About Hitwise
Hitwise is the leader in online competitive intelligence. Contact Hitwise to maximize your online marketing programs.
Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
Analyst Weblog
« Diana Vickers leading the X Factor pack online | Exchange rates, currency sites and the strong Dollar »
Interest rate cut: impact on search behaviour
November 10, 2008
Following last week’s shock 1.5% rate cut by the Bank of England, UK Internet searches for ‘interest rates’ reached a three year high. As the chart below illustrates, this also led to a spike in searches for ‘tracker mortgages’ and ‘tracker mortgage’ as people went online to take advantage of cheaper borrowing. Perhaps more surprisingly, the rate cut also led to a moderate increase in searches for ‘savings’ last week.
The biggest recipient of traffic from searches for ‘tracker mortgage’ was Money Supermarket, although the price comparison website paid for almost 95% of that traffic. The highest placed mortgage provider on the list below is Halifax, while the most searched for branded term containing the phrase ‘interest rates’ was ‘nationwide building society interest rates’.
Money Supermarket provides a nice example of how finance comparison site have increased their focus on the mortgage market as a result of the credit crunch. The chart below illustrates the proportion search traffic that the website has received from four key mortgage related search terms – ‘mortgages’, ‘mortgage rate’, ‘mortgage’ and ‘mortgage deals’ – over the last three years. As you can see, following a decline during 2007, this year has seen all of these terms become more important to Money Supermarket, with a noticeable spike last week.
One site that has benefited from falling house prices recently is Hurmaz. A couple of weeks ago the ‘reverse auction’ website picked up a significant amount of press coverage about one of its listings, a flat in Highgate, North London. As you can see from the chart below, this resulted in a five-fold increase in traffic to Hurmaz.com. Visitors to the website tend to be older (during the last 4 weeks, 43% were over 55) and affluent - the most over represented Experian Mosaic group currently visiting the website is Global Connections, defined as ‘people with rewarding careers who live in sought after locations, affording luxuries and premium quality products’.
Posted by Robin Goad at 11:31 AM
| 
(3)
| 
(0)
In Categories Demographics | Economy | Financial Services | Mosaic lifestyle | Property | Search
TrackBack
TrackBack URL:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1022.
Comments
Thanks for the comment, Allan.
Here are a few recent post analysing how people are bargain hunting online:
Decline in onlien retail: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/11/online_retail_decline_westfield.html
Downturn hits travl sector online: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/10/economic_downturn_budget_travel_cruises.html
Increase in searches for second hand goods: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/10/second_hand_goods_classifieds_freecycle.html
Credit crunch hitting ethical consumerism: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/09/has_the_credit_crunch_killed_ethical_consumerism.html
DIY and durniture retailers benefit from downturn: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/09/diy_and_furniture_retailers_overtake_estate_agents_online.html
Vouchers, price comparison and cashback sites: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/08/vouchers_price_comparison_and_cashback.html
And today we'll be hosting a webinar looking at last month's data. You can register here: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/webinars/webinar-pre-christmas-retail.php
I hope some of that is useful! Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | November 11, 2008 10:09 AM
No doubt that there is a positive correlation. I am just curious about how long this recession will last, since the internet offers much more opportunities to stimulate economies.
Posted by Flüge | November 11, 2008 11:54 AM
Interesting post. Even if we're going into a global recession, people will show up and do some bargain hunting. This goes for online advertising as well.
Posted by Allan | November 10, 2008 11:06 PM