Consumer online searches for energy providers offering the most competitive rates on the market have been in steady decline since March this year, perhaps due in part to a decent summer. Regardless, online search volumes over the 2013 summer period, have remained above those of 2012’s autumnal season, reveals a report by digital marketing agency, […]
Consumer online searches for energy providers offering the most competitive rates on the market have been in steady decline since March this year, perhaps due in part to a decent summer.
Regardless, online search volumes over the 2013 summer period, have remained above those of 2012’s autumnal season, reveals a report by digital marketing agency, Greenlight.
It could indeed be said consumer shrewdness in shopping around is well founded, particularly as the UK’s big six energy firms have only just recently indicated their being poised to up energy bills in the coming months.
Greenlight’s “Energy Sector Report – Issue 2” which profiles search behaviour in this sector, found consumers made a total of 242,920 searches on Google UK in July, down from December 2012’s 430,000 when they peaked, and 24% lower than January 2013’s volume.
The report shows the fine summer has done little to deter consumers from continuing to seek out providers that offer the best energy deals, as search volumes in 2013 have remained well above those of the autumn months in 2012.
According to the report, the keywords ‘electricity’, ‘energy’ and ‘gas’ were the most popular search terms overall. Cumulatively, they accounted for 20% of searches pertaining to energy, electricity, dual fuel and gas.
Electricity accounted for a 27% share of energy-related searches with totaled 65,790. Business electricity queries made up 8% of these whilst those pertaining to price cumulatively accounted for 13%.
47,950 searches were for dual fuel with the term ‘gas and electric’ queried 6,600 times to account for 14% of searches.
The terms ‘gas’, ‘gas prices’ and ‘gas ‘suppliers’ dominated the 48,660 gas-related queries and accounted for a 30%, 7% and 6% share of searches for gas, respectively.
Greenlight ranked the most prominent sites based on their visibility to searches.
In the natural listings, Moneysupermarket was the most visible site and was visible to 200,315 searches resulting in its securing an 82% share of visibility.
In the paid listings, uswitch.com was the most visible advertiser, attaining a 91% share of voice.
Britishgas.co.uk meanwhile ranked at the top of Greenlight’s Social Media analysis.
