As expected, John Kerry's selection of North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his running mate boosted traffic to JohnKerry.com. Preliminary data from comScore Networks shows that more than 200,000
Americans visited the presidential hopeful's site on July 6, an increase of more than 350 percent.
According to comScore analyst Graham Mudd, the increase was largely driven by Kerry's selection
of Edwards, as well as an email campaign announcement, which was sent to over one million registered supporters.
Running nearly neck-in-neck in offline polls, George W. Bush and John Kerry are
also closely matched in terms of the monthly uniques each have attracted to their respective sites, although traffic patterns have vacillated noticeably. While JohnKerry.com attracted 1.7 million
unique visitors in April versus GeorgeWBush.com's 1.1 million, in May Kerry's traffic fell to 1.25 million uniques, versus Bush's 1.36 million.
June's figures are likely to shift even more, as
traffic to GeorgeWBush.com soared from 206,000 for the week ending June 20 to 753,000 for the week ending June 27--drawing more weekly visitors for that week than either campaign site has seen during
any week in 2004. JohnKerry.com traffic only showed a modest increase of 33,000 for the same week.
However, Kerry's selection of Edwards as his running mate suggests that traffic patterns will
continue to fluctuate for the month of July. comScore's Mudd says that the traffic increases and decreases are "largely driven" by online promotions, email campaigns, and political events that have
happened offline.
Mudd notes that the candidates' campaign sites are primarily geared toward people who already know who they are going to vote for. "People who visit these sites are inherently
more politically involved," he says.
Other comScore data reveals that 30 percent of people who have visited a presidential campaign site have become more active as a result, whether it's through
spreading campaign news to peers, volunteering, or donating money. "One of the most important goals [of a campaign site] is to stir up people to drive word of mouth," Mudd says.
Mudd notes that
email campaign promotions have probably had an effect on the campaign swings. "The weekly swings are probably a function of that type of marketing," he says, but is quick to add that he would be
"wary of using Web traffic as a broad indicator" of the overall presidential campaign climate, as online is just "one tool in [the candidates'] arsenal."