Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK
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June 27, 2006
World Cup Fantasy Football
The World Cup is, as always, having a huge impact online. Sports Fantasy have websites been among the biggest beneficiaries of world cup fever, with visits increasing three times in the past four weeks. This post provides two brief examples of how this growth impacts the parent sites for the largest fantasy football sites, such as Metro, The Telegraph and The Sun and considers the impact on advertisers.
Top 10 Sports - Fantasy Websites, Based on Share of UK Visits, Week to 24th June 2006
Notice the number of print publications among the top 10 Sports - Fantasy websites. Nearly one third of category visits last week went to The Sun and the Metro fantasy sports sites and both have run extensive promotions in their offline publications to attract readers to their websites. With the tabloids and nationals struggling to keep readers (and advertising pounds), is fantasy footbal an effective way to draw visitors to a site?
Among the top 10 sites in the Sports- Fantasy category, the fastest growing were Metro Fantasy Football, Will Hill Fantasy Football, Channel 4 Fantasy Football, and Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup, whose market share of visits increased 6 times, 22 times, 5 times, and 4 times, respectively.
Metro Fantasy Football
Among these, the Metro stands out as successful at increasing visits both to the fantasy football site and to the main website. Visits to www.metro.co.uk increased more than three times in the past four weeks. The site leapt from a ranking of 14th four weeks ago to 4th among News and Media websites. What's behind the growth?
The growth in visits to the Metro website and the Metro Fantasy Football website are a direct result of promotions in the print edition. Promotions for the Fantasy Football offering have been front and centre on the paper. Take this morning's issue for example where the bottom of the front cover promotes Fantasy Football and refers to the article inside. The article provides a run down of recent winners, prizes awarded, and encourages readers to keep playing. The keys to this promotion are prominence and of course, cold hard cash.
The search phrase "metro fantasy football" is the highest volume search query that includes the keyword "fantasy", ahead of even "fantasy football". The Metro website last week received 8% of its upstream visits from the Metro Fantasy Football website, indicating that this has become an important source of visits to the site. The search term "metro fantasy football" was the eigth highest volume term referring visits to the Metro website in the past four weeks, and the top term referring visits to the Metro Fantasy Football website.
Email has also become an increasingly important source of visits to the Metro Fantasy Football website. Last week, just over 10% of visits to Metro Fantasy Football came from Email Services. Upon registering, visitors to the site are asked for their email address and are asked if they want to receive updates from Metro.
The Telegraph Fantasy Football
Let's also look briefly at The Telegraph, which has seen visits to its website increase 10% in the past four weeks and visits to its Fantasy World Cup site increase five times. The Telegraph runs a very well known fantasy sports section, with cricket, football, and World Cup all proving popular at the moment. The Telegraph sent 33% of its downstream traffic to its various Fantasy Sports websites, with 26% going to the Football and World Cup fantasy sites. The third highest volume search term sending visits to The Telegraph was "telegraph fantasy football" in the past four weeks.
Fantasy football certainly seems to be an effective way to draw visits to a site. Promoting the service offline works to draw visitors and this can be an effective way to collect email addresses. However, are the consumers it attracts the right audience for advertisers? As always, the answer is - it depends on what audience you are going after. Fantasy Football sites skew toward younger (18-35), male visitors from slightly lower income groups than average for the UK population. Advertisers should consider how promotions and seasonal events can change a website's profile of visitor and adjust creative and promotions accordingly.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 04:55 PM
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