After releasing an entirely redesigned Apartments.com with new features built around the needs of renters and launching a national advertising campaign featuring acclaimed actor Jeff Goldblum, CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) this week announced that Apartments.com is now the most trafficked apartment rentals site among consumers searching online for a new place to live. CoStar Group reported that four of the leading independent authorities on internet traffic measurements reported that Apartments.com had more visitors in March 2015 than any other apartment rentals site. Apartments.com had over 15 million total visits in March 2015, an increase of 73% over March 2014, according to comScore. Unique visitors totaled nearly 7 million in March 2015, an increase of 116% over March 2014. The average stay on the Apartments.com site was up 60% in March 2015 vs. March 2014, comScore reported. Overall, the CoStar Group network of sites had over 37.1 million total visits and over 22.4 million monthly unique visitors in March 2015, which represents increases of 63% and 35%, respectively, over March 2014, based on data from Google Analytics and other sources. "The investments we are making in Apartments.com are having an almost immediate payoff in increased brand awareness, traffic and user engagement with the site," CoStar Group founder and CEO Andrew C. Florance said in reporting the latest traffic figures. "This, in turn, is generating significantly more leads for our advertisers. Leads generated on the site increased 67% in March 2015 compared to March 2014." CoStar Group acquired Apartments.com in April 2014 and rebuilt the Apartments.com website to better serve the needs of 100 million Americans who rent their homes. CoStar Group conducted extensive consumer research and released an entirely new Apartments.com website in mid-February 2015 designed around the needs of renters. The new Apartments.com features more properties than other apartment listings websites by many multiples, according to CoStar Group. Apartments.com also provides renters with innovative features to help them refine their search, including map searches, a PolygonTM tool to draw their own search area on a map, and a “Plan Commute” feature that lets them search for rentals in proximity to a specific address. As part of a multi-media advertising campaign to present the new Apartments.com to renters, CoStar Group hired acclaimed actor Jeff Goldblum and ran over 1,600 spots in March on national broadcast and cable TV networks, and thousands of spots on local TV and radio. In April, the campaign expanded to include over 750 high-profile billboards, wallscapes and transit ads. The campaign features Goldblum as Brad Bellflower, Silicon Valley Maverick and visionary behind the new Apartments.com, and is believed to be the largest ever targeting apartment renters. Prior to CoStar Group's acquisition and subsequent investment in Apartments.com, ApartmentGuide.com and ForRent.com were among the most heavily trafficked apartment listing websites. However, RentPath, which owns ApartmentGuide.com, appears to have recently allocated its capital resources to pay dividends to its investors and service high-interest debt. In May 2013, RentPath paid a dividend of approximately $100 million to its owner, TPG, and executed a debt recapitalization with a $470 million secured credit facility at that time, according to published reports. At the time of the recapitalization, Moody's Investors Service lowered RentPath’s corporate debt rating. In October 2014, TPG sold a 50% interest in RentPath to Providence Equity, and as part of the transaction, RentPath increased its debt to $675 million borrowed under its new $725 million total facilities. The most recent traffic metrics appear to show that Apartments.com has emerged as the clear winner in attracting renters searching online for apartments. According to Compete.com, Apartments.com’s unique visitor traffic increased 63% year over year through March 2015, while unique visitor traffic to ApartmentGuide.com was down almost a full percentage point. Unique visitor traffic declined more than 33% year over year through March 2015 on ForRent.com. Florance said the new Apartments.com also benefits from using state of the art search engine optimization features and is performing at the top of its class in SEO. In addition, Florance said Apartments.com is supporting advertisers with the largest search engine marketing program in the industry. “Whether they come to Apartments.com directly or begin their search on a search engine, we are working hard to capture a dominant share of the renters searching online for apartments,” stated Florance. CoStar Group said Apartments.com’s number-one ranking is based on traffic counts provided by comScore, Compete.com, Experian Hitwise and Alexa, the industry’s leading authoritative sources of internet traffic counts. comScore measures what people do as they navigate the digital world and captures data on over 1.5 trillion web transactions each month. It is audited and accredited by the world’s leading rating agencies, and is considered the definitive source for measuring activity on the internet. Compete.com collects consumer behavior data from multiple sources and uses algorithms and advanced analytics techniques to normalize the data to the population as a whole. The Compete.com panel is the largest of its kind in the industry, combining the online behaviors of millions of consumers across the U.S. Experian Hitwise measures website traffic by collecting data directly from Internet Service Provider networks. The service provides data on trends in visitor behavior and measures website market share. Alexa, a division of Amazon.com, estimates traffic rankings based on data from a global traffic panel comprised of millions of Internet users using one of over 25,000 different browser extensions.