After reading a post by the always insightful John Zappe claiming that both Monster and CareerBuilder traffic had actually dipped after their Super Bowl ads, I felt compelled to do my own Sherlock Holmes imitation. It just didn’t sound right, I guess.
Zappe featured Compete.com data, a free traffic data site, which said “Service-based advertisers such as Monster, CareerBuilder, Cars.com, and E-trade actually saw notable declines in site reach on the day of the game.” Checkout the Compete report here. Zappe also cites Alexa data showing similar downturns.
I headed over to Quantcast to see their data, which doesn’t yet reflect Feb. numbers, but is telling:
You can see both sites saw an uptick with CareerBuilder outperforming Trumpasaurus heading into Feb., which could arguably be a byproduct of pre-game ad buzz. Well, time to go to Hitwise for a more complete picture, which most agree is superior to all the free offerings like Compete and Quantcast.
According to Hitwise, “CareerBuilder was the most visited Web site among all of the Super Bowl advertisers.” So, not only did they eat Monster’s lunch, but everyone else’s as well.
CareerBuilder’s success isn’t the TV ad’s alone. Following the big game, ads began showing up on Facebook which tied into the game and a trip to the CareerBuilder homepage was met with a huge video of their commercial. I failed to see such creativity from Monster that supported their ad.
Popularity: 5% [?]
February 11th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Don’t you just love Internet numerology! In no field of mathematics can utterly contradictory results be equally accurate. But count Internet traffic and everyone can find something to love. Then add the inevitable PR spin and you get something akin to saying the Pittsburgh Steelers came in second from last in the Super Bowl.
So who’s on first in the great CareerBuilder vs. Monster Super Bowl Traffic Smackdown? The short answer is: We don’t know. The lawyerly answer is: It depends.
The numbers in Cheesman’s story are for Monday, the day after the Super Bowl. The numbers in my story (http://www.ere.net/2009/02/09/what-do-you-get-for-100k-a-second-a-drop-in-traffic/#more-6206)are for game day, a Sunday.
But even if they were for the same day, they measure different things. Compete reported the CHANGE in reach for CareerBuilder and Monster from the daily average of the previous week. The Hitwise chart above shows the gross market share. Nothing new there. CareerBuilder surpassed Monster some time ago in traffic.
But Hitwise did release a list of the top 10 changes in website traffic on Super Bowl Sunday and neither Monster nor CareerBuilder made the list. (See: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2009/02/online_impact_of_super_bowl_ad.html)
And about that quote in the story attributed to Hitwise. The blog entry from which that came actually said: “On Monday, when the websites of the Super Bowl advertisers are ranked by the overall market share of visits, CareerBuilder and H&R Block were the most visited websites. Timing is also a factor for the ranking of both websites (as well as for 4th ranked Monster.com) with a large number of job seekers out in the market and tax season just underway.”
So, pick a number, any number.
BTW, I completely agree with your observation, Joel, that I am “the always insightful John Zappe.”
February 11th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Stats can be repositioned in many ways, the below link shows Monster well ahead of careerbuilder.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/monster.com+careerbuilder.com/?metric=uv
February 12th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Shows Monster 35 million a month to CB 18 million
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/monster.com+careerbuilder.com/?metric=uv
February 13th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Who cares about game day? Nobody is honestly going to jump up from their lazy boy and start searching for a job on Monster, CareerBuilder, or anywhere else for that matter. What does matter is the following days and weeks. Any marketer will tell you that consumers are desensitized, but if you can tie together the #1 medium TV to the #2 medium Internet I think that’s a winner. Which is what Cheesman was saying CareerBuilder did, which may have contributed to a bigger boost in traffic.
Traffic can be manipulated, but all you really have to do is just take a look at where they get stats from, when they pulled the stats, and what measurement they are using. Did anyone take stats in college?
February 13th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Hey “Stats are misleading.” If you are going to voice your opinion on an educated recruitment forum such as this, then get your “stats” straight first. Otherwise you end up getting told off by people like me!! The graph you referenced speaks of Monster.com which equates to it’s WORLD WIDE performance. On a World Wide scale you are correct and Monster traffic beats out CareerBuilder.com hands down. But we aren’t debating that! We are talking about localized N. American Traffic!
If you are going to speak up again, please double check to make sure you know what you are talking about!
February 15th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Easy there Thetruthspeaks, it’s a blog site, that’s all