sparknotes

Sparknotes, owned by Barnes & Noble, is the most popular study site for teens on the Internet. It is the “home of the 11 O’clock” scholar – literally! Sparknotes get most of its traffic between 11 PM and Midnight in each time zone across the US from students cramming at the last minute for tomorrow’s exams. Though the site originally got traffic (monthly uniques) in the high single digit millions, Sudden found that much of Sparknotes' valuable content was going unseen, and that the ad sales dept. needed more inventory to sell. To accomplish the task of making a #1 site become even bigger, Sudden did a brand and user analysis to get a better idea of the teens relationship with the brand. In doing so, we found that teens look to Sparknotes “when teachers, parents and life don’t make sense.” This assured us that students found Sparknotes as not only a trusted study advisor, but also a life advisor as well. Helping make this brand and content strategy tweak was instrumental in raising overall page views and unique visits by double digit percentages, and almost doubling ad sales revenue, year over year.