A Conductor
Trend Report
Organic Online Market
Share by Vertical
Q1 2017
Insurance
$
Finance
Real Estate
Travel & Hospitality
Retail
ABOUT THIS REPORT
This report examines the Organic Share of Voice by industry for the Q1 2017, highlighting the brands that
excelled at reaching consumers with valuable content. This report covers five verticals: insurance, finance, real
estate, travel and hospitality, and retail.
As expected, many of the top organic performers are large, established companies. However, many smaller
brands and publishers perform well, indicating that it is the quality of the content rather than the size of the
company or budget that determines organic share of voice performance.
In each vertical, several large industry players are noticeably absent, such as large banks, retailers, hotel chains,
and airlines.
This report also finds that the majority of available market share is still unclaimed. The large slice of market
share labeled “other” in each vertical represents market share that is not consistently held by any one brand.
This indicates that the search landscape is still mutable; there’s a significant opportunity for late entrants to
claim organic market share.
Methodology
During the first quarter of 2017, the Conductor Searchlight content intelligence platform tracked +150k search
terms that consumers made for products, services, and information. In aggregate, these search terms represent
+370MM searches by consumers.
Brands who dominated online visibility by consistently ranking in the top organic spots for high volume, relevant
searches for information or products are highlighted in this report.
Conductor gathered data by:
▶▶ Verticals (insurance, finance, real estate, travel, retail)
▶▶ Vertical subcategories (eg: auto insurance, home insurance, etc.)
▶▶ Location (cities and states across the US)
▶▶ Stage of the customer journey (early, mid, late)
Can I see where my brand ranks?
The information represented in this report is just one small sample of a larger, living dataset with thousands of
more categories, brands, and insights.
Contact our team ([email protected]) to ask how your brand ranks.
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
CONDUCTOR | PAGE 1
Q1 2017: INSURANCE MARKET SHARE
Others
44%
7%
7%
6%
Geico
6%
Allstate
6%
State Farm
6%
Esurance
6%
Nationwide
4%
4%
4%
SafeAuto
CATEGORY MARKET SHARE (22MM*)
SUBCATEGORIES TOP PERFORMERS
1. Geico (7%)
Car: Progressive 8%
2. Progressive (7%)
Home: Geico 10%
3. Liberty Mutual (6%)
Life: NerdWallet 10%
4. Allstate (6%)
Renter’s: Allstate 9%
5. State Farm (6%)
Commercial: Nationwide 9%
6. Esurance (6%)
Business: Progressive 12%
7. Nationwide (6%)
Motorcycle: Nationwide 11%
8. SafeAuto (4%)
Flood: Floodsmart.gov 18%
9. NerdWallet (4%)
Health: ehealthinsurance.com 13%
Progressive
Liberty Mutual
NerdWallet
Farmers
10.Farmers (4%)
*Numbers represent searches made by potential customers for insurance products and information in Q1 2017.
TOP PERFORMERS BY CUSTOMER JOURNEY
TOP PERFORMERS BY PERSONA
Early Stage: Allstate 7%
Women: DMV 9%
Mid Stage: NerdWallet 9%
Men: Carinsurance.com 12%
Late Stage: NerdWallet 11%
Teens/Students: NerdWallet 13%
Military: Military.com 19%
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
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Insurance Category Insights:
▶▶ Some of the top 10 insurance companies in the US*, such as Assurant and AIG, are not top organic market share performers.
▶▶ Content creator NerdWallet outperforms industry giants. However, Wikipedia dropped out of the top 10 results (compared to
the 2016 Holiday Trend Report), replaced by Farmers.
▶▶ The largest 10 auto insurance companies do not align with the 10 sites that have the most auto online market share. SafeAuto
and Mercury Insurance notably beat out many industry giants.
LARGEST ONLINE MARKET SHARE FOR
AUTO INSURANCE
LARGEST AUTO INSURANCE PROVIDERS**
1. SafeAuto 8%
1. State Farm
2. Esurance 8%
2. Geico
3. Liberty Mutual 8%
3. Allstate
4. Geico 7%
4. Progressive
5. Progressive 7%
5. USAA
6. Allstate 7%
6. Farmers
7. Nationwide 6%
7. Liberty Mutual
8. State Farm 6%
8. Nationwide
9. Mercury Insurance 5%
9. American Family Insurance
10.NerdWallet 4%
10.Travelers
* Source: National Association of Insurance Commissioners March 2016
** Source: NerdWallet
Key Strategies for Insurance Companies:
▶▶ Create multiple pieces of content around the same topic with different key terms. For example, “Auto Insurance” and
“Car Insurance” both have large search volumes with different results.
▶▶ Provide online tools such as loan calculators. This content is in high-demand – giving insurance companies the opportunity
to engage with consumers earlier in the customer journey.
▶▶ Make sure content is optimized for “cheap” and “comparison” – the words consumers most often used to modify their searches for insurance products.
▶▶ Optimize content to capture answer boxes in search. About 62% of insurance searches had universal results and 81% of universal results were answer boxes.
▶▶ Maintain an active presence on Twitter. Twitter results consistently ranked in position two for many highly searched
results, including:
• “Affordable health insurance”
• “Health insurance coverage”
• “Health insurance”
• “I need health insurance”
▶▶ Create content that is targeted at specific buyer personas. For the searches that cater to military professionals, Geico is the only major insurance group with a top 10 presence. For auto insurance content targeted specifically at men, only Allstate has a top 10 presence.
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
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Q1 2017: FINANCE MARKET SHARE
Others
66%
7%
Bankrate
6%
NerdWallet
4%
Bank of America
4%
Wells Fargo
3%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
Chase
CATEGORY MARKET SHARE (32MM*)
SUBCATEGORIES TOP PERFORMERS
1. Bankrate 7%
All Loans: Bankrate 12%
2. NerdWallet 6%
Finance Calculators: Bankrate 16%
3. Bank of America 4%
Banks: Chase 7%
4. Wells Fargo 4%
Checking Accounts: Wells Fargo 8%
5. Chase 3%
Commercial: Investopedia 9%
6. US Bank 2%
Credit Cards: NerdWallet 13%
7. Wikipedia 2%
Credit Score: Credit Karma 10%
8. Calculator.net 2%
Home Equity: Bankrate 12%
9. Credit Karma 2%
IRA: NerdWallet 10%
10. Investopedia 2%
Mortgage: Bankrate 19%
US Bank
Wikipedia
Calculator.net
Credit Karma
Investopedia
Mutual Funds: Investopedia 17%
*Numbers represent searches made by potential customers for financial products and information in Q1 2017.
TOP PERFORMERS BY CUSTOMER JOURNEY
TOP PERFORMERS BY PERSONA
Early Stage: NerdWallet 7%
Students: NerdWallet 14%
Mid Stage: NerdWallet 16%
Frequent Flyer: ValuePenguin 14%
Late Stage: CreditCards 15%
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
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Finance Category Insights:
▶▶ Discover vastly outperforms Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. While Discover performs well for categories like “Credit Cards,” “Credit Score,” “Home Equity,” “Late Stage,” and “Students,” American Express is not in the top 10 for any of these categories.
▶▶ Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo are the top performing banks.
▶▶ Publishers outperform finance companies in several categories. Bankrate has the most total market share, and NerdWallet, another publisher, takes spot number two (up a position from the 2016 Holiday Trend Report). Investopedia, another publisher, dominates the Mutual Funds category.
▶▶ Experian was the major only credit provider to show up in the top 10 for the Credit Score category.
▶▶ Many smaller companies outperform larger financial institutions for the Commercial category: Commercial Bank (cbtn.com), Commercial Bank & Trust Company (cbtcnet.com), Commerce Bank, Free Commercial Lender Database, and FitSmallBusiness.com are all in the top 10.
Key Search Strategies for Finance Companies:
▶▶ Provide online tools such as credit and loan calculators. This content is in high demand – giving finance companies the opportunity to engage with consumers earlier in the customer journey.
▶▶ Optimize content to capture answer boxes in search. 68% of tracked searches for this account have universal results. About 90% of those universal searches are answer boxes.
▶▶ Create video content – especially “how to” and comparison content. No large companies are creating video content, which often ranks on page one for popular queries such as:
• “Difference between interest rate and APR” - Josh Mettle (personal account)
• “Difference between savings and checking account” – Granite State Credit Union
• “How do car loans work” - BankApproved.ca
• “How do bank accounts work” – KidsMakingMoney (teaches kids how banks work)
• “How credit cards work” – Authorize.net
▶▶ Contribute content, retarget, or advertise on publishers that have high visibility in your categories, such as Investopedia
and NerdWallet.
▶▶ Focus on getting PR coverage from the publishers that frequently show up in Google’s News Results for finance topics: Bank
rate, Motley Fool, and Bloomberg.
▶▶ Create content that is targeted at specific buyer personas. American Airlines is the only major airline to appear in results for searches by frequent fliers for credit cards.
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
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Q1 2017: REAL ESTATE MARKET SHARE
Others
11%
Bankrate
10%
Zillow
9%
Realtor.com
8%
MortgageCalculator.org
7%
U.S. Mortgage Calculator
7%
Dr Calculator
7%
7%
6%
HSH
28%
Fannie Mae (KnowYourOptions.com)
Calculator.net
TOP PERFORMERS (+103MM*)
SUBCATEGORIES TOP PERFORMERS
1. Bankrate 11%
Apartments: Apartments.com 14%
2. Zillow 10%
By Owner: ForRentByOwner.com 7%
3. Realtor.com 9%
Condos for Rent: Hotpads 17%
4. MortgageCalculator.org 8%
Homes for Sales: Zillow 18%
5. U.S. Mortgage Calculator 7%
Houses for Rent: Hotpads 12%
6. Dr Calculator 7%
Property: SmartAsset 3%
7. HSH 7%
Townhouses: Hotpads 12%
8. Fannie Mae (KnowYourOptions.com) 7%
Vacation Homes: TripAdvisor 11%
9. Calculator.net 6%
*Numbers represent searches made by potential customers for real estate products and information in Q1 2017.
TOP PERFORMERS BY CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Early Stage: SmartAsset 7%
Mid Stage: Bankrate 7%
Late Stage: Realtor.com 6%
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
CONDUCTOR | PAGE 6
Real Estate Insights:
▶▶ While Bankrate steadily maintains its #1 position, other publishers like Money CNN and Wikipedia have dropped out of the top
10 (compared to the 2016 Holiday Trend Report).
▶▶ Sites with interactive mortgage calculators – like HSH, Dr Calculator, Calculator.net -- dominate the top 10.
▶▶ Small brands, like livelovely.com, beat out big brands like Trulia and Zillow for feature-specific searches like
“1 Bedroom apartment.”
▶▶ Major real estate firms such as Century 21, Re/Max, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s and The Corcoran Group don’t rank among the
top 10 positions.
Key Search Strategies for Real Estate Companies:
▶▶ Create multiple pieces of content around the same topic with different key terms. For example, “Home” and “House” and “Rent” and “Rental” searches both have large search volumes with different results.
▶▶ Create city-specific content. There is a huge opportunity to get traffic from local searchers since only NYC has established, competitive city-specific sites dominating market share.
▶▶ Provide online tools such as mortgage calculators. This content is in high demand, with the highest volume of searches in the entire vertical. This mid-stage content gives real estate companies the opportunity to engage with consumers earlier in the customer journey.
▶▶ Contribute content, retarget, or advertise on publishers that have high visibility in your categories, such as Bankrate
and TripAdvisor.
▶▶ Create video content. Videos are a popular result type for “townhouses” and “mansion” searches.
▶▶ Optimize your images with popular adjectives. Image result types were frequently triggered by adjectives like “luxury,” “big,” “dream,” and “modern.”
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
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Q1 2017: TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY MARKET SHARE
Others
65%
7%
Expedia
5%
KAYAK
5%
TripAdvisor
4%
Travelocity
3%
Hotels.com
3%
2%
2%
2%
2%
Orbitz
OVERALL TOP PERFORMERS (+48M*)
SUBCATEGORIES TOP PERFORMERS
1. Expedia 7%
Attractions: TripAdvisor 10%
2. KAYAK 5%
“Best” Travel Destinations: US News 13%
3. TripAdvisor 5%
Cruises: Cruise Critic 10%
4. Travelocity 4%
Flights: KAYAK 9%
5. Hotels.com 3%
Honeymoon: The Knot 14%
6. Orbitz 3%
Hotels: Hotels.com 14%
7. Wikipedia 2%
Motels: Hotels.com 11%
8. US News 2%
Resorts: TripAdvisor 11%
Wikipedia
US News
CheapAir
Cheapflights.com
9. CheapAir 2%
10.Cheapflights.com 2%
*Numbers represent searches made by potential customers for travel services and information per month in Q1 2017.
TOP PERFORMERS BY CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Early Stage: TripAdvisor 10%
Mid Stage: US News 13%
Late Stage: Expedia 11%
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
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Travel Insights:
▶▶ TripAdvisor and Expedia are clear winners in the travel industry. TripAdvisor dominates the Attraction, Early Stage, Mid Stage, Hotels and Resorts categories. Expedia is at the top for the Late Stage, Flights, Resorts, Hotels, and Motels.
▶▶ Major travel companies with an opportunity to become more visible:
• Hotel chains such as Hilton, Wyndham, Holiday Inn
• Airlines such as Delta, United, Jet Blue
• Car rental companies such as Avis, Budget, Hertz
▶▶ Expedia far outperforms other travel aggregators for the Cruise category with 7% market share. The only other aggregator to
appear in the top 10 is Orbitz, with 3%. TripAdvisor and Expedia are clear winners in the travel industry.
▶▶ Insights about the top performers along the customer journey:
• Early Stage – TripAdvisor and US News appear often. Expedia is the only aggregator site and Airbnb is the only lodging site present in the top 10. Thrillist and Time Out are beating Lonely Planet and Fodor’s Travel.
• Mid Stage – US News, Travel & Leisure, and Business Insider are publishers that appear frequently for mid-stage searches. Oyster and Islands outperform much larger sites in this category.
• Late Stage – Late-stage searches are dominated by aggregator sites like KAYAK, Skyscanner, and Hipmunk. This makes sense as people are ready to buy and are comparing prices.
Key Strategies for Travel Companies:
▶▶ Partner or advertise with publishers and aggregators most visible for relevant searches:
• “Cheap” searches – Expedia, KAYAK, TripAdvisor, Skyscanner, Cheapflights.com, Travelocity, FareCompare, Priceline, Orbitz
• “Luxury” searches – TripAdvisor, Five Star Alliance, U.S. News Travel, Hotels.com, Oyster, Expedia, Travel + Leisure, Small Luxury Hotels, The Telegraph
• “Attraction” searches – TripAdvisor, PlanetWare, U.S. News Travel, Expedia (thingstodo.expedia), USA Today (10best.com), TimeOut, CityPASS, Touropia, VirtualTourist, Fodor’s Travel
• “What to do” searches – TripAdvisor, Groupon, Thrillist, U.S. News Travel, Expedia (thingstodo.expedia), USA Today (10best.com), TimeOut, Fodor’s Travel, Airbnb, Travel Channel
▶▶ Make sure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) listings are accurate. Searches with “Hotels in X” and “Hotels X” trigger the Local 3 Pack.
▶▶ Contribute content, retarget, or advertise on publishers that have high visibility for your category. For “Honeymoon” searches, publications like Destination Wedding, Brides.com, and Harper’s Bazaar perform well. For “Attraction” searches, Touropia, CityPASS, RoadsideAmerica.com, and TripAdvisor have top visibility.
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
CONDUCTOR | PAGE 9
2017 Q1: RETAIL MARKET SHARE
Others
74%
5%
5%
Nordstrom
5%
Amazon
3%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
Target
TOP PERFORMERS (+120M*)
SUBCATEGORIES TOP PERFORMERS
1. Nordstrom 5%
Accessories: Amazon 6%
2. Macy’s 5%
Dresses: Nordstrom 8%
3. Amazon 5%
Shirts & Blouses: Macy’s 7%
4. Target 3%
Skirts: Macy’s 8%
5. Zappos 2%
Sweaters: Nordstrom 9%
6. JCPenney 2%
Pants: Old Navy 8%
7. Kohl’s 2%
Outerwear: Nordstrom 9%
8. DSW 1%
Seasonal Winter: Macy’s 8%
9. Wikipedia 1%
Sleepwear & Undergarments: Amazon 7%
Macy’s
Zappos
JCPenney
Kohl’s
DSW
Wikipedia
Shoes: DSW 8%
*Numbers represent searches made by potential customers for retail products and information for the Q1 2017.
WINNERS BY CUSTOMER JOURNEY
WINNERS BY PERSONA
Early Stage: Ties.com 17%
Boys: Amazon 7%
Mid Stage: Amazon 5%
Girls: Amazon 9%
End Stage: Overstock 5%
Women’s: Macy’s 9%
Men’s: Macy’s 9%
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
CONDUCTOR | PAGE 10
Retail Category Insights:
▶▶ Zappos performs better for the “boys” category, while Burlington Coat Factory performs better for “girls.”
▶▶ A wide variety of brands share top market share for modifying search terms around material, target audience, and style:
• “Baby” searches: Carters, Target, Children’s Place, Gap, and Burlington Coat Factory
• “Teenager” searches: Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Image Results, Pinterest
• “Cashmere” searches: Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus
• “Leather” searches: Wilsons Leather, AllSaints US
• “Silk” searches: WinterSilks - Blair
• “Cotton” searches: L.L.Bean
• “Casual” searches: Image Results, Pinterest, Refinery29, Forbes, Wikipedia, GQ
• “Business” searches – Image Results, Pinterest, Refinery29, Forbes, Wikipedia, GQ, Business Insider
• “Trendy” searches: Lulus, Go Jane, Charlotte Russe, Necessary Clothing, Zaful, Maurices
▶▶ Dick’s Sporting Goods was tied with Macy’s and Nordstrom for most market share in the winter seasonals category.
▶▶ Levi was the only jean retailer that made the top ten in the denim category; the rest were mass retailers like Nordstrom, Amazon, and Gap.
Key Search Strategies for Retail Companies:
▶▶ Create visually-heavy “style” content both on your own site and with publishing partners. “Style” searches are in ▶▶ Create video content. High-demand searches like “3 piece suits,” “how to wear cufflinks” and “how to wear a scarf” demand, and are typically dominated by images, videos, and publishers like Forbes, Wikipedia, GQ, and Business Insider.
feature video results.
▶▶ Optimize images with color names. Images were the top result for pink, green, and blue-themed categories.
▶▶ Maintain an active presence on Pinterest and Polyvore. These community-curated fashion sites have climbing retail market share.
▶▶ Make sure your site is featured on review sites like Bestproducts.com, which has 3% market share for mid-stage searches. Retarget on publishers like NY Mag, Elle, and Men’s Health, which also perform well for this category.
▶▶ Optimize instructional content for answer boxes. Answer boxes are triggered by “how to” searches, size and length questions, and fashion history.
▶▶ Create timely content that covers relevant news. While retail searches did not trigger in-depth article results, broad category searches – like khakis, blazer, bikinis, pumps – did trigger Google news results.
ORGANIC ONLINE MARKET SHARE BY VERTICAL - Q1 2017
CONDUCTOR | PAGE 11