The Ad:Tech show kicked off a few hours ago in San Francisco and it looks like the online advertising community is here in full force. According to the preliminary stats, more than 2,200 people
registered to attend the event, not including about 90 exhibitors and more than 140 speakers.
At this point, the show is just getting started, but I can already tell that this is going to
be a good one if only judging by the buzz in the air and the fact that the number of attendees rivals that of Ad:Tech's west coast shows in 1999, when it attracted 2,189 people and 2000, when 2,681
came to celebrate the height of the dot-com boom.
I have to hand it to the show organizers, who've packed the program full of case studies and plan to send attendees home armed with some
actionable information. I'll get the full first day's proceedings to you tomorrow.
In the meantime, another set of stats from Nielsen//NetRatings. The statsmasters report that special
fare sales boosted traffic to airline sites during the week ending June 8th. Several airlines announced similar 'Fly Three, Get One Free' type promotions last week, driving double-digit traffic to
airline sites.
Traffic from work to United Airlines jumped 54% to more than 1.1 million unique surfers. Top pages for the site revealed surfers registering for the special promotion. Ranking as
the second fastest growing airline site, Northwest Airlines, with the same promotion, drew 587,000 surfers, increasing 35% week-over-week. American Airlines and U.S. Airways also offered the special,
jumping 33% and 19%, respectively. The ripple effect of the promotions affected sites including JetBlue Airways, which rounded out the top five fastest growing airlines sites with their online fare
promotions.
Additionally, Marthatalks.com, Martha Stewart's personal Web site, attracted 351,000 unique visitors at work during the week ending June 8, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. The
site launched a few hours after her indictment offering surfers Stewart's personal comments and other legal statements. Additionally, the online shopping site, Marthastewart.com, rose 31% at home to
240,000 unique visitors.