Obama Still Tops Online, But McCain Gaining

Sam Gustin says: Barack Obama may be the more Web-savvy presidential candidate, but his campaign's internet advertising decreased sharply in August, according to new data from Nielsen Online. John McCain's campaign, by contrast, is ramping up his Web ad presence.

Obama's image-based, or display, ad impressions fell sharply in August, by nearly 50 percent, while his sponsored text-based ads were down nearly 20 percent. McCain's display ad impressions jumped by over 250 percent, and his text-based search ads increased by over 40 percent.

As Alley Insider notes, the data reveals differing online ad spending strategies by the campaigns. Obama has been pouring much more resources into display ads, while McCain has focused on text-based search ads.

Obama is still dominating in terms of online Web traffic. During the last week in August, Obama's website saw 3.4 million unique visitors, while McCain's had 1.8 million. But the announcement of Sarah Palin to be his running mate gave the Arizona senator a major boost, pushing traffic up over 240 percent.

The Nielson study also found that Obama, McCain, and Palin generated the most Web "buzz" -- as a measure of online discussions -- during the two weeks of conventions, significantly outpacing Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and George W. Bush.