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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America
Analyst Weblog
Top Canadian Travel Websites
November 16, 2009
Canada is home to one national airline (Air Canada), a major regional carrier (Westjet), a few low cost carriers and international competition on international routes. One might expect Canadians to head directly to AirCanada.com to make bookings, however, Hitwise data reveal that Canadians continue to compare deals across carriers, in particular using online travel agencies.
Among Travel websites, last week, Expedia.ca and Westjet ranked #1 and #2 in share of Canadian Internet visits. Air Canada and Westjet typically trade off for the #2 spot. The following table shows the top 10 Travel websites (excluding Maps) last week.
Hitwise clicsktream data provides insight into who Air Canada's top competitors are online. The #'1 website visited after AirCanada.com last week was Westjet, attracting 8.83% of downstream visits. Westjet received more than 3x the share of visits compared to Expedia.ca, the next highest competitor. The following chart shows the top 10 downstream Travel websites visited after Air Canada in the week ending November 14th, 2009
Air Canada Vacations is a popular offering by Air Canada, possibly reflecting interest in package holidays, and it appears #3 downstream from Air Canada, after Aeroplan the rewards program offered by Air Canada. Porter, a new discount carrier offering flights within Canada and some US destinations is already appearing at #9 downstream from Air Canada and Air Transat, which offers some overseas flights, is at #10.
Clickstream data can be an excellent source of insight into who your competitors are online - by revealing the competitors that customers turn to for price comparison. As we approach the season of winter getaways, it will be interesting to see how the travel landscape evolves and how some of the low cost carriers will fare.
Also, a reminder that we'll be speaking at the upcoming PhocusWright conference in Orlando. Hope to see you there.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 03:28 PM
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In Categories Canadian Insights | Travel
Canadians Searching for Flu Shot Side Effects
November 12, 2009
Canadians appear to be shifting their focus from researching swine flu and its associated symptoms to researching the vaccine and locations for the shot. While the search term "swine flu symptoms' continues to dominate flu related searches, the share of searches for "swine flu symptoms" declined by 49% last week.
At the same time, a number of search terms that indicate concern over the safety of the vaccine have entered the top Canadian search terms containing the word "flu". For example, last week, the search terms "flu shot side effects" and "sde effects of h1n1 flu shot" joined the top 100 search terms that include the word "flu". The search term "swine flu vaccine ingredients" (also among those top 100) saw searches more than double last week.
The search term "gelsemium" was the #1 fast moving search term last week.Gelsemium is being promoted as a homeopathic cure for the flu.
Despite much hype about vaccine shortages and long waits at clinics, searches for "flu shot locations" and "flu clinics" actually decreased last week. The peak of swine flu season is now expected in late November. It will be interesting to see how Internet searches continue to change over the coming weeks.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 11:15 AM
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In Categories Canadian Insights
Canadian Banks Brand Association
November 04, 2009
Internet search data can be an excellent input to understand what consumers associate with a brand name. Looking at the words that consumers include with a brand name in a search query provides insight into the products, services and attributes consumers associate wtih that brand. The data, updated weekly is far more timely and cost effective than the traditional phone surveys to measure brand association.
Today, I want to follow up on a post from last week to show what Canadians associate with the brand names of the big banks. The following table shows the top 10 branded search terms for the Big 5 banks in the twelve weeks to October 3, 2009.
It is not surprising that most consumers are searching first for online banking for all of the banks. We tend to use search engines to navigate the web and banking is no exception. There are a few other things of note, however:
- Bank of Montreal's Mastercard appears at #8 among search terms for Bank of Montreal, while credit card searches don't appear among most other bank search terms. Notice also the brand for their Mastercard product, "mosaic mastercard".
- CIBC's credit card, Visa, is also among its top 10 brand searches, again at #8.
- TD Canada Trust's search terms reveal the continued strength of the TD brand, with "td" at #2 while "canada trust" appears at #10.
- Looking beyond the top 10 terms, I found searches for TD Canada Trust Insurance offering, "rbc visa" and "desjardins visa".
You can view last week's post on the online strength of the brands of the Big 5 banks here.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 11:30 AM
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In Categories Business & Finance | Canadian Insights
Canadian Banks, Internet Search Data and Brand Strength
October 15, 2009
Internet search data is an excellent source of insight into what consumers associate with a brand as well as the "top of mindedness" of any particular brand. I did some analysis of the top search terms sending visits to Canadian banks to see how Canadians search for their banks.
The top search term sending Canadian traffic to Banks and Financial Institutions in the 12 weeks rolling to October 3, 2009 was "td canada trust" accounting for 5% of clicks to this industry. A close second, searches for "rbc online banking" accounted for 4.85% of clicks.
But while TD may take the top spot in individual search terms, when I aggregated searches relating to TD Canada Trust, Royal Bank and the other big banks, I found that RBC is actually the most searched for Canadian bank, capturing 26% of branded searches among the top 300 terms sending clicks to Banks and Financial Institutions websites. TD was second capturing 20%. The following pie chart shows the breakdown for the Big 5 plus Desjardins.
All but 10 of the top 300 search terms sending visits to Banks and Financial Institutions websites were branded terms. Most generic search terms related to the Canadian dollar exchange rate and they accounted for less than 1% of clicks.
Also interesting, Capital One's URL, GetMyCard.ca was the #171 search term sending visits to Banks and Financial Institutions. The analyst team at Hitwise has done a bit of work in the past to help brand marketers use internet usage data as a measure of the effectiveness of offline advertising. This is a nice example of how awareness of a particular URL promoted in offline advertising can be measured over time and against peers.
Stay tuned for a follow up post on brand association for Canadian banks as measured by Internet search data.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 10:41 AM
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In Categories Branding | Canadian Insights | Financial Services
