Atlas Annual Online Holiday Shopping Study Reveals Consumer Behavior and Marketer Insights for Six IndustriesIn its 6th Annual O

  
    
  
  
    
      Mondays and Tuesdays remain the busiest online shopping days during the 
      holiday season, showing 25 percent greater activity than the rest of the 
      week, yet consumer holiday shopping behavior differs greatly by 
      industry, according to the 6th Annual Atlas 
      Holiday Shopping Report released today. Atlas (www.AtlasSolutions.com), 
      a leading provider of digital marketing technologies and an operating 
      unit of aQuantive, Inc. (NASDAQ:AQNT), also predicts the busiest online 
      holiday shopping day will be Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006.
    
    
      For the first time, Atlas also reports online holiday patterns specific 
      to six industries: retail, travel, insurance, finance, wireless (phones, 
      etc.) and dating.
    
    
      “The maturity of the online shopping channel 
      continues to change when and how consumers shop, revealing compelling 
      insights for holiday marketers,” said John 
      Chandler-Pepelnjak, report author and principal analyst for Atlas. “The 
      day after Thanksgiving is no longer the single defining sales moment for 
      marketers.”
    
    
      According to the report, “It is surprising to 
      see such elevated activity on Tuesday, a departure from previous years. 
      Mondays have historically been unassailable as the busiest online day of 
      the week during the holidays.”
    
    
      Atlas findings and marketing insights include:
    
    
      
        Tuesday, Dec. 13 was the busiest online shopping day of the 2005-2006 
        holiday shopping season, with shopping activity 51 percent above the 
        average for the time period. Atlas predicts that the pull of 
        procrastination (moving the date closer to Christmas) and the push of 
        the fear of shipping delays will result in Tuesday, Dec. 12 being the 
        peak online shopping day in 2006. Once again, procrastination will 
        move the peak day to Tuesday instead of Monday, which held the busiest 
        spot from 2002 through 2004.
      
      
        Consumers demonstrated an increasing willingness to push the shipping 
        envelope with spiked consumer transactions through the work week 
        before Christmas (week of December 19, 2005). In 2005, Atlas 
        discovered there was 40 percent more online shopping activity the week 
        before Christmas than in the previous year.
      
      
        Advertisers that have only an online presence experience a greater 
        online “holiday rush” 
        than those with both online and offline channels -- a sensible trend 
        given that all traffic must flow through the Web for the pure plays.
      
      
        Advertisers with an offline presence had higher online activity on 
        Mondays and Tuesdays than did the online pure plays. This result 
        reinforces the Atlas hypothesis that early-week activity is caused by 
        consumers shopping in stores on weekends and then turning online at 
        the beginning of the week to order or comparison shop.
      
      
        Clicks on paid search keywords are similar to transaction behavior, 
        although pre-holiday peaks are less pronounced. Most clicks occur 
        during the workday and workweek. Marketers should expect to bid more 
        for keywords during these peak times and should carefully analyze 
        their results to ensure that the increased click volume is worth the 
        cost.
      
      
        New this year, Atlas split its 115 clients into the following groups: 
        retail, travel, insurance, finance, cellular and dating. Atlas advises 
        that retailers can decrease their online advertising spend entering 
        the week before Christmas, when dating advertisers should increase 
        their spend. Travel advertisers should ramp spend in the two weeks 
        after Christmas while insurance advertisers should intensify their 
        online budget during January. (See the study for the chart tracking 
        volume by industry, during the holidays.)
      
    
    
      Atlas analyzed anonymous online shopping and transaction data from 
      November 21, 2005 to January 31, 2006. The data represent more than a 
      quarter of a trillion impressions and hundreds of millions transactions 
      across 115 companies (including 24 retailers) whose online campaigns are 
      managed using the Atlas Digital Marketing Suite. The measure of activity 
      is an index, where a value of 100 indicates a day that had average 
      shopping activity for the six-month period from September 2005 through 
      February 2006. The 2005-2006 Atlas Holiday Shopping Report is available 
      at http://www.atlassolutions.com/institute/insights.aspx#holiday
    
    
      About Atlas 
    
    
      Atlas www.AtlasSolutions.com 
      is a provider of digital marketing technologies and expertise. Atlas 
      offers agencies and marketers integrated solutions for online ad 
      campaign management, in-stream video, rich media, search marketing, 
      landing page optimization, reporting, and analysis to maximize their 
      online ROI, and provides a highly scalable ad-serving platform to help 
      online publishers increase revenue. Atlas delivers the industry's most 
      complete service and support, serving its clients from offices in 
      Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Denver and London. Atlas, an operating 
      unit of aQuantive, Inc. (NASDAQ: AQNT), is a member of the NAI, adhering 
      to the NAI privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC, and 
      is the first third-party ad server to complete the auditing process and 
      achieve ad measurement accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC).
    
  
Mondays and Tuesdays remain the busiest online shopping days
during the holiday season, showing 25 percent greater activity than
the rest of the week, yet consumer holiday shopping behavior differs
greatly by industry, according to the 6th Annual Atlas Holiday
Shopping Report released today. Atlas (www.AtlasSolutions.com), a
leading provider of digital marketing technologies and an operating
unit of aQuantive, Inc. (NASDAQ:AQNT), also predicts the busiest
online holiday shopping day will be Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006.

   For the first time, Atlas also reports online holiday patterns
specific to six industries: retail, travel, insurance, finance,
wireless (phones, etc.) and dating.

   "The maturity of the online shopping channel continues to change
when and how consumers shop, revealing compelling insights for holiday
marketers," said John Chandler-Pepelnjak, report author and principal
analyst for Atlas. "The day after Thanksgiving is no longer the single
defining sales moment for marketers."

   According to the report, "It is surprising to see such elevated
activity on Tuesday, a departure from previous years. Mondays have
historically been unassailable as the busiest online day of the week
during the holidays."

   Atlas findings and marketing insights include:

   --  Tuesday, Dec. 13 was the busiest online shopping day of the
        2005-2006 holiday shopping season, with shopping activity 51
        percent above the average for the time period. Atlas predicts
        that the pull of procrastination (moving the date closer to
        Christmas) and the push of the fear of shipping delays will
        result in Tuesday, Dec. 12 being the peak online shopping day
        in 2006. Once again, procrastination will move the peak day to
        Tuesday instead of Monday, which held the busiest spot from
        2002 through 2004.

   --  Consumers demonstrated an increasing willingness to push the
        shipping envelope with spiked consumer transactions through
        the work week before Christmas (week of December 19, 2005). In
        2005, Atlas discovered there was 40 percent more online
        shopping activity the week before Christmas than in the
        previous year.

   --  Advertisers that have only an online presence experience a
        greater online "holiday rush" than those with both online and
        offline channels -- a sensible trend given that all traffic
        must flow through the Web for the pure plays.

   --  Advertisers with an offline presence had higher online
        activity on Mondays and Tuesdays than did the online pure
        plays. This result reinforces the Atlas hypothesis that
        early-week activity is caused by consumers shopping in stores
        on weekends and then turning online at the beginning of the
        week to order or comparison shop.

   --  Clicks on paid search keywords are similar to transaction
        behavior, although pre-holiday peaks are less pronounced. Most
        clicks occur during the workday and workweek. Marketers should
        expect to bid more for keywords during these peak times and
        should carefully analyze their results to ensure that the
        increased click volume is worth the cost.

   --  New this year, Atlas split its 115 clients into the following
        groups: retail, travel, insurance, finance, cellular and
        dating. Atlas advises that retailers can decrease their online
        advertising spend entering the week before Christmas, when
        dating advertisers should increase their spend. Travel
        advertisers should ramp spend in the two weeks after Christmas
        while insurance advertisers should intensify their online
        budget during January. (See the study for the chart tracking
        volume by industry, during the holidays.)

   Atlas analyzed anonymous online shopping and transaction data from
November 21, 2005 to January 31, 2006. The data represent more than a
quarter of a trillion impressions and hundreds of millions
transactions across 115 companies (including 24 retailers) whose
online campaigns are managed using the Atlas Digital Marketing Suite.
The measure of activity is an index, where a value of 100 indicates a
day that had average shopping activity for the six-month period from
September 2005 through February 2006. The 2005-2006 Atlas Holiday
Shopping Report is available at
http://www.atlassolutions.com/institute/insights.aspx#holiday

   About Atlas

   Atlas www.AtlasSolutions.com is a provider of digital marketing
technologies and expertise. Atlas offers agencies and marketers
integrated solutions for online ad campaign management, in-stream
video, rich media, search marketing, landing page optimization,
reporting, and analysis to maximize their online ROI, and provides a
highly scalable ad-serving platform to help online publishers increase
revenue. Atlas delivers the industry's most complete service and
support, serving its clients from offices in Seattle, San Francisco,
New York, Denver and London. Atlas, an operating unit of aQuantive,
Inc. (NASDAQ: AQNT), is a member of the NAI, adhering to the NAI
privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC, and is the
first third-party ad server to complete the auditing process and
achieve ad measurement accreditation by the Media Rating Council
(MRC).