Are Your Financials Minty Fresh?
Written by Rob Chapman (contact - e-mail) -- September 30th, 2008 |
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In July, we posted a blog about the rising traffic of the finance sections of the major portals (e.g. Yahoo! Finance, MSN MoneyCentral). In the blog, we hypothesized that the increase in online interest for financial research and information is contributing to increased interest by people researching their personal finances online as people are taking a closer tab on their finances these days.
This interest caused me to take a closer look at how several personal finance sites are performing online. Each site, which allows people to aggregate and track all their personal finances, has its own flavor. Three of the most popular sites are:
- Wesabe.com provides a community-like atmosphere where people share tips about personal finance
- Geezeo.com is an ad-driven site with a heavy emphasis on selling credit cards
- Mint.com uses the information you provide to serve up comparisons of your accounts with competing accounts that could save you money
From personal experience tracking my finances is becoming an obsession (of course, never during business hours). Apparently, I’m not the only one obsessing about my dwindling 401k. Mint.com was viewed by more than 480k visitors during August 2008. Since August of 2007, Mint.com has grown in traffic by more than 965%. As the chart below demonstrates, none of Mint.com’s competitors has come close to that kind of traffic or growth.
So why are people visiting Mint.com more than Wesabe.com or Geezeo.com? The reasons are both experiential and strategic:
- Mint.com does not serve up one ad on its website. Got that? Not one ad. Now, you might get a “money-saving” offer like the one in yellow shown below, but those offers are on a separate tab and you can choose to ignore them completely.
- There is a limited population of consumers who want to do their personal finances as a group activity. I think I’m pretty loose-lipped when talking about money, but I’m not going to “open my kimono” on a website.
- Mint.com has a smart marketing strategy. Mint.com is prominently placed in search listings for keywords like “Quicken” and “personal finance software.” As a result, there is less likelihood that consumers are going to find Geezeo.com or Wesabe.com.
Mint.com recently announced the capability to add your mortgage, student, and auto loans to your portfolio to give users a broader picture of their finances. In this economic climate, this seems to be what people need right now, and it should be interesting to see how Mint.com will continue to expand its capabilities and grow its customer base.
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October 1st, 2008 at 8:13 am
I signed up with Mint when it was a minty fresh startup. Knew it was winner back then. IMO, what’s best about Mint is that it learns from your present state of finances and the things you buy, and makes smart recommendations with better offers across the board, the sum of which saves you a lot of money in the long run.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Hey Rob, Thanks for the kudos and right back at you. We’re avid Compete users at Mint and think your product delivers great value, too. One thing that’s not immediately obvious from our traffic stats is that word of mouth is a far larger driver of visits than our search marketing efforts. Over 90% of our users say that mint.com has helped them with their money…and half have already made changes in their spending as a result of using our free service. It’s because we’re so easy to use and effective that users are recommending us to their friends and driving our growth. Stay tuned for big new features launching this month.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I’d love to see these sites fight the hard fight and get to the point where they let users actually *do* things that will improve their financial position, like finding and eliminating unwanted, non-essential recurring items from consumers’ credit cards and cell phone bills.
What’s the point of analyzing my finances if no help in doing something about it is provided?
May 13th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I was a die-hard Geezeo fan and really appreciate CEO Peter Glyman’s client relations skills, but I’ve just switched to Mint because their product is easier to navigate, less buggy, and stronger.
My review below:
http://52faces.blogspot.com/2009/05/geezeo-im-leaving-you-for-mint.html