566
134
105
FORMSPRING.ME
2,894
6,492
124
210
INFOLINKS.COM
11,576
15,730
36
80
AVG Technologies
4,400
5,968
233
Betawave Media
7,538
10,076
34
GN Kids (Gorilla Nation)
4,379
5,640
29
241
GSN Games Network
4,934
6,353
220
AccuWeather Sites
7,710
9,229
20
149
ZIMBIO.COM
7,443
8,606
16
157
Go Daddy Group
4,828
5,562
15
244
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in February 2010. Excludes entities whose growth was primarily due to implementation of MMX 360 unified digital audience measurement.
Table 2
Comscore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)February 2010 vs. January 2010Total U.S. – Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Business/Finance – Taxes
28,760
32,068
12
Games – Online Gaming
83,373
90,796
9
Retail – Computer Software
44,557
47,896
7
Services – e-cards
21,518
23,123
Retail – Flowers/Gifts/Greetings
30,128
32,283
Directories/Resources
159,159
169,512
Personals
22,957
24,205
5
Auto - Manufacturer
23,308
24,554
Entertainment - Kids
53,852
56,527
Social Networking
175,410
183,983
Comscore will be excluding the Top 50 Properties and the Top 50 Ad-Focus rankings until May 2010 when the unified digital measurement transition period concludes.
About Comscore MMXComscore MMX 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 MMX reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. Comscore MMX syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About ComscoreComscore, 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/companyinfo.
PressBill DaddiDaddi Brand Communications646-370-1341press@comscore.com