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Just an Online Minute... Traffic To Auto Sites Spikes

It's the calm before the storm in the online universe. The Ad:Tech show starts on Monday in San Francisco and promises to kick off with numerous announcements of online companies launching new products, unveiling new research and giving all of us in the industry new topics to debate for months to come. Before I fly off to the City by the Bay with my reporter hat and hip waders on to slosh through the new and interesting happenings of the Internet, I have good news for online auto automotive marketers.

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that the automotive category experienced a 24% increase during the week ending June 1st, attracting nearly eight million surfers from home.

"The stock market's recent rally and more stability in the Middle East may be drawing consumers back to big-ticket items, like automobiles," said Patrick Thomas, senior Internet analyst at NetRatings. "Ongoing dealer incentives, such as zero percent financing and cash back rebates as well as clearance sales for 2003 models, provide consumers with additional reasons to make a purchase."

Traffic from home to MSN Auto jumped 75% to more than one million unique visitors, as compared to 603,000 visitors during the previous week. Forty-one percent of the audience traffic accessed the MSN Autos Window Shopping Page, where readers were able to view top selling vehicles. Honda's website, garnered 382,000 surfers from home, representing an increase of 61% during the week ending June 1st, while Cars.com attracted 58% more surfers from home.

Rounding out the top five, traffic to Autobytel and Kelley Blue Book surged 44 and 42%, respectively. Forty-seven percent of Autobytel surfers visited the 'Select a Vehicle' page, where surfers stated the intent to purchase in the next 30 days, chose their desired vehicles and provided contact information for local dealers to take advantage of no-haggle pricing.

Elsewhere on the web, traffic to various loan sites have been on the rise as interest rates continue to fall, according to NetRatings. Lendingtree.com spiked 57% at home for the week ending June 1st with nearly half of the site's 339,000 unique visitors requesting a refinance mortgage quote. Traffic to Bankrate.com jumped 27% to 422,000 unique visitors. Twelve percent of its audience visited the refinance page where users can obtain the latest rates for any state.

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