UK financial comparison homepages - revisited

Over a year ago I posted an article on the homepage file size differences of several financial comparison websites.

I therefore have revisited this topic and thought it would be good to see what's changed... once again using the Firebug and Google page speed plugins for Firefox.

moneysupermarket.com 
Homepage weight: 384.1K
Number of items: 60
Page Speed Score: 80/100 (Desktop)
Page Speed Score: 65/100 (Mobile)
A decrease in page weight but an increase in the number of items means that the page speed is now very slightly less than it was.

comparethemarket.com
Homepage weight: 468.2k
Number of items: 34
Page Speed Score: 82/100 (Desktop)
Page Speed Score: 76/100 (Mobile)
A slight decrease in page weight and a decrease in the number of items has not had the desired effect on page speed.

confused.com
Homepage weight: 419.9k
Number of items: 38
Page Speed Score: 81/100 (Desktop)
Page Speed Score: 66/100 (Mobile)
A small increase in the homepage weight but with a significant reductions in the number of items on the page has not improved the page speed score

gocompare.com
Homepage weight: 1,100k (1.1Mb)
Number of items: 106 
Page Speed Score: 70/100 (Desktop)
Page Speed Score: 59/100 (Mobile)
An increase in the weight of the page by over 200k coupled with an increase in the number of items gives a significant reduction in page speed score (from 87 to 70 - the greatest difference in this test)

Digital Shopper Marketing - the new influence

The world of retail is now multi-channel and customers now shop across a number of different devices, at times of day to suit them and in different ways to how they used to (convenience vs. cost, etc.).

 

The area of Shopper Marketing, which originally looked mainly at things such as the in-store path to purchase has now started to merge with the eCommerce / multi-channel retail and even online marketing. This has formed the relatively new discipline of Digital Shopper Marketing.

Here's my take on this:

1. Brands, by placing themselves between the channels of influence and the point of retail (e.g. the store), can affect the buying decisions of the customer
2. A lot of customers now use the Internet to inform their buying decisions (e.g.recommendation and comparison sites, social media, brand micro-sites, etc.)
3. The digital influence doesn't just happen at home and in-front of a static PC these days. Users search sites at work, they have laptops when on the move, they use tablets in bed and over half of the UK population now has a smartphone.

So how can brands disrupt a consumer and get the maximum affect? Well this depends a lot on what consumers you are targetting, their shopping preferences and the mix of marketing that is required.
For example, a particular segment (let's call them "shopper savvy mums") are more interested in ways to:

• Saving: Using vouchers to make the family budget stretch that little bit further
• Sharing: Commenting and gaining opion via Social Media
• Sampling: Trying new or improved products to optimise spend and overall family well-being

The secret for digital shopper marketing suppliers is to find out what works for their client's target audience. And I''ll leave you to find out how to do this for yoursleves.

Google Shopping becoming a paid-for service

Google Shopping, the comparison shopping engine from Google, is about to change in the UK and several other countries from today. From 13 February it is moving from a free service to a paid-for one, in an increasing attempt by the UK & Europe’s biggest search engine to monetise its functionality.

 

However it will take a little while to transition over from the free service and the change will not be completely implemented until around the end of Q2 2013. Based upon Cost-per-click (CPC) bidding for each product, the system will be run from your Google account .It will then work in a similar way to the AdWords system that is used to display advertising alongside the organic search results (SERPs)

So....Are you ready for Google’s newly-monetised service?

If not,there are certain things you can do to prepare yourself

1. Create an AdWords account
   If you do not have an AdWords account already, you will need one if you want to keep your products showing up… but it will cost you when someone clicks on one of your products.
2. Make sure your bidding is competitive
   Just like pay-per-click costs, bidding on Product Listing Ads is not just based on what you want to pay for a visit, but what your competitors bid. Setting maximum daily budgets is therefore the obvious way to avoid any financial surprises.
3. Understand the work involved If you currently manage your free listings yourself and have little knowledge of the Google AdWords system, you could be in for a steep learning curve.
4. Make sure your feeds are correct
   The slightest error in your feed to Google Shopping could break the entry for your products in the Google Merchant Center account. These feeds also need to contain as much information as possible and be completely up-to-date (so you’re not paying for products you no longer sell or have stock of).
5. Keep a close eye on your analytics
   Remember, the number of visits to your site is not usually the best indicator that your paid-for campaigns are optimised. Ensure your analytics account (e.g. Google Analytics) has your goals set-up around conversions and then adapt your product listing adverts to get the most sales.

I’ll be following this new service as it gradually gets rolled-out to users. If you have any experience of paid for PLA’s(e.g. tips and hints) I’d love to hear your thoughts.

UK finance comparison sites are pretty optimised

Today I did a check on the top four finance aggregator sites to see how they compare with each other. The results were found using the Firebug and Google page speed plugins for Firefox (in case you wondered) and make for interesting reading...

moneysupermarket.com
Homepage weight: 539.1K
Number of items: 47
Page Speed Score: 82/100

comparethemarket.com
Homepage weight: 488.9k
Number of items: 42
Page Speed Score: 84/100

confused.com
Homepage weight: 339.9k
Number of items: 63
Page Speed Score: 88/100

gocompare.com
Homepage weight: 800.4k
Number of items: 65
Page Speed Score: 87/100

It's good to see that as an industry matures and as companies within it fight for supremacy, they optimise their web presence in every way. The high page speed score shows they are all taking download / display time seriously, with perhaps only gocompare.com having a worrying page weight of over 800k

Google is back with car insurance

Has anyone else recently done a search for car insurance?

Well,if you has done this about a month ago you'd have seen the screen shown in my recent posting.

However, I checked Google only recently (e.g. a couple of days ago) and the sponsored link to 'Compare Car Insurance - with Google" has disappeared between the organic and the PPC links.

Well, I checked Google again tonight and low-and-behold, the sponsored link is back.

But with one slight amendment.... where previously the search engine boasted quotes from 120+ providers, the language in the advert has subtly changed to 'Compare up to 110 Insurance Providers'.

Has Google possibly got issues with the number of insurance providers on its panel?

Google enters UK insurance comparison market

The big news in the UK motor insurance market over the last few days has to be the entrance of a new comparison site. Usually this wouldn't be big thing, as there are a number of established players already fighting over each other to grab the remaining market share from the insurance companies they supply with leads.
However in case you're not aware, this isn't just another small startup hoping to grab a small but growing piece of the action. This is one of the biggest Internet companies out there..... Google.

Now, when searching for things such as "cheap car insurance", in addition to a couple of pay-per-click adverts appearing about the search results.... you now also get a box sponsored by Google above the search results that then takes you into a price comparison engine process that compares prices from over 120 insurance companies and brokers.

So whilst this means that insurance companies now have a new and significant entrant into the market that has a considerable influence over the search market (to say the least), I can't help but think that this move by Google is a more significant one for the aggregators.