Okay, so they don’t specifically say ‘girlfriends’ in the following report, but they do indicate the influence of women online. And, as women online, we follow the lead and advice from our online ’sistas. Check out the latest report on how important we girlfriends are online. Then stand tall and proud. We are shoppers. We are spenders. We are decision makers. Our time has come!

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Advertisers Flock to Women-Focused Sites and Blogs: Marketers See Product Opps Galore in Fastest-Growing Category

Sites aimed primarily at women, from “mommy blogs” to makeup and fashion sites, grew 35 percent last year — faster than every other category on the Web except politics, according to Internet traffic measurement company comScore. Women’s sites had 84 million visitors in July, 27 percent more than the same month last year, comScore said. Advertisers are following the crowd, serving up 4.4 billion display ads on women’s Web sites in May, the NY Times reports.

That is more than for sites aimed at children, teenagers or families. “Moms are the decision makers of the household as far as purchases are concerned,” Chris Actis, vice president and digital director at the ad agency MediaVest, told Times writer Claire Cain Miller.

The rapid growth in advertising and traffic to women’s sites has attracted the attention of major media companies and venture capitalists. Last week, for example, the cable giant Comcast paid about $125 million to buy the shopping and entertainment site DailyCandy. In July, Peacock Equity, a venture partnership of NBC Universal and General Electric and Venrock, a venture capital firm, invested $5 million in BlogHer, a network of 2,200 blogs by and for women.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a major Silicon Valley venture firm, sees so much opportunity that it has made several bets in the sector, including in Glam Media, a network of 650 women’s sites that draws more visitors than its rivals and has raised $114 million from investors.

“I love women. Women are more than half the population, and they do most of the shopping,” said Tim Draper, the venture firm’s co-founder and managing director. “We are constantly looking for more sites that cater to women,” he told the Times. In addition to Glam, Draper Fisher has invested in CafeMom, MyShape and NearbyNow.

Although men are heavy users of the Web, they tend not to visit sites explicitly aimed at them. AOL’s Living channel for women had 16.1 million unique visitors in June, while its Asylum site, a top men’s destination online, had only 3.3 million. ComScore does not even track men’s sites as a category.

Advertisers are betting that the trust and intimacy that come from talking about sex after motherhood or reading about a blogger’s battle with postpartum depression will translate into sales of products discussed on a site or simply advertised alongside the personal stories.

Some companies are also working with women’s sites to create sponsored content in a collaboration so close that it would surprise many traditional print editors. At CafeMom, for instance, Wal-Mart offered gift certificates to bloggers who write about Wal-Mart’s green products in exchange for writing about what they bought.

Bulldog Reporter – Daily Dog | Previous Stories | Advertisers Flock to Women-Focused Sites and Blogs: Marketers See Product Opps Galore in Fastest-Growing Category.

What do you think about paying for reviews? (Like Wal-Mart’s CafeMom program?)

Tags: BlogHer, CafeMom, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, girlfriends, Glam Media, NBC Universal, Peacock Equity, shoppers, Venrock, Wal-Mart

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under Be a Better FRIEND, Newsroom, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.