Senators Obama and McCain

Sen. Barack Obama drew slightly more buzz than Sen. John McCain over the course of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, followed by Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Hillary Clinton, according to recent stats from Nielsen (pdf).

Web traffic to BarackObama.com also increased 32 percent during the week of the DNC. Meanwhile, traffic to JohnMcCain.com increased a whopping 242 percent, following his decision to name Sarah Palin as running-mate on the Republican ticket.

Traffic to BarackObama.com nonetheless outpaced JohnMcCain.com almost 2-1 in the week ending August 31st:

Despite his lead, stats show Obama's Presidential campaign cut back dramatically on ad spend in August, particularly in the areas of search and display advertising. In contrast, McCain increased ad spend, especially across image-based impressions and sponsored search advertising.

The figures also reflect varied ad strategies. While Obama bought nearly four times more display ads than McCain in August, McCain outdid him 22-to-1 in search advertising.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, McCain's campaign is buying major search terms — "Joe Biden," "US economy" and "housing crisis," to name a few — in order to defeat Obama in the search arena.

McCain is also building clout across traditional media. Running-mate Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention drew 37 million viewers — 1.4 million viewers shy of Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC, which was also broadcast on two more TV networks than the RNC.