We’ve all experienced the stress and frustration associated with comparing financial products such as mortgages or credit cards. Often information is presented in an incomplete or otherwise opaque manner, and comparison between firms and offers is difficult. Google has taken up the challenge of simplifying the process by creating a new service, Google Advisor, that makes it easy for users to compare products side by side.
From The Official Google Blog:
Financial decisions may be some of the most difficult decisions we face—whether it’s finding the right credit card or understanding the impact of paying an extra point on a mortgage. And these days, it seems like we have more financial options than ever.
To help solve these problems, we began testing a mortgage comparison tool in 2009 and have added other financial products such as credit cards, CDs, checking, and savings accounts. Today, we’re rolling these tools into one place: Google Advisor, a site designed to help you quickly find relevant financial products from many providers and compare them side-by-side. Google Advisor is currently only available in the U.S.
This lucrative market for personal finance lead generation has the current large players Bankrate (bought by private equity fund Apax in 2009, previously publicly traded) and QuinStreet (Nasdaq: QNST). They can’t be pleased about this latest Google service, but consumers will likely benefit eventually from big G’s price-lowering aggregation power.
You can count on soon seeing Google Advisor results right at the top of searches for ‘mortgage’, ‘savings rates’ and ‘credit cards’, which demonstrate the user’s purchasing intent in an extremely valuable manner. Google is apparently not satisfied taking a cut of the SEM advertising here – they want the business owned by the top organic search results as well.
Mashable’s Ben Parr adds:
At the moment, mortgages are treated differently than the other financial categories. While Google doesn’t get paid if you find a credit card, CD, checking account or savings account through the search giant, it does make money whenever you contact a mortgage lender. You will noticed that mortgages have “sponsored results” while other financial instruments simply have “matching results.” Sponsored results could to other financial products expand over time.
Oh yes they could.
Sources:
“Making financial comparisons easy with Google Advisor” The Official Google Blog, 5/19. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/making-financial-comparisons-easy-with.html
“Google Wants to Become Your Personal Finance Advisor” Ben Parr, Mashable 5/19/11 http://mashable.com/2011/05/19/google-advisor
