Kerry's Web Site Drawing More Traffic Than Bush's

Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis, shows that traffic to the John Kerry for President Web site attracted 1.6 million unique Americans during the month of April, while the Bush Cheney '04 Web site drew 1.5 million visitors.

Kerry's Web site continued its three-month lead over the Bush site from 1 million unique Americans in February. During this period, Kerry conducted more online advertising than Bush.

Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance data revealed that during April 2004, John Kerry's online advertising campaign registered 52 million online advertising impressions.

Since January 2004, the John Kerry for President campaign has grown steadily from 32,000 ad impressions to more than 8 million in March and peaking last month with 52 million.

Additionally, Kerry's campaign incorporated rich media in its online advertising, with 30 percent of all John Kerry for President ads utilizing the format.

In comparison, Bush-Cheney '04 recorded 5,000 online advertising impressions in April 2004, down from a three-month high of 28,000 online ads in March.

"Despite most political campaigns' continuing comfort level with TV as the preferred medium, the Kerry for President camp and the RNC appear to be embracing online advertising," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Political parties on both sides are recognizing that important target audiences can effectively be reached online."

Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance data showed that the Republican National Committee used significantly more online ads than the Democratic National Committee. In April 2004, the Republican National Committee had nearly 113 million impressions online, as compared to 63,000 impressions from the Democratic National Committee during the same period.

Republican ads ranged from encouraging voter registration to criticizing the Democratic Committee.

Since January 2004, the number of Republican National Committee impressions skyrocketed 437 percent.

During the same period, traffic to the RNC Web site surged 49 percent to 788,000 unique visitors.

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