Key Findings

Facebook Upstream Traffic Doubles: Traffic to brand sites from Facebook more than doubled in 2010; growing from 3.4 percent to 7.1 precent with 73 precent of luxury brands registering the social media giant as a top eight source of traffic. Traffic from Twitter and You Tube decreased.

Social Sharing Drives Traffic: Brand sites with social sharing recorded annual traffic growth of 42 percent versus 18 percent for brands without social sharing suggesting the increasing importance of social media optimization.

Digital Competence Increases Site Traffic: The 21 brands that increased their Digital IQ demonstrate annual traffic growth of 52 percent versus traffic growth of just 8 percent for brands that registered IQ decreases.

Brands with E-Commerce Boast Higher IQs: The 39 brands that sell online boast a Digital IQ of 117 versus an average IQ of 79 for the 33 brands that are not e-commerce-enabled.

Easy Wins in Digital Marketing: There is still substantial low hanging fruit around basic digital marketing tactics. Only half of brands engage in email marketing, only two in five are purchasing search terms and only 10 percent have mobile sites.