November Dot-com Spending Soars

Spending by dot-com companies in traditional media jumped to $671.6 million in November, a holiday-driven outlay that tops spending for each of the first three quarters of 1999, and brings total spending for the first eleven months of the year to $2.5 billion.

The $671.6 million figure represents a 518 percent increase over the same period a year before.

The numbers were issued this week by Competitive Media Reporting, which tracks advertising information. The data reflects ad dollars spent in television, newspapers, magazines, radio and outdoor.

Magazines and network TV drew in the most dollars, with dot-com companies spending $155.4 million in the former, and $150.7 million in the latter.

“This industry is growing at an incredible rate,” says Jerry Arbittier, senior vice president corporate research and analysis at CMR.

“We are seeing just how big an impact the holidays had on advertising and we can expect that December had an even bigger contribution.”

Surprisingly, the top spender, Ameritrade, wasn’t the type of business that tries to draw holiday buying. The company spent $18.6 million in November of 1999. Its competitors also dropped some big bucks. E-trade spent $14 million, Datek shelled out $11 million, Fidelity.com Investing dropped $9.9 million, and Charles Schwab spent $7 million.

But the holiday shopping crowd was well represented in the CMR’s list of top-ten spenders. K-Bkids.com came in at number three, spending $14.4 million. Next in the toy category was Etoys, with $13.6 million in expenditures. Another big gift destination, Amazon.com, spent $6.4 million. Toysmart.com came in at number ten, with $6.3 million in spending for the month.

Most of those dollars made their way into magazines ads — $155.4 million worth. Network television captured $150.7 million, while cable came in next at $121.8. Spot TV expenditures totaled $93.4. Spot radio, national newspapers, newspapers, syndication, network radio, and Sunday magazines followed, in that order.