Wanted to share a quick example of good link bait, in my opinion.  Quicken created a simple interactive page that shows the ‘Top 10 Stocks You Wish You Bought” and are calling it Pennies to Millions.  The great thing about this little page is that is has highly interesting and engaging content on it, additionally, it gives you a chance to interact in a simple way by seeing how much money you could have made had you bought one of these stocks and sold it at its peak.  What’s so great about it is they didn’t lose sight of their audience and simply recognized that the folks purchasing their product are probably business owners and/or handle money.  Relevant and interesting.  Kudos Intuit.

View Quicken’s Top 10 Stock You Wish You Had Bought.

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comScore reported that online sales in the second quarter of 2008 totaled $31 billion, up 14% from $27.2 billion a year ago. Sales were up 15% in April over April 2007; 12% in May over May 2007; and 11% in June over June 2007.  Online sales may be slowing, but are growing at 5 times the rate of retail sales.

Honestly, this is no surprise.  With folks freaking out about the economy, it’s not unexpected that sales have turned online.  The cost in savings in gas alone makes sense, and while there is still the concern of shipping rates increasing, online venues are becoming more savvy with their shipping offers.  Amazon’s Prime Membership is one such case.  Many thought that with the first round of economic stimulus checks mailed out in early May, we would have seen a boost in spending in general. But no such luck, comScore also revealed that recent research found that a full two-thirds of consumers said they had no intention or plans to spend their stimulus checks, but would rather use the cash to pay off debt or put the money into savings.

Some stats below provided by comScore (year-over-year growth rates by category):
Video Games, Consoles & Accessories, 73%
Furniture, Appliances & Equipment, 65%
Home & Garden, 23%
Event Tickets, 22%
Sport & Fitness, 21%
Consumer Electronics (excluding PC Peripherals), 5%
Apparel & Accessories, 13%
Flowers, Greetings & Gifts, -10%
Jewelry & Watches, -10%
Computers, Peripherals & PDAs, -11%
Toys & Hobbies, -11%
Music, Movies & Videos, -20%

For a few more details and stats, read this article.

While others are cutting marketing budgets, this is a great time to boost your Internet Advertising and take advantage of the shoppers online.