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 | Page 2 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 support.uk@hitwise.com.
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:
support.uk@hitwise.com
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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Uk financial services quarterly review issue 8 jul sep 2010