Press Releases

Tis' the Season for Online Marketing

Coremetrics Industry Benchmark Reveals Increase in Marketing
Driven Traffic and Conversion Rates To Kick Off The Holiday Season -

San Mateo , Calif.—December 7, 2005—Coremetrics™, the leading provider of hosted Web analytics and precision marketing solutions, today released data revealing that online marketing campaigns have played a larger role than usual in driving shopper behavior early in the holiday season. According to LIVEmark Index data, the number of visits to retail sites driven by online marketing increased 33% from the week prior to Thanksgiving to the week after. In addition to driving more traffic through online marketing, the start of the holidays brought an increase in conversion rates but a decline in average order size for retailers leveraging heavy discounting this year. "When people shop for gifts during the holidays their purchasing behavior is different than it is during the rest of the year," said Joe Davis, president and CEO of Coremetrics. "This year merchants who have effectively leveraged online marketing to grab consumer attention have seen a big payoff in terms of site traffic and revenues."

LIVEmark data regarding online traffic shows that marketing sources, such as email, paid search, affiliate marketing, banner ads, and shopping comparison site placements, drove an increasing share of traffic to start the holidays for leading retailers. Data collected revealed that visits driven by marketing increased 13% from the week starting November 14 th to the week of the Thanksgiving holiday starting on November 21st . In the week after the holiday, starting on November 28th , marketing driven visits rose by 33% over the week prior to Thanksgiving. These gains in marketing driven traffic outpaced overall increases in site traffic resulting from holiday shopping of 9% and 24% respectively for the two weeks.

In addition to increased visits driven by marketing, retailers saw an increase in conversion rates and a decrease in average order value during this time, indicating that discounting may have accelerated purchases, but done so at a cost. In the week following Thanksgiving conversion rates for visits to leading retail sites rose more than 24% over the week prior to Thanksgiving, but average order size fell by 3.5% during the same time. On the balance, however, retailers came out ahead. The increased traffic and conversion rates resulted in an overall rise in revenues of 47% for the week following Thanksgiving when compared to the week prior to the holiday.

The LIVEmark Index is the industry's most comprehensive benchmark for eBusiness performance, providing critical comparison data for site-wide key performance indicators across more than 175 leading retail brands. LIVEmark participants gain a clear understanding of business performance relative to peers and competitors so they can effectively allocate marketing spend, anticipate industry threats and trends, and make strategic decisions about site marketing and merchandising efforts.

LIVEmark is generally available to the global online retail industry. Organizations who wish to access benchmark data must contribute site data to the LIVEmark Index. For more information, please call 877-721-CORE.

About Coremetrics
Coremetrics is the leading provider of on-demand Web analytics and precision marketing solutions, offering the industry's only Web analytics platform that captures and stores all customer and visitor clickstream activity to build LIVE (Lifetime Individual Visitor Experience) Profiles. Representing the single most accurate and comprehensive source of online customer data, LIVE Profiles serve as the foundation for all successful eBusiness initiatives. Leading online brands rely on Coremetrics LIVE Profiles to monitor and optimize the performance of multiple marketing campaigns, improve cross sell and multichannel initiatives, and precisely target customers through intelligent marketing campaigns. Coremetrics services more than 600 clients and has delivered over $300 million in documented ROI in the past two years. The company is privately held with funding from Accel Partners and Highland Capital Partners and is headquartered in San Mateo, California with offices in Austin, Texas and London, England. To learn more about Coremetrics, visit www.coremetrics.com or call 877-721-CORE.

Coremetrics has strongly supported online privacy since its inception. To learn more, visit www.coremetrics.com/privacy.

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Coremetrics is the trademark of Coremetrics, Inc. Any other marks used in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of the manufacturers or marketers of the products with which the marks are associated. Special thanks to Bruce Burkhalter for his contributions to LIVEmark.