The Digital 100 acknowledges brands across ten categories who demonstrated exceptional digital growth performance in 2021

Similarweb , a leading digital intelligence company, announced the winners of its annual Digital 100 Fastest Growing Online Brands, underscoring those businesses who embraced digital strategies to outpace their competitors. Composed of the top ten fastest-growing brands across ten sectors (totaling 100), the winning companies exemplify the new era of accelerated digital commerce.

Pointing to the seismic shift that brands have undergone over the past year – as the mass adoption of new technologies such as blockchain, at-home-entertainment and the metaverse have ushered in entirely new markets – Similarweb’s CEO and Founder, Or Offer, explains: “2021 was quite a ride, especially for those brands who were able to execute on their digital marketing strategies. At Similarweb, we’re all about empowering brands with the intelligence they need to compete in their respective markets and accelerate growth. Congratulations to all the winners!”

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“2021 was quite a ride, especially for those brands who were able to execute on their digital marketing strategies. At Similarweb, we’re all about empowering brands with the intelligence they need to compete in their respective markets and accelerate growth. Congratulations to all the winners!”

2021 – The Year of Meta, Bitcoin, At-Home Entertainment, E-Commerce and Healthcare

In 2021, once consumers began receiving coronavirus vaccinations, we saw a marked shift in spending towards experiences, including travel and dining. Consumers also traveled to the ends of the virtual metaverse and significantly increased visits to online gaming, cryptocurrency trading and NFT marketplaces.

But before embarking on those journeys, consumers needed to look and feel good and increased their spending on apparel, home furnishings and beauty products; they were particularly interested in those with a clear branding message – specifically sustainability and a shift to more natural products.

Six of the top web traffic-growth brands in beauty featured “clean” products,  including nakedandthriving.com (+525%). As face masks became the norm du jour during COVID-19, consumers shifted beauty spending to fragrances, which made up the top three fastest growing brands in the category. These included microperfume.com (+5,903%) and seintofficial.com (+2,513%).

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Social commerce surged in 2021, as the power of influencers rose and it became easier to shop directly from Instagram, though this was somewhat tempered by inflation driving stiff price competition among sites.

Fast fashion sites drove the apparel category, led by Shopcider.com, up 6,068%. Supply chain issues and a particularly strong sales cycle in 2020 pressured home furnishings sites, pushing them to invest in paid search to drive traffic. Shoppers pivoted to D2C furniture brands, pulling back their visits to larger sites, such as Wayfair.

As low interest rates, the rise in remote work, and limited supply drove the housing market, mortgage lenders saw a traffic uptick, while sites, such as zerodown.com (+3,456%) allowed buyers to secure home loans without down payments. Digitalization of real estate also allowed buyers and renters to cut out the middleman via direct listings; winners included ah4r.com (523%) and tripointehomes.com (+364%).

Lastly, 2021 remained heavily impacted by the pandemic. With the rise in delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus, there was a significant jump in sites related to COVID-19 testing, including  covid19criticalcare.com (+3,687%) and vaccines.gov (+2,335%). This benefitted healthcare sites, but also food-related sites, as consumers stepped up their in-home entertaining, especially during the holidays.