Every year millions of Americans gather around the dining table, to feast and to give thanks for everything they have. Then, around 2am on Friday morning, they pack into the car, and drive over to the mall- at which point, they proceed to stomp over men, women and small children for the latest edition Vizio 55-inch 4K TV (at a highly discounted price, of course). This very special Friday is otherwise known as Black Friday, and we know all who are curious to see how RedTube users, traffic and searches would be affected by it- if at all.
Thanks to our anonymized interest data provided by our analytics software, we are able to identify site users based on their interests and shopping preferences this season. This allows us to offer-up more insights on how and why our site is affected. Given Black Friday is the honorary Holiday season kick-off date, it makes sense that the number one category RedTube users are shopping for is “Holiday & Seasonal” items, with a +116% increase in interest. Followed by “Autos & Vehicles” with an in-market interest increase (say that 10 times fast) of +95%, close behind that is “Televisions” and “Kitchen appliances” at +90% and +87%. Could be explained by the fact that usually, these are the items that get marked-down the most. At the bottom of the list is “Men’s Apparel”, “Computers” and “Swimwear” with an increase between +32% and +34%.
Search terms on RedTube that noticed an increase during Black Friday include “Black Friday” which went up by +991%, “Shopping” (+204%), “Mall” (+155%) and finally “Changing Room” and “Dressing Room” which jumped up in the top searched list by +92% and +90% (respectively). With everyone in the retail spirit, these are all terms that clearly tie back to Black Friday so we are not surprised to see an increase there. Some other search terms that saw a more unusual and unexpected increase in popularity include “Rich” (+48%), “Pay Debt” (+46%) and “Fast Food” (+41%). Users may be stressed about some bills they racked up throughout the day, hopefully they found solace on the site.
If we deep dive into the more obvious Black Friday related searches, terms that experienced a high search rate include “Walmart”, “Shopping”, “Mall”, “Changing Room” and of course “Black Friday”. During the two weeks leading up to, and following Black Friday, “Walmart” got the highest number of searches, up +231% on Black Friday, compared to the average. Next in line was “Mall” (+186%) followed by “Shopping” (+118%). Strangely enough, “Black Friday” peaked on December 5th (after the big day had passed) at +85%. The peak on November 27th for all of these terms could be explained by the mere fact that people are traveling for the holiday. Once they’ve arrived at their destination and have stuffed themselves full of leftover turkey, traffic to our site skyrockets right back up, before they head home.
Some other searches that experienced an increase include terms relating to our Ebony content. For example, “Big booty black girl”, “Black couple” or “Black sex”, which all saw significant rises. These could be explained simply by the fact that users were inspired by the shopping holiday and are found other (more creative) ways to incorporate it into their searches.
Throughout the day traffic came through the site on all types of devices, as per usual. An interesting note to mention is that between 2am and 5am, traffic on all devices (desktop, tablet and phone) dipped significantly, compared to average traffic rates during this timeframe. Traffic from tablets dropped – 27%, desktops were down -10% and phones, by -24%. Usually shopping begins at that time on Black Friday, so this could be why the traffic is so low. Traffic rates pick right back up around noon, possibly when user have decided they spent enough and need to blow off some steam. The biggest increase at that time comes from users on phones (+25%) and tablets (+33%), it’s possible these users just couldn’t wait to get home…
On Black Friday users from Wyoming, Colorado, California and Virginia (to name a few) had to set some priorities for themselves and it seems that time with family and friends, shopping or “other”, took precedence over visiting RedTube. Traffic in these states, dropped anywhere from -11% to -2%. Arkansas, Indiana and Utah are filled with loyal users however, whose viewership on Black Friday actually increased (+19%, +18% and +17% respectively).
SFW Link: http://blog.redtube.com/2016/11/black-friday/
