OTA Search Share: Expedia Leading the Way

It’s hard to think of an online consumer offering that doesn’t rely heavily on search, and travel is no exception. With economic factors making consumers more price-conscious than ever, travelers are looking for good deals more and more, making search an integral traffic driver for Online Travel Agencies (OTAs).

Expedia is the class of the industry when it comes to search though, with a 26% share. This means that they receive traffic from just over one out of every four clicks (both paid and natural) to a major OTA from search, followed by rivals Travelocity and Orbitz. Priceline has moved into the fourth position by growing its share by nearly 5%, replacing Cheaptickets, which has fallen by almost the same percentage.

Taking a deeper look at paid search traffic specifically, we see that 36% of all search traffic to OTAs comes through sponsored links. Hotels.com leads the way with an average of 44% of search referrals coming from paid search. Expedia is in the advantageous position of being on the lower end of paid search percentage ((34%), despite having such a large search share.

With ever increasing ROI expectations being placed on travel marketers, optimizing the online channel is critical. Given that many of the OTAs are relying more heavily on paid search referrals, and the degree of volatility in this space, it would benefit the OTAs to closely monitor share of search traffic across the competitive landscape.

Online Brokerage Sites See Increased Visitors with Ramped Up Online Advertising Efforts

Despite a softening economy – or, perhaps, because of it – the overall number of visitors to online brokerage sites grew 14 percent during the past year, more than twice the rate of growth of the total U.S. Internet audience. Despite recording a 9 percent decline in visitors, Fidelity Investments still led the category with 3 million visitors in June 2008, followed by Scottrade Sites (1.6 million visitors) and E*Trade Financial Network (1.2 million visitors), both of whom showed strong growth in unique visitors.

Selected Online Brokerage Sites* June 2008 vs. June 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix
	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	Jun-2007	Jun-2008	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	178,839	189,873	6
Online Trading	10,553	12,079	14
Fidelity Investments	3,302	3,018	-9
Scottrade Sites	1,255	1,585	26
E*Trade Financial Network	1,096	1,226	12
TDAMERITRADE.COM	1,066	1,108	4
SCHWAB.COM	821	719	-12
TROWEPRICE.COM	324	338	4
ZECCO.COM	N/A	160	N/A
TRADEKING.COM	N/A	71	N/A

*List includes only selected sites in the Online Trading category and does not constitute an official category ranking

“Though it may seem counterintuitive, an economic downturn actually represents an opportunity for companies in the financial sector because consumers are more engaged with their finances. The increase in visitors to online brokerage sites during a weakening stock market reflects this reality,” said Brian Pugh, comScore Director of Financial Solutions. “Because consumers may be more open to brand switching if they see a chance to save money or mitigate financial risk, financial service companies should seek to capitalize on the opportunity. One way online brokerages have attempted to do so is by increasing their investments in online advertising.”

E*Trade and Scottrade Lead Online Advertising Efforts

Among online brokerages with a significant paid search strategy, E*Trade.com led with 6.4 million paid search ad impressions in June. E*Trade.com has consistently led the competitive set since the beginning of the year and has been widening its lead versus the rest of the group. Also notable is that the two newest online brokerage sites in the competitive set, Zecco and Trade King, have pulled ahead of T. Rowe Price in their paid search link exposures, indicating a significant early push in the SEM acquisition channel.

Selected Online Brokerage Sites June 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Marketer
Advertiser	Paid Search Link Exposures (000)	Share (%) of Paid Search Link Exposures*	Total Unique Searchers (000)	Average Frequency
E*Trade	6,390	31.7%	2,846	2.3
Scottrade	3,546	17.6%	1,588	2.2
TD Ameritrade	3,198	15.9%	1,533	2.1
Charles Schwab	3,036	15.1%	1,249	2.4
Fidelity Investments	2,133	10.6%	1,005	2.1
Zecco	1,127	5.6%	593	1.9
Trade King	541	2.7%	264	2.1
T. Rowe Price	191	1.0%	108	1.8

*Share based on competitive set of 8 selected online brokerages

Scottrade, ranking second among online brokerages in paid search link exposures, was the top display advertiser in June with more than 1.2 billion ad views, followed by E*Trade (549 million ad views), Fidelity Investments (498 million ad views), and TD Ameritrade (314 million ad views). Scottrade reached 67.6 million people with its display ads, representing more than one third of the total U.S. Internet audience.

Selected Online Brokerage Sites June 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
	Total Display Ad Views (000)	Share (%) of Publisher Ad Views*	Advertising Exposed Unique Visitors (000)	Average Frequency
Scottrade	1,233,110	45.5%	67,598	18.2
E*Trade	549,405	20.3%	60,692	9.1
Fidelity Investments	498,329	18.4%	40,345	12.4
TD Ameritrade	313,808	11.6%	33,208	9.5
Zecco	59,896	2.2%	6,945	8.6
Trade King	25,537	0.9%	1,494	17.1
Charles Schwab	19,796	0.7%	3,617	5.5
T. Rowe Price	8,433	0.3%	2,724	3.1

*Share based on competitive set of 8 selected online brokerages

“Scottrade and E*Trade are the category leaders in terms of having the heaviest online advertising plans,” added Mr. Pugh. “However, recent entrants Zecco and Trade King are investing in their own online advertising efforts and may eventually prove themselves to be important competitors in this market.”

Google AdSense Reports in Analytics - More Screenshots

AdSense publishers will soon have access to extremely detailed stats about ads via Google Analytics reports.

You’ll know about web pages that get more clicks, revenue generated per page, CPM rates, top referring sites, etc.

You will soon be able to track visitor clicks on your AdSense ads using Google Analytics reports.

These new reports in Analytics have enough details to help you exactly measure AdSense performance on every single page of your website.

Google dropped hints on AdSense - Analytics integration some two years but the program has finally entered the beta phase as revealed by a post on GoogleCache (offline now).

Luckily the story remained in FeedDemon’s cache and picking from there, following is a summary of AdSense related data that you’ll be able to track via Google Analytics:

1. The number of times AdSense ads were clicked on any given web page.

2. AdSense revenue generated per page for clicks mentioned in #1.

3. You’ll also know the CTR and CPM for all web pages - no need to create individual URL channels in your AdSense dashboard.

4. "Top AdSense Referrers" - this is the most interesting report as it helps you know about revenue made per referring websites.

Let’s take an example. Assume two sites - digg.com and cnn.com - have linked to a page on your website and are sending some referral traffic. Now Analytics will tell you exactly how much AdSense revenue you are making through traffic from each of these sites.

This report has enormous potential as it lends a "measurable" value to each incoming link. Some sites could even use this as a replacement for affiliate programs.

All the above information is based on screenshots that were shared by Google Cache but that story is no longer available on the web.

Here are more screenshots from the same source that give exciting hints about what’s coming next.

AdSense Overview

There’s a new AdSense section added to the Analytics Reports that displays complete statistics about how visitors interact with Google Ads on your site and how have the ads performed over time.

Top AdSense Content

This report gives a consolidated view of AdSense earnings made along with information like clicks per page, CTR, CPM and total number of ad impressions.

AdSense Trending

This Analytics report will give an overview of how your AdSense earnings have changed over time (like your site traffic in Google Trends).

AdSense Revenue Per Page

This report is similar to the ‘Top AdSense Content’ report but that was for the entire site and this is on the page level.

Top AdSense Referrers

Let’s say site abc.com and xyz.com have linked to a page on you are website and you are getting referral traffic. With the AdSense Referrer report, you’ll know the exact revenue that you are making from visitors that are coming to you via two different sources.

Great for AdSense Revenue Sharing Sites

All these new AdSense - Analytics reports will also be very useful if you plan to have a site / blog with multiple contributors and their payment is a fixed percentage of AdSense Revenue generated from articles that they have written. No complex Excel sheets required anymore.