Research from Nielsen//NetRatings found that the websites of Barclaycard and Sainsbury's, in particular, enjoyed a 50% increase in traffic.
Nectar jumped in at 30th position among the UK's most visited websites, which the scheme's management said was testament to offline promotional activity including direct marketing and advertising. By comparison, other online loyalty schemes had fewer visitors -- mypoints.co.uk's unique audience figure was 387,000 and airmiles.co.uk had 295,000.
Debenhams.co.uk and Nectar.com shared 55,000 visitors, Sainsburys.co.uk and Nectar.com shared 128,000 visitors, while Barclaycard.co.uk did best, with a shared audience with Nectar.com of 257,000.
Nearly two thirds of the visitors to Nectar.com were men, driven largely from the Barclaycard site, with the biggest proportion of the overall audience by demographic group made up of people aged over 65.
Tom Ewing, an analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, commented: "Previous points-collection and loyalty schemes haven't set the web on fire but Nectar's success shows that with big brand involvement the demand is there."
At its launch last month, Nectar, which is run by Loyalty Management UK, set a target of signing up 50% of all UK households. Some 5% of the population attempted to sign up on launch day, causing technical problems with access to the site.
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