uk financial services quarterly review issue 8 jul sep 2010

UK Financial Services Quarterly Review Issue 8: July to September 2010

Financial Services Quarterly Review | Issue 8 | Hitwise UK Limited 2010

Contents

1. Industry overview............................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Executive summary ................................................................................................... 3 1.2 UK internet visits to key finance categories ............................................................. 3 1.3 Finance and insurance products search performance............................................ 3

2. Insurance products ......................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Health insurance ....................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Home insurance ........................................................................................................ 5 2.3 Motor insurance ........................................................................................................ 6 2.4 Travel insurance ....................................................................................................... 7

3. Finance products............................................................................................................. 8

3.1 Credit cards ............................................................................................................... 8 3.2 Loans ......................................................................................................................... 9 3.3 Savings .................................................................................................................... 10 3.4 Mortgages ............................................................................................................... 11

4. Fast movers - Insurance................................................................................................ 12

5. Fast movers – Finance................................................................................................... 13

6. Financial aggregators.................................................................................................... 14

7. Quarterly topical stories................................................................................................ 15 7.1 Experian Mosaic reveals who searches for financial products ............................. 15

8. Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 18 8.1 Getting to grips with Social Media ......................................................................... 18 8.2 Are you getting your five-a-day? ............................................................................ 18 8.3 Quarterly Travel Review.......................................................................................... 18 8.4 Online Media Round-up.......................................................................................... 18 8.5 Recent Experian Hitwise Webinars ........................................................................ 18 8.6 About Experian Hitwise .......................................................................................... 19 8.7 Terms Used in this Report...................................................................................... 20 8.8 Disclaimer ............................................................................................................... 20


1. Industry overview

1.1 Executive summary

Key findings this quarter based on July – September 2010 data:

Travel insurance had a bad quarter with searches for travel insurance products falling by over 30%

Money Supermarket.com was the fastest-moving website in three of the eight portfolio

products measured

Searches for health insurance have increased by 25% year on year with NHS Choices doubling its traffic this

quarter

Castle Cover has become a prominent player in home insurance with a 33% lift in traffic to

its website in the last quarter

Searches for credit cards dropped by more than 5% over the quarter despite a surge in traffic for

Barclaycard

The affluent ‘Alpha Territory’ Mosaic group are proportionally the most likely online

group to search for health insurance and savings products

1.2 UK internet visits to key finance categories

*Based on market share of UK Internet visits within All Categories.

1.3 Finance and insurance products search performance


2. Insurance products

2.1 Health insurance

Total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Health Insurance Portfolio increased this quarter by 2.94%, setting a

new annual peak record on the week ending 31 July 2010. Searches dropped towards the end of the quarter but

were still much higher than in the same quarter last year.

Health insurance search performance

Health insurance top downstream websites

Year-on-year there was a 25% increase in searches for health insurance. The biggest recipient of that increase in traffic was the NHS Choices website, which nearly doubled its traffic this quarter.

More than half of the top downstream websites to receive traffic from health insurance search terms increased their share of portfolio clicks this quarter. The most significant drop of the quarter was for the EHIC, despite ‘european health insurance card’ and ‘european health insurance card renewal’ being the top two search terms of the quarter.

‘hsa health insurance’ had the highest paid rate of the quarter with 62% of clicks coming from paid links.

Health insurance search terms performance

Decrease from Previous Quarter

Increase from Previous Quarter

Recovering visits to Bupa

Bupa has seen a general decline in traffic since March but remains ahead of its position in September 2009 and has increased visits to the Bupa website by 5.6% in the last quarter.


2.2 Home insurance

Total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Home Insurance Portfolio experienced similar peaks and troughs this

quarter as it did last quarter. Overall the portfolio finished the quarter 1.80% higher than it was at the end of June,

with highs in mid July and September.

Home insurance search performance

Home insurance top downstream websites

Money Supermarket regained its position at the top of the downstream websites this quarter as it grew its market share of visits by 3.76%. Last quarter’s number one website Go Compare lost 4.81% of its market share of visits from the portfolio, dropping back down to second place.

‘home insurance’ was the most popular search term of the quarter, with nearly twice the volume of searches as ‘house insurance’. Direct Line was the most popular branded search term in the portfolio for the second consecutive quarter.

Aside from Go Compare, Confused.com also saw a significant drop in traffic this quarter with a 2.49% drop from June. Four other brands also received less traffic from the home insurance portfolio this quarter but these were all less than 1% drops.

Castle Cover broke into the top 15 downstream websites for the first time this quarter with 0.96% of all traffic from the portfolio of search terms.

Home insurance search performance



Improved traffic to Castle Cover

In the last quarter Castle Cover has seen a 33% lift in traffic to its website.


2.3 Motor insurance

Total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Motor Insurance Portfolio saw further decreases this quarter as the

market slipped from the spring peaks. Motor insurance witnessed a resurgence in July but overall decreased by

8.59% for the quarter.

Motor insurance search performance

Motor insurance top downstream websites

Motor insurance declined over the quarter and finished 4.42% down year-on-year. If the annual trends repeat last year’s performance then motor insurance can expect a sharp decline next quarter before climbing rapidly after Christmas.

Go Compare lost 4.32% of the market share of visits from the motor insurance portfolio this quarter. Despite having the biggest decrease of the quarter, Go Compare still had a healthy lead over the competition picking up 7.86% more traffic from the portfolio than Money Supermarket.

Only three of the top 15 search terms decreased their percentage of clicks this quarter, while ‘car insurance’ was the highest climber, growing to 16.37% overall.

Motor insurance search performance



Lack of New Car Registrations

Tracking visits to the DVLA and the top car insurance comparison site, Go Compare, it’s interesting there were no noticeable spikes in traffic around 1 March and 1 September when new car registration plates are issued. This may indicate fewer new cars were being bought.


2.4 Travel insurance

Total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Travel Insurance Portfolio fell during the quarter after the busy

summer period. Between June and September, searches for travel insurance terms dropped by 31.51%.

Compared to September 2009, searches were down by 13.77%.

Travel insurance search performance Travel insurance top downstream websites

After a solid quarter in June, the Post Office fell from second place to third, with InsureAndGo moving in to take its place. Just 0.19% of visits from the portfolio separates second and third place this quarter.

Following in the footsteps of Tesco Bank (which kept its position in fourth place this quarter); Sainsbury’s Bank broke into the top 15 downstream websites for the travel insurance portfolio. Along with M&S Money, supermarket and retail brands are now becoming a growing force in the insurance market.

Go Travel Insurance slipped this quarter after strong growth in the June quarter. There was an overall decline of 0.82% in the percentage of visits from the travel portfolio of search terms.

Generic search terms in travel insurance continued to grow online this quarter, with ‘travel insurance’ accounting for over a quarter of all searches. There were more searches online this quarter for ‘travel insurance’ than for the rest of the top 10 search terms combined.

Travel insurance search performance



Performance of Supermarket Brands in Travel Insurance

Big brand supermarkets and retailers are squeezing insurers in the travel market. Sainsbury’s Bank is now almost on a par with M&S Money, ASDA Finance is not far behind, while Tesco maintains a strong top position.


3. Finance products

3.1 Credit cards

Total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Credit Card Portfolio decreased by 5.27% over the quarter, losing

nearly all the ground that had been gained in the previous quarter. Searches for credit cards were increasing

this time last year, whilst the current trend indicates a continuing decline in the run-up to Christmas.

Credit cards search performance

Credit cards top downstream websites

Barclaycard UK remained as the top recipient of traffic for the quarter despite losing 1.37% of its market share of visits from June’s quarter. Barclaycard account services jumped into second position, giving Barclaycard a combined 32.44% market share of visits from the credit card portfolio.

Tesco, Virgin Money and American Express all received fewer visits from the portfolio this quarter, further consolidating Barclaycard’s position as the pre-eminent player in the credit card field.

In a similar story to the credit card downstream visits, Virgin and American Express saw decrease in searches for their products, whilst Barclaycard increased its market share of searches. Nearly 30% of all searches in the portfolio were for ‘barclaycard’ over the quarter.

More branded credit card search terms were prevalent this quarter than last quarter, with searches for 0% interest cards dropping out of the top 15.

Credit cards search performance



Credit card search traffic to Virgin Money UK

Virgin has been struggling against the competition in the credit card arena. However, its performance has improved in the last few weeks, bringing Virgin’s market share back to 7.51% of visits from the portfolio.


3.2 Loans

Searches for terms in Experian Hitwise’s Loans Portfolio increased at the beginning of the quarter until a peak

in the week ending 7 August 2010. Overall the traffic for the quarter declined by 1.46% although the decline was

less severe than last quarter’s 7% drop.

Loans search performance Loans top downstream websites

Year-on-year searches for terms within the loans portfolio are down by 14.28%. Searches are likely to decrease further over the next few months and then increase again post-Christmas as consumers look for money to cover their excessive Christmas spending.

Sainsbury’s Bank has made it back into the top five downstream websites despite a slight decline in traffic from the loans portfolio. All of the top five had a worse performance this quarter than the June quarter, although there were increases for other sites in the top 15, notably Moneymadeclear and Welcome Loans UK.

Loans remain one of the worst areas for brand penetration, with very few brands ranking highly for loan-related search terms. Only one of the top 15 search terms this quarter was a branded term for Tesco, with the rest being generic search terms.

Loans search performance



UK Internet searches for ‘student loans’

Last quarter saw a huge spike in searches for student loans. This quarter, as University terms started, searches for ‘student loans’ increased by 8.33%.


3.3 Savings

After last quarter’s huge plunge in traffic, total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Savings Portfolio

continued to fall, but at a much slower rate. Last quarter search volume more than halved; this quarter the

decline was 17.13%.

Savings search performance

Savings top downstream websites

Only four of the top 15 websites to receive traffic from the portfolio increased their market share of visits, with Know Your Money seeing the biggest percentage increase, up 4.59% from last quarter.

Directgov increased its volume of traffic from the savings portfolio by 1.16% over the quarter, but actually fell one place in the rankings to sixth because of the rise of Know Your Money.

Only two of the top 15 search terms dropped this quarter, both were ISA-related. The other 13 terms all saw an increase in their share of portfolio clicks, with ‘saving accounts’ growing by nearly 1%. The search behaviour reflects a move away from ISA products in the market.

The AA moved into the top 15 downstream websites this quarter, with 1.76% of all portfolio clicks over the 12 weeks.

Savings search performance



ISA declining search performance

Searches for ISAs have dropped by 16.82% in the last quarter.


3.4 Mortgages

Total search volume for Experian Hitwise’s Mortgages Portfolio remained virtually unchanged this quarter, but

continued its downward trend from the same time last year. In the last 12 months, searches on mortgage terms

have decreased by 20%.

Mortgages search performance Mortgages top downstream websites

Most of the top search terms in the Mortgages Portfolio gained additional share of portfolio clicks, with the exceptions of ‘mortgage rates’, ‘best mortgage deals’ and ‘natwest mortgages’.

Searches for ‘mortgage calculator’ accounted for 17.32% of all of the searches within the portfolio. Mortgage calculators are clearly a popular trend to search for online given that four of the top 15 search terms included the word ‘calculator’.

Five of the top 15 downstream websites increased their market share of visits this quarter, with Money Supermarket stretching the lead at the top of the table. On the back of increased searches for mortgage calculators, Mortgagecalculator.org increased its market share of visits by 0.49%.

Mortgages search performance



Searches for Mortgage Calculators

Searches for ‘mortgage calculator uk’ have dropped off since March where ‘mortgage repayment calculator’ has contiued to grow, becoming the second most popular calculator mortgage term.


4. Fast movers - Insurance

Travel insurance search terms

Travel insurance websites

Motor insurance search terms

Motor insurance websites

Home insurance search terms

Home insurance websites

Health insurance search terms

Health insurance websites


5. Fast movers – Finance

Credit card search terms

Credit card websites

Loans search terms

Loans websites

Savings search terms

Savings websites

Mortgage search terms

Mortgage websites


6. Financial aggregators

Financial aggregators performance

Top 10 Financial aggregators by market share

Over half of the top financial aggregators have seen improvements in their quarterly traffic, with Beat That Quote growing by 10.23% and Compare the Market growing by 5.18% - the two fastest growers in the market. Money Saving Expert was once again the top financial aggregator, having grown by 14% year on year. Money Saving Expert controls nearly a third of all traffic to the category, despite a slight decline in market share of visits in the last quarter. Confused.com has seen the biggest decline year-on-year, losing over 33% of its traffic since September 2009.

Financial aggregators upstream

All of the key industries received more of their traffic from financial aggregators in September compared to August. Insurance companies now depend on financial aggregators for nearly 5% of all traffic received.

Top 25 financial aggregators generic search terms

Car insurance was the key industry that drove consumers online to use financial aggregation sites. Five of the top 25 search terms were car-related, all of which were inside the top 10 most popular terms. Interestingly, variations of search terms including the word ‘cheap’ did not do as well as other variations. For example ‘car insurance quotes’ did better than ‘cheap car insurance’, and ‘travel insurance compare’ was ranked higher than ‘cheap travel insurance’ perhaps indicating a new trend in search behaviour away from ‘cheap’ search terms. 10 of the top 15 search terms delivering traffic to financial aggregators decreased their market share of clicks this quarter, with ‘car insurance comparison’ taking the steepest decline.

Top 20 sites receiving traffic from financial aggregators

After visiting financial aggregator websites, the variety of websites visited is quite diverse. From Facebook, to eBay to Odeon Cinemas, consumers are visiting many different kinds of sites after financial aggregators. This reflects the popularity of other products, such as discount vouchers and comparison tools for non-financial products, on financial aggregator websites. Within the downstream, perhaps the biggest winners within the finance industry are Tesco Bank, Santander, the AA and Direct Line. Tesco Bank receives nearly 1% of all downstream traffic from financial aggregators. Three of the top 20 recipients of traffic from financial aggregators are Money Saving Expert sites, including forums, Travel Money Max and Flight Checker.


7. Quarterly topical stories

7.1 Experian Mosaic reveals who searches for financial products

Every quarter we analyse the changing trends online in the finacial arena, for both financial

products such as credit cards and for insurance products such as car insurance. Although

the data mostly focuses on the search terms driving traffic to those industries, and which

websites are benefiting from that traffic this is really just the tip of the iceberg of what

Experian Hitwise can do.

Experian Mosaic is Experian’s in-house segmentation system, that classifies the UK

population into 15 different groups and 67 sub-groups based on their demographic,

behavioural or socio-economic charatceristics. Mosaic uses over 400 seperate sources of

data including credit checks, loyalty cards and house sale prices in order to group members

together.

Using Mosaic it’s possible to see what type of people are searching for the various financial

and insurance products on the market. The spider diagram below shows which Mosaic

groups are searching for which insurance products.

What the data shows is that there are certain groups which have a much higher liklihood of

searching for different insurance products. For example, the ‘Alpha Territory’ group, the


most affluent group in the Mosaic profile are the most likely to search for health insurance.

However, ‘Alpha Territory’ are much less likely to search for motor insurance.

By contrast, the ‘Claimant Cultures’ group, who are reliant on benefits and living in low-rise

council estates are much more likely to search for motor insurance, and much less likely to

search for health insurance. The data above is based on an index score, calculated as the

number of searches on a product portfolio per head of online population. So the ‘Alpha

Territory’ score of 169 does not mean that more searches for health insurance come from the

‘Alpha Territory’ group than any other. Instead, the index score of 169 indicates that per

person, the ‘Alpha Territory’ are the most prolific searches for health insurance and account

for a greater proportion of searches than would be expected for a group of their size.

What is clear from the diagram is that health insurance appears to be a priority for the more

affluent groups: ‘Alpha Territory’. ‘Professional Rewards’ and ‘Careers and Kids’. Home

insurance and motor insurance tend to be fairly universal in terms of Mosaic spread, whereas

travel insurance is a priority for ‘New Homemakers’, ‘Terraced Melting Pot’ and ‘Liberal

Opinions’, typified by young urbanites who live in small modern homes but don’t necessarily

have lots of money.

Looking at the finance products tells a similar story. The consumers most likely to search for

savings products online are the more affluent groups including ‘Alpha Territory’.

‘Professional Rewards’ and ‘Acitve Retirement’. Meanwhile, less afluent groups are much


more likely to search for loans, including ‘Claimant Cultures’, ‘Ex-Council Community’ and

‘Upper Floor Living’.

Credit cards and mortgages are reasonably universal, though a couple of Mosaic groups

stick out as being over-indexed for both products. ‘New Homemakers’ and ‘Terraced Melting

Pot’ are much more likely to search for mortgages, whilst ‘Careers and Kids’ and ‘Small

Town Diversity’ are more likely to search for credit cards than other Mosaic groups.

The interesting point for marketers is that once a particular Mosaic group has been identified

as a key audience for their product, other websites can be targeted which also appeal to the

same Mosaic group. Companies trying to sell savings products and health insurance for

example have a high proportion of their visits from the ‘Alpha Territory’ group. Other

websites that this group frequent more than the industry average include Bloomberg.com.

British Airways, the Financial Times, Transport for London, LinkedIn and Waitrose. These

are just a few examples of websites marketers could target in order to speak to their key

demographic for health insurance and savings.


8. Appendix

Further Reading

To receive a copy of these or any other Hitwise research reports, please contact your client

development manager or email [email protected].

8.1 Getting to grips with Social Media

As social networking becomes more ingrained in our everyday online lives, companies can no longer afford to ignore this crucial avenue of traffic. Analysing the latest online trends, this social media overview explains the core components of this growing phenomenon and includes case studies on how companies have made solid advances online with innovative social media campaigns.

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/registration-pages/getting-to-grips-with-social-media

8.2 Are you getting your five-a-day?

Are you getting the freshest web intelligence? Use Hitwise daily to identify the latest web trends. Track how your customers and potential customers use the internet. And get a detailed insight of your competitors' performance online. Get more from your Hitwise access and achieve a competitive edge for your business.

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/5aday

8.3 Quarterly Travel Review

This report is essential reading for any business working in the Travel industry. Drawing on key insights from the Hitwise competitive intelligence tool, this report uncovers emerging trends for existing and new travel players, analyses the online performance of key travel sectors, and looks at the top 50 most searched for destinations.

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/registration-pages/quarterly-travel-review

8.4 Online Media Round-up

To keep abreast of online media developments (encompassing trends in news, entertainment,

online video and social media), register below to download our monthly round-up.

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/registration-pages/media-round-up

8.5 Recent Experian Hitwise Webinars

How retail seasonal peaks impact your business

In the build up to Christmas, it's not just online retail which benefits - travel, news and media and entertainment websites all see a significant boost. Learn how understanding seasonal peaks can help you maximise your online promotions.

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/registration-pages/webinar-retail-seasonal-peaks

Explore the archive at: http://www.hitwise.com/uk/webinars


For more in-depth analysis, subscribe to the Hitwise UK blog at:

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/

Keep up to date with real time data by following Hitwise UK on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Hitwise_UK

For further information, please contact your Hitwise account manager or email:

[email protected]

8.6 About Experian Hitwise

Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Experian Hitwise gives

marketers a competitive advantage by providing daily insights on how 25 million Internet

users around the world interact with more than 1 million Web sites. This external view helps

companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as

they develop. Experian Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors,

including financial services, media, travel and retail.

Experian Hitwise (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the

United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, France and Brazil.

More information about Experian Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com/uk

About Experian

Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical

tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit

risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also

helps individuals to manage their credit relationships and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE

100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2009 was $3.9 billion. Experian employs

approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin,

Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São

Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com


8.7 Terms Used in this Report

Hitwise provides clients with various metrics for analyzing competitive activity. The

definitions of metrics used by Hitwise are:

User Visit: A series of one or more page requests by a visitor without 30 consecutive

minutes of inactivity.

Market Share: The percentage of all visits or page requests to a particular online market

sector that is received by the individual website.

Clickstream: Provides an indication of the upstream and downstream traffic to and from a

website. Upstream sites are those sites visited immediately prior to visiting the current site.

Downstream sites are those visited immediately after leaving the current site.

Fast Moving Search Terms: Search terms which are sending traffic to a category that

experienced the largest relative increase in market share of searches between two periods of

time.

Mosaic UK: Mosaic UK is a socio-cultural classification of the UK population that has been

developed by Experian to describe and group the population on the basis of the proven

principle that individuals with similar interests, lifestyles, profiles and behaviour cluster

closely together. Mosaic UK™ classifies all UK households and neighbourhoods into 11

Mosaic Groups and 61 Mosaic Types. The classification specifies both a Mosaic Group and

Type for each of the 1.7 million postcodes in the UK. The type assigned is the one that most

closely describes the characteristics of those households and the individuals living there.

8.8 Disclaimer

Some of the data presented in this report is based on custom data sets built for the purpose

of this report and not available in the syndicated Hitwise service. This research report may

contain names, information, data, links to third party website addresses, and other materials

belonging to third parties; including textual references to such items. Any and all such uses

are for illustrative purposes only and do not necessarily indicate an endorsement of the

opinions, products or services provided by those third parties. Hitwise does not claim any

proprietary right in, or to, any such items as may qualify as copyrights, trademarks or other

proprietary marks of third parties.

Hitwise is not responsible for the content of third party websites, or the manner in which

information may be collected on that website and used by the third party. Hitwise disclaims

any responsibility towards the visitor of a third party website or any third party for any direct,

indirect or incidental reliance, consequential or punitive damages, including without

limitation lost profits, expenses or revenue; regardless of whether Hitwise knew, or ought to

have known, of the possibility of any loss or damage arising from the use of, or visit to, a third

party’s website.

Use of this research report is at your own and sole risk. Hitwise disclaims any and all

warranties or representations in respect of the accuracy or usefulness of information, or any

observations that may be derived from such information, obtained from Hitwise.

uk financial services quarterly review issue 8 jul sep 2010

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