DoubleClick Releases Q2 2004 E-Commerce Site Trend Report

Online Shoppers Are More Likely to Buy; Spending per Purchase Increasing but High Cart Abandonment Rates Still a Challenge; On-site Search Usage Up, Driving More Sales with Higher Order Value

New York, NY, 8/17/2004 - DoubleClick (NASDAQ: DCLK) today released its Q2 2004 E-Commerce Site Trend Report based on aggregate data from DoubleClick's SiteAdvanceSM web analytics solution used by multi-channel marketers. The e-commerce study showed that, year over year, consumers are converting into buyers more often with higher value orders, however they are still abandoning shopping carts at high rates and failing to return to abandoned carts to complete the sale. In addition, the report reveals that onsite search remains a popular means to find and purchase products, and the value of sales related to site search has increased, demonstrating the importance of that vehicle as an e-commerce enabler.

The report also shows that while consumers are visiting more pages on a web site year over year, visitor session length was flat. This figure suggests that while consumers are more active in the shopping process, a marketer has less time to capture their attention per page.

“This SiteAdvance report is intended to give marketers useful benchmarks on what works, where they are succeeding and where more revenue opportunities lie,” said Eric Kirby, Vice President of Strategic Services, DoubleClick. “Consumers are looking at more pages, carting more products and converting more often - so the opportunity is there. Now, it’s up to marketers to not only make the shopping experience as engaging as possible but also to introduce new strategies such as remarketing to lost prospects.”

Top findings of the report showed that:

• Visitors are looking at more pages per session with an increase of 12% (9.8 pages in Q2 03 vs. 11.0 in Q2 04), however session length remained relatively flat (4.78 minutes in Q2 03 vs 4.82 in Q2 04).
• Consumers are increasingly likely to cart items, an important indicator of consumer interest in making a purchase. Carting frequency rose from 8.3% to 9.4% year over year.
• More significantly, shoppers are more likely to buy and their spending per purchase has increased overall. Conversion rates have increased 14% year-over-year, with 4.9% of all visits resulting in a conversion. The average order value also increased 15% year-over-year to $134.01. More dramatically, the average revenue per visit increased 25% from Q2 03 to $4.28.
• However, consumers are more likely to abandon their shopping cart - abandoned carts increased 24% year over year from 45.9% to 57% of all carts. Consumers are also less likely to return to abandoned carts to complete a purchase. In Q2 04, only 26 .5 % of sales resulted from previously carted items, while a year ago, they represented 35.6% of sales.
• Usage of on-site search functionality increased dramatically (+26%) year-over-year while the percent of sales from search increased 17% to 8.4% of all purchases. More importantly, the average order value of sales that result from search increased 47% year-over-year to $110.62.

SiteAdvance, a hosted, website measurement and analysis solution designed for online marketers, enables business decision-makers to understand the interaction between marketing programs, site traffic and online conversions, and provides actionable information to users to help them improve their online goals.

The data is based on hundreds of millions of unique visitors, tens of millions of online shopping carts and over $1 billion in total e-commerce sales. DoubleClick began collecting and compiling this data in Q2 2003.

For a copy of the complete report, please visit www.doubleclick.net or contact DoubleClick Public Relations at jconnorton@doubleclick.net.

About DoubleClick Inc.

DoubleClick is the leading provider of solutions for advertising agencies, marketers and web publishers to plan, execute and analyze their marketing programs. DoubleClick's marketing solutions - - online advertising, search engine marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing, database marketing, data management and marketing resource management - - help clients yield the highest return on their marketing dollar. In addition, the company's marketing analytics tools help clients measure performance within and across channels. DoubleClick Inc. has global headquarters in New York City and maintains 22 offices around the world.