Top U.S. Online Search Providers: November 2008

According to Nielsen Online, there were almost 8.1 billion Web searches conducted during November 2008 — up 9.6% over the same month last year.

Google searches accounted for more than 64% of all Web searches, with almost 5.2 billion queries.  Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com rounded out the top five.

View the full press release.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Mediaweek.

Review September and October 2008 search results.

Nov. E-Commerce Update: Sites With Highest Conversion Rates

In November, almost one-third (30.6%) of all visitors to ProFlowers.com made a purchase — the highest conversion percentage among all retail websites, according to Nielsen.

Metrostyle (23.6% conversion rate), QVC (21.6% conversion rate), Office Depot (21.6% conversion rate), L.L. Bean (21.5% conversion rate), Tickets.com (20.1% conversion rate), Blair.com (18.9% conversion rate), Lands End (18.4% conversion rate), 1800flowers.com (17.8% conversion rate), and The Sportsman’s Guide (16.8% conversion rate) rounded out the top ten.

Top online retailers in ten key product categories, ranked by purchases and customer numbers in November, are below.

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What To Do About Web Advertising’s Total Lack Of Recall?

The column below, by John R. Burbank, CEO, Nielsen Online, was recently published in Adweek.

Want a firsthand lesson in the health of the Internet? Ask a friend a simple question: “What’s your favorite online ad?”

Chances are they’ll have a tough time giving an answer. Some may mention a dancing girl seducing you to refinance a mortgage; others may bring up one of the online executions of the Mac vs. PC television campaign.

But many people cannot recall any online advertising, despite all the time each of us spends on the Web and the thousands of ads we’ve all seen.

Why isn’t there more memorable advertising on the Web? The answer is multifaceted, but the bottom line is simple: While the Web is working fine for search and direct response advertisers (”What’s your credit score?”; “Rent from Netflix!”), it has yet to blossom for products that aren’t regularly searched for or purchased online.

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Most Buzzworthy Auto Brands Of 2008

By Julie Enzweiler, Nielsen Online

The automotive industry has witnessed an extremely volatile and game-changing 2008. With Ford, BMW, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen leading the way, here is a look at the top 25 automotive brands that consumers discussed online in 2008 relative to all online discussion.

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Trends With Byte: 2008 Blogosphere Buzz, By The Numbers

Online social network giants MySpace and Facebook battled for supremacy in 2008.  The trend lines below show the percentages of consumer-generated online discussions that mentioned each site between June and December:

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U.S. Consumer Trends: Looking Back At 2008; Ahead To 2009

Nielsen retail industry experts Jonathan Banks, Todd Hale, Tom Pirovano, James Russo, and Jean-Jacques Vandenheede review the key trends that defined the U.S. retail sector in 2008 – and offer their predictions for the new year.

2008: Staying In Is The New Going Out
Americans are spending more time in front of their computers and televisions. The reach and frequency of TV, Internet, and time shifted TV use increased notably in 2008, as consumers on tight budgets opted to save money by staying home. 

2008: Economizing Strategies Go Digital
In 2008, 20% of consumer discussions online referenced strategies for managing grocery budgets.  Visits to price comparison websites were also up significatnly this year. 

2008: Private Label Reigns Supreme 
As the economy worsened, consumers continued to shift dollar and unit spending to private label products.  The result: private label shares hit all time highs in both units and dollars at year’s end.  Private label dollar sales averaged about 10% growth in the five four-week periods near the end of the year.  Meanwhile, unit sales growth accelerated, averaging 4% to 5% growth.  In comparison, branded products saw 3% average dollar sales growth and 3% unit sales decline. 

2008: Value Trumps Variety, Convenience
“Value” categories and brands saw greater growth in 2008, compared to the previous year:
- Spam: dollar sales up 14% vs. year ago 
- Ramen Noodles: dollar sales up 30% vs. year ago
- Dry Pasta: dollar sales up 25% vs. year ago
- Bulk Rice: dollar sales up 38% vs. year ago
- Margarine: dollar sales up 21% vs. year ago
- Canned Vegetables: dollar sales up 9% vs. year ago
- Frozen Vegetables: dollar sales up 7% vs. year ago

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Social Media Comes Of Age: Blackshaw Reflects On Marketing And The Web In 2008

By Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen

2008 was a newsworthy — albeit, topsy-turvy — year for marketers and researchers. Importantly, social media evolved from experimental sideline to a mainstream attraction. Twitter saw huge growth rates, Barack Obama rewrote the rules of digital marketing, and user-engagement, and “service is marketing” Zappos.com re-wrote new rules for building brands and rewiring e-commerce. Facebook trended upward, MySpace held steady, and reputation-broker Wikipedia continued marching to the top of Google search results.

Brands like Tide used social media to squeeze extra value out of Super Bowl ads, and Comcast (full disclosure: a Nielsen client) parlayed service scorn into a fundamentally different service/engagement model (still a work in progress).

Fortified by corporate blogs and Twittter handles, dozens of other companies launched “social media” teams, while CEOs like Howard Schultz used CGM (e.g. MyStarbucksIdea.com) as the centerpiece of its turnaround strategy.

Retailers like Wal-Mart turbocharged their web platforms with user-reviews – many of which ironically challenged “green claims” of  featured products, while Facebook introduced “add water and stir” fan-sites that were often as inviting to activists as to brand loyalists.

Industry groups like the IAB created social media committees, the ARF put unstructured “listening” at the top of the 2008-09 agenda, and for the first time WOMMA managed to nab the likes of IBM, Kraft, Unilever, Intuit, Hershey’s, and other big fish at its annual conference — a “coming of age” for word-of-mouth marketing.

On a personal level, I somehow managed to crank out a book that I’m quite proud of, “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000″ (Doubleday), and I certainly hope it continues to inspire constructive conversation on issues and developments similar to the ones I outline below.

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Nov. 2008: U.S. News Sites See Post-Election Growth

According to Nielsen, in November, NYTimes.com was the top U.S.-based online newspaper site, while MSNBC Digital Network (MSNBC) was the top online current events and news destination, Editor & Publisher reported this week.

The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in November — a 10% increase over unique traffic to the site last November.

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Blackshaw: Media, Marketing Outlook For 2009

How might the media and marketing landscape change next year?  In his latest Ad Age column, Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Online Executive Vice President, ventures a few predictions.

1. Consumers Go On Social Media “Diets”
“[In 2008] we impulsively adopted everything from hastily assembled Facebook friends and Twitter followers to groups, apps and widgets, yet rarely revisited them.  In 2009, less may well become the new more,” Blackshaw notes.

2. Marketers Return To Media Basics
“TV will remain a focus because viewership in aggregate is actually going up, so continuing to understand how social media extends and enhances that experience (and sources content in reverse) will be mission critical,” Blackshaw writes.

3. Consumer Intimacy Returns
“2009 will also be the year we rediscover the appeal of living, breathing connections. Our industry research will find that real conversations with consumers, empathetically executed, can yield returns that trump the most sophisticated precision targeting,” Blackshaw notes.

4. Diversity Goes Mainstream
“Diversity will make a notable shift in marketing circles from a peripheral ‘nice to have’ to a ‘must have’ — and there will be a deeper recognition that getting this right is inseparable from competitive advantage.  Expect to see Hispanic marketing notch up to new levels and more nuanced discussion of other minority segments,” Blackshaw writes.

5. Conferences Get Downsized
“In 2009, it will be harder to justify attending industry conferences.  Budget pressure will depress participation and marketers will increasingly get comparable returns from online-enabled events, webinars, on-demand podcasting and iPhone downloads,” Blackshaw notes.

Read the rest of Pete Blackshaw’s 2009 media and marketing predictions in the December installment of his regular Ad Age column.

Tops In 2008: Best Selling Books, Audio Books

Nielsen has issued a year-end look at the most popular trends among Americans during 2008, covering everything from the top TV programs to the most popular consumer packaged goods.

William P. Young’s ”The Shack” was the top-selling fiction book through November 30.  

Among non-fiction books, “A New Earth,” by Eckhart Tolle was the top-seller.

The audio version of Tolle’s “A New Earth” was the top-selling audio book of the year.

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