Content Intelligence Podcasts

Battle for the Online Box Office: Fandango and MovieTickets

Compete Blog via Talkr.com

One of the small conveniences of the internet that I really enjoy is being able to order movie tickets online. Over the summer, I noticed that almost whatever site I visited to learn about a movie and look at show times eventually took me to one of two places to buy tickets: fandango.com or movietickets.com. It seemed like I saw both pretty frequently, so I took a look at compete.com to see how competitive the sites really are. These metrics helped me learn more about the competition between Fandango and MovieTickets, but it also makes an important point about consumer behavior trends when it comes to the movie business. First of all, I was surprised to see that not only does Fandango get more traffic, but it's actually widened the gap with MovieTickets this summer to about 4.5 million visitors in July. Overall traffic is a powerful metric, but it doesn't tell the full story. Repeat business is also an important measure, so I took a look at the average monthly visits per person to these sites. Fandango has also been ahead in visits per person since June 2007. In the last year, the average Fandango user visited about 1.6 times a month, while the average MovieTickets user visited about 1.4 times a month. So Fandango has both more people coming to the site, and people coming slightly more often. But I think the real story is in the overall trend we're seeing with these sites. More people are buying movie tickets online and we see higher seasonal (summer and winter holidays) peaks over time. This suggests that buying tickets online is becoming a more widespread practice among consumers. Still, the number of times people go to these sites has been fairly flat, about 1.5 visits a month, on average. Although more customers and more repeat business are both potential growth strategies, these data suggest that the real opportunity for Fandango and MovieTickets might be to grow by increasing volume of users and making the practice of ordering online more mainstream rather than trying to get customers to go see more shows. I'll see you at the movies. read less

Latest Episodes for this Channel

Battle for the Online Box Office: Fandango and MovieTickets

Fri September 05 2008

One of the small conveniences of the internet that I really enjoy is being able to order movie tickets online. Over the summer, I noticed that almo... read more

July Online Video Market Share: YouTube Marches On, Crackle Gets Major Push From Minisodes

Thu September 04 2008

July is named for Julius Ceaser, and like that Roman Emperor, YouTube "saw and conquered" the world of online video again a month ago. The undisput... read more

The "New" Facebook: Learning From Old Mistakes

Wed September 03 2008

A few weeks ago, I logged on to Facebook to see if any of my friends had dared to challenge me in another game of word twist. As was expected, due ... read more

A few weeks ago, I logged on to Facebook to see if any of my friends had dared to challenge me in another game of word twist. As was expected, due to my unprecedented dominance in the game, no one had. What was not expected, however, was an inconspicuous link at the top of the page telling me to try the "New" Facebook. So, I decided to check it out. This "New" Facebook had an entirely different layout, putting many elements of friends' Profiles on various tabs and allowing for greater control of what your friends see on your profile. In my opinion, the change was an upgrade. Gone were the days of needing to scroll past super pokes, ninja and pirate fights, graffiti, aquariums, and the latest roshombo matches to write on the walls of friends who don't seem to know how to click "no" to application invites. In general, things felt cleaner and easier to use. Not everybody sees it the way I do though. When I showed it to my boyfriend, he was appalled at the changes. He had gotten used to Facebook's layout and did not want to go through the hassle of learning a new layout and figuring out how to do what he wants to do on Facebook. Luckily for him, Facebook was kind enough to put a link at the top of the "New" Facebook allowing you to go back to the "old" Facebook experience. He eagerly went back to the familiar styles he has come to love. Facebook is clearly being cautious with this release, providing links to allow users to give feedback and input prior to the full release. A friend who signed up for Facebook last week was even introduced to the "old" Facebook, rather than pushed to the new, indicating Facebook is not ready to make the new site the standard. The "beta" testing style of this release made me curious as to how many Facebook users have decided to check out the "New" Facebook since its rollout. Since it's rollout, the "New" Facebook has progressively attracted more visitors as the weeks of summer roll by. As of the week of August 10th, more than half of all Facebook users have at least checked out the new site. By the week of August 17th, that visitor count had topped 60% of all Facebook users. Because Facebook has slowly rolled out this new site, inviting more and more people to check out the "New" Facebook each week, this chart only tells us half the story. It is also important to look at how many users checked out the "New" facebook and then decided to go back to the old style in the same session. Facebook users using the "New" Facebook are slowly trending towards only using it, rather than clicking to go back to the old. This has leveled off in the last couple of weeks, holding steady at about 40% of Facebook users checking out the new site deciding to click back to the old. Having 60% of users continue on to use the new site is good news for Facebook, as it indicates users are beginning to come around to the new style. It is clear that Facebook has learned and grown from its last major new release. For those of you that don't recall, in Sept. 2006 Facebook suddenly unveiled its "mini feed"which shocked and scared off many of its users with its openess and seemingly invasion of privacy. This time around, Facebook is letting its users get accostomed to the new style at their own pace, as well as allowing them to provide feedback regarding the new design. Hopefully for Facebook, this will result in more satisfied users, while –in my opinion–providing users with a cleaner, more streamlined Facebook experience. read less

Where Have All the Clickthroughs Gone?

Tue September 02 2008

Marketers invest a significant amount of time and money in online marketing campaigns aimed at delivering positive post-click advertising experience... read more

Marketers invest a significant amount of time and money in online marketing campaigns aimed at delivering positive post-click advertising experiences. However, less than 1% of ads get clicked on and 95% of those clicks never lead to a sale. In fact, post-click experiences vary so widely in the same market, it's likely that one competitor is converting more than five times as many customers than other competitors in the space. Compete looked at the post-clickthrough conversion rates among wireless carriers. Across 20 campaigns, an average of 3.4% of those who clicked through an ad and visited the carrier's landing page purchased online from that carrier in the same quarter. In the top quartile, this jumped to 7.8% of visitors. In this instance, improving performance from the bottom quartile to average or best-in-class could translate into a 2-6x improvement in conversion. Assuming the cost of changing the landing page experience is minimal, this increase in conversion would be a direct increase to ROI. In the credit card space, we have seen instances of campaigns with even greater disparity in conversion between competitors. Given these kinds of disparities, and the potential for quick, direct improvements to ROI by boosting post-click through performance, we think CMOs spending money in the Online Channel should all be asking their teams some questions: What is the Best in Class performance in our industry for engaging and (if applicable) converting people who click on our ads?* Where do we stand in relation to Best In Class? What can we learn from all the other campaigns our competitors are running? *According to Compete analysis, Chase and Citibank campaign conversion outperformed American Express and Capital One by 15-30x. You probably won't be surprised to learn that Compete has a few thoughts about the answers to these questions. For some immediate things you can do to improve your company's landing page experience, visit the replay of our recent webinar. read less

ING DIRECT vs. E*TRADE: Seeing Inside Your Rival's Ads

Fri August 29 2008

One of the fiercest areas of competition within financial services is in high-yield savings products. Since together E*TRADE and ING DIRECT accounte... read more

One of the fiercest areas of competition within financial services is in high-yield savings products. Since together E*TRADE and ING DIRECT accounted for almost 50% of high yield savings applications started online during May and June 2008, we decided to compare the performance of campaigns from these industry leaders. Both E*TRADE and ING DIRECT produced effective and engaging campaigns (according to the IAB post-click through engagement varies from 5-85%) but in our example one landing page performed measurably better. We did a head-to-head comparison of post-click through advertising results for E*TRADE's Max-Rate Savings versus ING DIRECT's Orange Savings Account using Compete's Landing Page Effectiveness product. Below are examples of those landing pages from the week of May 12th. First, we looked at Engagement, which is the percentage of visitors to the ING DIRECT and E*TRADE landing pages whose next click is on the bank's domain. This metric, which is the inverse of Bounce Rate, provides a good understanding of which creatives and promotional messages were more compelling to consumers who came to these landing pages. While both landing pages have a high Engagement rate, E*TRADE clearly has a relative advantage over ING DIRECT on a percentage basis. The answer to E*TRADE's higher rate of engagement here is most likely because there are more opportunities to interact with the landing page across multiple E*TRADE products. Next, we looked at Application Start Rates, which is the percentage of visitors to each of the landing pages who started an online application (see below). Almost twice as many of the visitors to the E*TRADE landing page started an application. For ING DIRECT, matching E*TRADE's comparable landing page post-click performance could have generated more than 21,000 incremental applications. Certainly, E*TRADE's higher interest rate offer drove many of the visitors to this campaign to start an application. But E*TRADE's landing page also has a few tricks that ING DIRECT would be wise to at least consider testing on their own future campaigns: Different language on the action buttons: While both landing pages have clear and prominent calls to action, ING DIRECT should consider testing the wording of its "Open Now" button to see if different messaging would be more compelling to consumers. Comparison Messaging: ING DIRECT compares the yields on its account to Money Market Funds. E*TRADE compares its performance to a national average. ING could adopt comparison language that is more succinct and direct. Limit Consumer Options: E*TRADE only allows consumers one path from the main body of the ad, that is to "Start Saving Now." ING Direct could eliminate its buttons allowing people to learn more or visit the homepage of the site. Overall, both E*TRADE and ING DIRECT are doing a great job of building effective landing page experiences. However, with some minor changes, opportunities still exist to get even more return on their advertising dollar. read less