Finance Category Sees CPC Increase

It’s expected that major economic trends will be reflected in various types of online data. Average cost-per-click (CPC) data from March 2008 released by Efficient Frontier confirms this, as various finance-related categories saw relatively large month-to-month jumps.

Total finance, which includes auto, finance, banking, credit, financial information, insurance, lending, and mortgage, saw its CPC pegged at around $2.65 in March 2008, which was a 9% increase from February’s $2.43.

The Credit category saw the largest increase from February, with its CPC soaring 25% from $2.65 to $3.30 in March.

Mortgage saw a 13% increase in its CPC, from $2.05 in February to $2.32 in March. Insurance also saw a 13% increase, from $7.87 in February to $8.88 in March. Auto insurance saw its CPC rise 7%, from $1.47 in February to $1.57 in March.

Retail also crept up 5%, from $0.37 to $0.39, while Dating increased 4% from $0.37 to $0.38. Automotive remained stagnant at $0.50.

Meanwhile, recent real estate troubles seem to have benefited real estate Web sites. Total unique visitors to real estate sites in the U.S. increased 14% from February 2007’s 36.9 million visitors to 42.2 million visitors in February 2008. The total Internet audience in the U.S. increased 5%, from 175.7 million to 185.0 million during the same time period.

Trulia.com saw the biggest increase in the size of its unique audience (189%), while MSN Real Estate (110%) and Yahoo! Real Estate (56%) also saw strong growth. Move Network (which includes Realtor.com) remained the top dog in the sector, with a unique audience of 9.4 million in February 2008, a 22% increase from the prior year.

Sources:

http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629031

http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629013