Performance-Based Advertising Blog 
Rich Howe Sends Holiday Greetings...Through His Elves in Song!
Every year, our CEO and President Rich Howe likes to send around a holiday message to the team. This year was no different, however this year he recruited his elves, err, management team, to sing his merry wishes!
Well, maybe "recruited" is not the right word, or "sing", but check out our very own Jeremy Chrysler, Craig Dillon, Wally Ruiz,, Loren Wilson and Trey Barrett wishing you a very happy holiday season! It should make you smile, that is for sure!
Watch the Inuvo crew wish you a happy holiday!
Cyber Monday Stays Strong
On Monday we predicted that Black Friday might end up being a bigger day for online shopping than Cyber Monday for our sample population of over 10,000 active shoppers using the Alot Rewards app and other BargainMatch powered apps.
We were wrong.
While traffic in the early morning on Black Friday was significantly higher than on Cyber Monday, Monday traffic surged as folks got into work and exploded as they got home and raced to get last second deals.
Top Stores
The top five merchants we measure (we don’t currently include eBay and Amazon) were the same on both days. None of the top stores was online only and all but Apple saw increases from Friday to Monday. Apple pulled out all the stops on Friday, offering deals on products like the iPad that were only available that day. Their Black Friday sales were reportedly off the charts, blowing through their forecasts by 7 pm, so we probably shouldn’t feel too bad for them.
The Big Winners
Not surprisingly, several of the biggest gainers on Cyber Monday were online only stores like Overstock, Dell and QVC. We were tickled that Victoria’s Secret saw a surge in traffic once people got back to work…imagine that!
On a hunch, we looked at Victoria's Secret activity on Tuesday, the night of their big fashion show. We noticed a bulge of traffic around the time of the program, as well as a little late night activity that we can't quite account for (though admittedly the data sample is too small for this to mean anything, we couldn't resist sharing):
The Big Losers
This batch was perhaps the most surprising to us. Tiger Direct and Newegg are very popular (mostly) online retailers so we would have expected them to increase not decrease. Both did run very aggressive campaigns for Black Friday, but the tie that binds the bottom five (of the top 25 merchants we monitor) seems to be the dude factor..gadgets, hardware, electronics and games. If you have a better explanation for it, we’d love to hear it.
So, although we might have been too excited suggeting that Black Friday would overtake Cyber Monday, it is amazing to see how consumers are flocking to the online stores earlier and earlier, during typical Thanksgiving day activities. Will be interesting to see what the numbers tell us next year...
Interesting findings on your end around Black Friday and Cyber Monday trends? Let us know about them!
Is Thanksgiving the New Black Friday?
As America’s economy continues to suffer meager growth, retailers are doing everything they can to capture consumer dollars as soon as possible. Despite outcry from both consumers and employees, retailers opened their doors for Black Friday even earlier this year. Wal-Mart, for example, ran aggressive ad campaigns all last week letting consumers know that Black Friday deals start at 10pm on Thursday. Toys R Us began deals even earlier, at 9pm on Thanksgiving.
But are these early opening times just marketing gimmicks or are we seeing a substantial shift in consumer behavior towards a more commercial Thanksgiving?
To come up with some answers, we examined anonymous online shopping behavior from over 10,000 consumers (primarily users of ALOT Rewards application, powered by our BargainMatch service to see. These users have downloaded our cash back application(s) in order to get better deals and cash back at over 1,900 top online merchants.
Based on our data, Thanksgiving has indeed become a major online shopping day. It may not be Black Thursday yet, but it’s looking to be at least Golden Brown.
While other reports from comScore and the like have focused on estimates of gross sales, we’ll be sharing normalized hourly consumer shopping activity (mainly clicks to merchants since actual purchase reporting lags a bit). While estimated gross sales data is interesting at a macro level, the hourly data paints a more colorful picture of exactly how American consumers are behaving online during a family holiday weekend.
What’s a Normal Day?
Before we get into what we saw on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, we thought it would be helpful to show you what a “normal” day looks like. Below is an hourly plot of typical shopping activity. I know this chart is incredibly boring, but bear with me.
Starting at Midnight ET, we see a significant fall off in activity as the West coast folks go to sleep. Next we see a significant ramp up at 10 am ET as people get into work . That increase in traffic peaks at 4 ET and starts to fall off. We see a slight after-dinner rebound, followed by a significant fall-off as the evening progresses.
Thanksgiving was different.
So What about Thanksgiving?
From an internet traffic standpoint, holidays are usually quite low relative to normal days. After all, people are spending time with their families, sleeping in, watching parades, etc. So we expected that Thanksgiving would actually be lower than a normal day. But it wasn’t.
Here’s what we saw on Thanksgiving:
You can see that the shopping rush really started Wednesday night – people got off work and started doing their research, visiting stores, and in some cases, making purchases.
As Thanksgiving morning set in, people woke up early and opened up their computers to shop. Mid-morning, the duties of the holiday set in.
People started eating. They kept eating / dropping into food comas for about six hours, whereupon the tryptophan worked its way out of their systems, and they got online.
After about 5pm, when online shopping activity should have been dying down, it ramped up.
Black Friday had begun.
So How Big was Black Friday?
comScore estimated that Black Friday represented the biggest online shopping day of the year. We saw nothing to counter that claim in our data. It started strong and more or less maintained its momentum. Here’s the same chart as the above with Black Friday traffic included.
The morning was huge, and the increased volume held throughout the day. There are a couple of interesting spikes here. First, there’s a bump around 4:00am ET. That’s unheard of – no one is up that early…except the doorbuster crowd. People got online to check deals BEFORE they went out to stores.
There was another afternoon lull as the online shoppers decided to venture out and see what deals could be had offline, but you can see that a group of users ramped up again around 8:00pm ET to shop one last time. Black Friday ended the day lower than Thanksgiving did.
We’ll continue to follow this online shopping behavior for the rest of the holiday season, but we were surprised to see such a ramp on Thanksgiving this year.
What’s Next?
Later this week we’ll be comparing Cyber Monday to the Black Friday numbers. Historically Monday’s online sales have been larger, as users shop offline over the holiday weekend and online when they get back to work.
Cash for Flowers, Cookies and More Holiday Goodies!
Making your list of those special folks in your life that may need some holiday goodies in the coming weeks? Make sure you are finding all the available coupons and earning cash back on every purchae you make from some of the finest gift vendors around! Check out the savings below!
Want to ensure you don't miss another opportunity to earn cash back? Install the BargainMatch Browser Extension, and you will always know what sites offer cash back, as you shop! Read up on how easy it is to shop and save!
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6% Cash Back |
6% Cash Back |
5% Cash Back |
9% Cash Back |
Smile! Get cash back on your holiday greeting cards!
Got your family picture done and address list updated? Before you get those holiday greeting cards printed, did you know that just by shopping through BargainMatch.com you can earn cash back on that purchase?
Many of your favorite greeting card sites are here on BargainMatch.com, and the cash is just waiting on you! Here are just a few:
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8% Cash Back |
8% Cash Back |
2% Cash Back |
6% Cash Back |
Remember, install the BargainMatch Browser Extension, and you will always know what sites offer cash back, as you shop! Read up on how easy it is to shop and save!
Say cheese, and earn cash back today!
‘Tis the Season for Travel
The cost of travel can definitely be very high, especially around the holidays. The good news is BargainMatch can help.
Did you know that BargainMatch actually has several travel websites that will offer cash back to you? So you can book your travel plans, and save a little money while doing so! Here are just a few of the various retailers that offer cash back this holiday season.
Priceline.com is the leading travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers with over 10 years experience negotiating travel deals. Travelers can browse low everyday published prices or take advantage of Priceline's exclusive Name Your Own Price service for the greatest savings. Save up to 50% off hotels, up to 40% off flights, up to 40% off rental cars, and up to $500 off vacation packages. Plus, cruises, last-minute deals, and limited-time PriceBreakers specials. All backed by Priceline's best price guarantee!
HotelsCombined.com has been around since 2005 and is a world-leading provider of hotel comparison services. They combine hotel pricing and information from 35 of the world's leading hotel reservation sites. They have 200,000 hotels and apartments in 225 countries and you can also view the information in almost any currency and 24 languages.
Hotels.com is a recognized hotel expert and leading provider of lodging worldwide. Hotels.com gives travelers one of the widest selections of lodging accommodations from traditional hotels to vacation rentals at more than 35,000 properties worldwide. Hotels.com offers a one-stop shopping source for hotel pricing, amenities and availability and also specializes in providing travelers with accommodations during sold-out periods. Hotels.com makes planning and booking a trip easy for leisure and business travel. Hotels.com know the hotel experience is an important part of your trip so hotels.com offers travelers the information they need to book the perfect trip all backed by their Lowest Prices Guarantee!
HotelClub is a world leading global accommodation website offering hotel and accommodation bookings for up to 12 months in advance. Established in 1996, HotelClub provides consumers with over 48,000 accommodation choices in over 5,600 cities worldwide throughout 126 countries.
Save on flights, hotels, car rentals and more with Hotwire.com!
Garmin International is the global leader in satellite navigation. Since 1989, Garmin has designed, manufactured, marketed and sold navigation, communication and information devices and applications, most of which are enabled by GPS technology.
GO Airlink NYC is one of the leading airport transportation companies in New York City. They offer affordable, on time, and safe ground transportation services throughout New York City and the LaGuardia, and Newark Airports and hotels, residences, and businesses between Battery Park and 125th Street.
Since 1978, Select-A-Ticket has been providing their clients with the best service and the lowest ticket prices. That's over 30 years of buying & selling tickets. Broadway, Concerts, Sports and Family Events - if you need tickets, Select-A-Ticket has them!
TripAdvisor is the world’s most popular, largest, and most trusted travel community. They provide a comprehensive travel planning experience. Not only do they have 30+ million real traveler reviews, they power a robust flights search engine, hotel compare and check rates search, vacation rental search, in addition to restaurant ratings and reviews, worldwide.
Flight Network is a BBB certified online travel agency has been in operation since 1998. Flight Network allows travel booking online 24/7. Flight Network offers deep discount airfares, hotels and car rentals with departures from many gateways.
CruiseDirect is a leading online cruise travel company dedicated to providing its customers with access to great deals on cruise vacations. They work with the industry's leading suppliers, and that gives them access to special rates that they turn into big savings for you.
There are over 5,000 Choice Hotels worldwide comprised of ten midscale and economy brands. Choice Hotels is the worldwide franchisor of: Cambria Suites, Quality, Clarion, Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Sleep Inn, MainStay Suites, Suburban Extended Stay Hotels, Econo Lodge and Rodeway Inn.
Enhanced Search Now Available on BargainMatch.com!
The BargainMatch Team is at it again! This time they didn’t just add in even more awesome stores (about 200 new ones) to earn cash back from; they even took the site a step further. Now, instead of just being able to search for a product, you can also search for a store by name.
Did you know that BargainMatch.com is now home to over 1,900 participating stores? That’s crazy! The BargainMatch Team wants you to be able to get to the stores you love the most with no hassles. Before there was just page after page of stores listed alphabetically but now you can just type in a store name, click, and you are taken to the store’s page on BargainMatch.com. There you can view their cash back contribution and any available coupons.
Just start typing and you will see the possible results start showing up below the search box. You may not even need to type the full word in order to find your result. Take a look at this in action when I searched for Target.
I start typing “Target” and as soon as I get to the second letter I’m already seeing some possible results.
Voila! I only had to type in four letters and already I see Target as my result! Glad to see I will get 3% cash back, now pardon me but I have some shopping to do.
This is also now available for all of our clients. Have a website and interested in having your own cash back portal? Check out what BargainMatch has to offer!
September 2011 Inuvo Employee Spotlight: Doug O'Dowd
For the month of September 2001 Inuvo is putting Doug O'Dowd, VP and Controller. I'll give you five guesses on his heritage. Once you are done guessing, take a moment to read about him and his role here at Inuvo and drop him a line at doug [dot] odowd [at] inuvo [dot] com.
Inuvo: Hello Doug! Please, tell us a bit about yourself.
Doug: I was born in Des Plaines, Illinois and moved in to Clearwater in 1967 (so I consider myself a true Floridian at heart). I am the youngest of four siblings and, of course, the best looking. I went to the University of Florida where I got both my Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Accounting.
Inuvo: What is your professional background?
Doug: I started with Deloitte Haskins and Sells (now Deloitte) in Tampa and worked with them for 6 years. After I left them, I have been Controller, CFO and VP of finance for several companies in the Tampa area and in Atlanta.
Inuvo: Any exciting projects you are working on?
A Revenue and Key Performance Indicator (“KPI”) dashboard with my group. This dashboard will give operations and executive management the ability to forecast performance and adjust resources as needed.
Inuvo: What are your goals for September?
Doug: Actually, my goals go beyond September. I look at the Finance department as an integral part of the team that supports operational decisions through timely feedback of financial information and effectively protects our assets. So my goal is to ensure we have a solid team that interacts with the other employees at Inuvo and continually finds solutions to any inefficiency we come across.
Inuvo: What are your goals for yourself and Inuvo?
Doug: My goal for myself and Inuvo are the same in many respects – to grow the business so that my role can expand into new endeavors.
Inuvo: What aspect of your role do you enjoy the most?
Doug: Interacting with operational people and trying to solve issues. Bringing creativity and expertise to the mix is fun too!
Inuvo: What are your favorite websites?
Doug: Yahoo! (where I do all my searching) and CeceliasWines.com, which is a great plug for my wife’s web site.
Inuvo: When you are not at work, what would we be most likely to find you doing?
Doug: Reading non-fiction books (Adams, The Path Between the Seas, An American Lion, Team of Rivals, etc.) and hanging out with my wife and two boys. My wife and I enjoy traveling and after 9 years of owning a wine and beer store, we still enjoy the atmosphere of having good wine with food and friends.
Introducing Kowabunga: More Deals, More Places!
Kowabunga (www.kowabunga.com) is our new daily deals website with a name you’ve definitely heard before! Offering consumers more deals in more locations, we are currently serving 52 markets and will be adding many more in soon. Not only will we have our own Kowabunga exclusive deals, we have pulled in the best deals from some of the top deal sites in the industry---all in one place!
Why daily deals?
- Your City - Daily deals are a great way for consumers to broaden their horizons by trying new places and activities around town without spending an arm and a leg.
- Gifts – Give a deal as a gift or buy a gift with a one the deals you find!
- Vacation – What better way to explore a new city than cashing in a bunch of deals on food, stores, and fun!
Because we know affiliates and what they want, Kowabunga is also excited about the launch of its affiliate program. Simplify your deal promotion efforts with accessing all the best deals from one source. Interested in finding out more? Read up on the Kowabunga Affiliate Program or affiliates [at] kowabunga [dot] com (contact us) at affiliates [at] kowabunga [dot] com (affiliates [at] kowabunga [dot] com.)
Visit www.kowabunga.com now and make sure to sign up to have daily deals emailed to you!
Inuvo's August Employee Spotlight: Ray Nichols!
For the month of August, we are spotlighting Ray Nichols, Director of Development. Read on to learn more about Ray and drop him a line at Ray [dot] Nichols [at] Inuvo [dot] com. If you have any questions for him, feel free to ask in the comments below this Q&A!
Inuvo: Hello Ray, please tell us a bit about yourself:
I was born in Harrisburg, PA and spent my elementary school years in Pittsburgh. GO STEELERS! My family then moved to Tampa… 30 years later, I’m still here and love it. After 7 years in Gainesville at the University of Florida, I completed my Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering (No, I’m not a doctor; Gator football was just too good and I knew what came after college). Now I live with my absolutely wonderful girlfriend Kelly and our kids Tristan (12) and Samantha (8). Did I mention I LOVE football?
Inuvo: What is your professional background?
I scratched the entrepreneurial itch early and owned two lawn and landscaping businesses throughout high school and college. After school, my IT career started as a consultant focused on data warehousing. My technical background continued with a primary focus on database design, administration and development. After 10 years as a technician I moved into management.
Inuvo: Any exciting projects you are working on?
Absolutely. Kidzadu has been a focus for some time now and will continue to be. The model is still in its infancy and I’m excited to see it mature.
Inuvo: What are your goals for August?
Exercise patience. With a newborn at work, two kids at home and football season so close but yet so far … patience is the word for August.
Inuvo: What are your goals for yourself and Inuvo?
- Learn something from every person here.
- Enable people and help us reach our potential.
Inuvo: What aspect of your role do you enjoy the most?
I truly enjoy interacting with the team. We have an A+ team and its fun to share ideas and see them show their stuff.
Inuvo: What are your favorite websites?
Kidzadu.com, BargainMatch.com and upcoming daily deals site, Kowabunga.
Inuvo: When you are not at work, what would we be most likely to find you doing?
In the yard, at Home Depot, at Lowes, holding a power tool or watching football.
