Three opportunities for brands using price comparison websites
According to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), an estimated 85% of all UK internet users have used a price comparison website at some point or another.
According to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), an estimated 85% of all UK internet users have used a price comparison website at some point or another.
From searches for Disney’s Frozen fancy dress costumes to cross channel marketing maturity, it can only be the stats roundup!
The full 10 for today’s halloween edition and, of course, there are more online marketing charts and statistics over in the Econsultancy Internet Statistics Compendium.
Enjoy and be well.
Last week Co-Op energy boss Ramsey Dunning made a very public attack on price comparison sites, citing them as misleading and pushing up energy bills.
Dunning stated that price comparison sites such as uSwitch, Moneysupermarket and Energy Helpline should disclose how much they make in commission from the energy partners.
While I of course advocate a continued development of greater transparency to consumers, I find it difficult to understand exactly what it is that Dunning is hoping such a move will achieve.
One of the benefits of ecommerce is that it’s very easy to present a range of products side-by-side so that shoppers can compare the various features.
This makes greatly helps the decision-making process as customers can select a product based on which has the most relevant features as well as being the best value for money.
Retailers can also present additional details such as special offers and product reviews in order to increase the chances of a conversion.
In September 2012 the UK Payments Council released a report stating that in the year prior to May 2012, only 2.5% of consumers surveyed had switched bank.
Not just that, but 88% hadn’t even considered switching.
Not necessarily a surprising statistic, banking is a system with a lot of inertia on behalf of the customer and a lot of friction on behalf of the banks.
Google’s search visibility for car insurance comparison has leapt from 0% to 75% in the space of two days since it launched its own rival to the likes of Confused.com.
According to stats from Greenlight, Google’s car insurance comparison service is now visible for at least 500,000 relevant UK searches per month from this point onwards.
This will obviously have competitors in what is a fiercely competitive market worried…
Google has announced that it is launching a price comparison service offering information on credit cards and bank accounts ahead of the natural search listings.
While Google’s price comparison service comes below the paid links, it includes images that make it more eye-catching than normal PPC ads.
This puts it in direct competition with high-spending advertisers such as moneysupermarket.com and comparethemarket.com.
This is not the first time Google has gone up against its advertisers. In December it began promoting its own hotel finder above paid links.