Branded Credit Card Searches On The Rise

  • January 16, 2009
Hitwise said Thursday U.S. Internet searches for "credit cards" and "credit card" fell 29% and 14%, respectively, during the four weeks leading up to Jan. 10, compared with the prior year. The data suggests the way consumers search for credit cards has changed.

While non-branded search queries declined 33%, those containing a financial institution rose 46%. About 59% of the top 100 search terms for "credit card" also included the financial institution brand name, followed by store brand in 20% of the queries. Generic queries, those that didn't include a brand name, only made up 15% of queries.--Laurie Sullivan

2 comments about "Branded Credit Card Searches On The Rise".
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  1. Dave Kohl from First In Promotions, January 16, 2009 at 3:19 p.m.

    I personally don't deal with credit card information, but I find this story quite interesting. My hunch is that a new trend may be starting when people are searching for a specific type of product or service.

    Maybe they aren't happy with what comes up on a search without a major brand name, and are now thinking to use one as a way to narrow it to what they consider more of a quality and/or trustworthy search result.

    I think it could prove interesting to watch for this trend in other industries.

  2. John Grono from GAP Research, January 16, 2009 at 4:19 p.m.

    Dave, I think you have hit the nail on the head.

    It is ironic that in a real-life conversation with a friend, when you ask them a question the more words you use to them the more specific their response will be, yet the more words you type into a search engine (leaving aside Boolean advanced searches which few people use) the less specific the search engine response is ... and I suspect that people are tiring of this. (I recall Ballmer commenting on this - I wonder if Microsoft are working on this).

    I also think that this reinforces how essential it is to continue marketing your brand at the "top of the funnel" to ensure that 'branded searches' are entered, without kowtowing to the Search God. After all, search is all about efficiency (finding what I want quickly at the best price/speed) and less about effectiveness.

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