| Bendigo Bank and Bank of Queensland – What are the Online Synergies? |
Bank of Queensland's (BOQ) bid to merge with Bendigo Bank (BEN) will no doubt give the two organisations combined more ability to grow into a serious online force within the online Banks & Financial Institutions category. David Liddy, Bank of Queensland's Managing Director cites it as a, "clear opportunity for two of the top regional banks to come together as a merged entity to create Australia's 'big small bank' ". While comparisons have been drawn on the community-oriented synergies of the two banks' branch networks, how do they compare online and what can a merger offer each partner in terms of visitor demographics?
Audience Profiling
Understanding the key similarities and differences of online visitors to BEN and BOQ may inform the synergies of a partnership, as well as areas where either party stands to gain. While both banks have branches situated throughout Australia, each brand unsurprisingly attracts a high representation of visitors from its respective home state. BEN however, also has a good presence with online users in Queensland and Tasmania, while BOQ is under-represented in Victoria.
Both banks attract similar percentages of users in the 18-44 age bracket and have core volumes of users in the Hitwise Lifestyle - MOSAIC™ audience profiling group, "Domestic Appliance". Users in Domestic Appliance are described as better-off families in core suburban and rural fringe locations. The benefit of forming a partnership between two brands with overlapping core visitors means that marketing communications can be simplified to the same target audience, providing cost savings on advertising.
A key online demographic difference between BEN and BOQ is age composition in the later years. BOQ had a 13.48% positive swing against BEN amongst users aged 55+, and a negative swing of 9.02% amongst users in the 45-54 age group. BOQ also had a 20% swing to female users, which puts it in a stronger position for financial products that women are more likely to research online.
BOQ attracted a niche audience of users in MOSAIC™ Group B - "Rewarding Faculties", described as monied and accomplished stable families in mid to outer districts. A highly affluent group, they typically use the Internet or phone for their banking, and an adviser for their financial planning. BEN on the other hand attracted niche users from MOSAIC™ Group K - "Town and Country" described as families maintaining the rural economy. As BOQ and BEN do not overlap in these audiences, it represents an opportunity for each party to be exposed to new consumer segments.
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| Business and Finance - Agricultural |
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The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 31/03/2007 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Business and Finance - Agricultural' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'easter show' representing 2.52% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Business and Finance - Agricultural' industry.
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| 1. |
easter show |
2.52 |
| 2. |
royal easter show |
2.47 |
| 3. |
elders real estate |
2.01 |
| 4. |
elders |
1.75 |
| 5. |
sydney royal easter show |
1.65 |
| 6. |
melbourne flower show |
0.80 |
| 7. |
sydney easter show |
0.57 |
| 8. |
landmark |
0.55 |
| 9. |
aqis |
0.5 |
| 10. |
real estate |
0.5 |
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| AFL Dream Team (Coke Zero) - afl.virtualsports.com.au |
AFL Dream Team (Coke Zero) is a fantasy AFL game powered by virtualSPORTS.com.au. Users can play selector and coach of their own team of AFL players and give themselves the chance to win cash and prizes.
The website experienced a rank increase as follows over the past weeks:
W/E 17/3/07 - Rank 3,236
W/E 24/3/07 - Rank 192
W/E 31/3/07 - Rank 110
The above ranks represent the performance of the AFL Dream Team (Coke Zero) website amongst all other websites visited by Australian Internet users during that period. Accordingly, the website's market share increased by over 2,800% during the same period.
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| Television |
Site dedicated to television programmes, channels, companies and networks are encompassed by this category. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 31/03/2007 » Ranks by 'Visits'.
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| 63.2% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
44.70% |
| 2. |
Entertainment |
24.99% |
| 3. |
Search Engines |
24.81% |
| 4. |
News and Media |
14.38% |
| 5. |
Television |
10.77% |
| 6. |
Sports |
8.64% |
| 7. |
Portal Frontpages |
7.75% |
| 8. |
Net Communities and Chat |
4.90% |
| 9. |
Lifestyle |
4.76% |
| 10. |
Networks and Channels |
4.31% |
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| 1. |
Entertainment |
34.34% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet |
26.20% |
| 3. |
News and Media |
17.18% |
| 4. |
Television |
14.37% |
| 5. |
Sports |
9.21% |
| 6. |
Search Engines |
8.42% |
| 7. |
Lifestyle |
6.11% |
| 8. |
Business and Finance |
6.08% |
| 9. |
Net Communities and Chat |
5.89% |
| 10. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
5.72% |
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| Affiliate Marketing |
Affiliate programs are arrangements in which an online merchant website pays affiliate websites a commission to send them traffic. While it is a great way to generate leads, it is crucial to understand which affiliates can potentially send the most consistent and qualified customers to your website.
Because we measure the online behaviour of millions of Internet users every day, only Hitwise can help marketers identify new affiliate partners, evaluate each partner's strengths and weaknesses and report on the results of these online relationships.
For example, if a bank wanted to identify potential affiliate partners and understand how other banks used affiliate marketing to drive traffic, here are some of the insights they could uncover with Hitwise.
- Which potential affiliate partners send visitors to both my website and competitors?
- Which websites send traffic to my competitor and do not send traffic to my website?
- What is the quality of traffic from a potential affiliate partner – is it constant or intermittent?
- Which websites in the online real estate industry have the same audience profile as the profile of my customers who are most likely to apply for a home loan?
- How have my affiliate relationships performed over time?
- How have my competitors’ affiliate relationships performed over time?
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