December’s Ad Planner 1000 Shows Big Gains for Greeting Card, Consumer Electronics and Weather Sites

The end of the year and holiday season made their mark on trends in this December’s Ad Planner 1000. Check back each month for the latest list of the top 1,000 global sites on the web by unique users as measured by DoubleClick Ad Planner.

Holiday greetings went digital in December as a number of online card and greeting sites saw sizeable increases in traffic to their sites. The site 123greetings.com went up 79% from November to December in terms of unique users to their site. Other sites found their way into the Top 1000 thanks to the holidays: jibjab.com (#207), jacquielawson.com (#456), and myfuncards.com (#763).

But perhaps sending a virtual greeting wasn’t enough so many flocked to Skype as a way to reach out to loved ones during the holidays. Skype.com experienced a 32% surge in visitors to their site during the month of December.

And judging by the popularity of consumer electronic sites and retail sites in this month’s AP 1000, many people are receiving gadgets and books as Christmas gifts. Online book retailer, barnesandnoble.com saw a 24% increase of unique users to their site while amazon.com went up 10% in their site traffic from November. Consumer electronic sites, samsung.com (+23%), apple.com (+11%) and logitech.com (+11%), all saw significant increases as well.

No surprise then that shipping companies witnessed notable increases in their site traffic as well in the month of December. The United States postal service site, usps.com, went up 33%, ups.com and fedex.com increase visitors to their site 31% and 22% respectively. That trend was reflected in Japan, as the national postal service site, japanpost.jp increased 20% in the number of visitors from the prior month.

Another trend observed in December was an upsurge of interest in weather-related sites. As storms impacted most of North America in the month of December, it’s no surprise that people went online to check the latest weather conditions: wunderground.com (+38%), accuweather.com (+33%) and weather.com (+22%).

Interested in what January has in store for the top 1,000 global sites? We’ll return with the latest trends in the AP 1000 when January’s data becomes available next month.

Posted by Alex Lin, Product Specialist

Bringing Rich Media to Mobile with HTML5

Today, DoubleClick Rich Media makes interactive, video-rich advertisements for the mobile web possible with added support in DoubleClick Studio for HTML5. Traditionally, the core assets that rich media ads are based on have been developed using Adobe Flash. Now, with support for ads developed to the HTML5 web standard, creative agencies can manage rich media ads for the mobile web in DoubleClick Studio, right alongside the Flash-based ads that they are already managing.

HTML5 makes it possible to improve ad engagement levels among the growing number of people who browse the web from devices that don’t have Flash, such as Apple iOS devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and all Android devices without Flash installed. With continuous growth in mobile web-enabled devices, advertisers need a way to captivate and engage with mobile audiences. This release makes that possible.

If you’re interested in seeing impactful creative units on the mobile web for campaigns you’re involved with, download our information sheet. Then contact a DoubleClick Rich Media account manager or fill out the form here.

This is just one small piece of Google’s overall approach to mobile advertising. To stay abreast of all of Google’s innovations in mobile advertising, visit the Google Mobile Ads blog and Google Mobile Ads site.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager