Competitive positioning is a tricky matter in any business. Companies work hard to educate and train consumers about their product. Sometimes they do such a good job at it that they have trouble educating their customers about anything new. Verizon carved-out a nice spot as a low-cost player in the broadband market with its DSL service undercutting cable providers on price. Now, Verizon wants to go premium with a fiber optic service it calls FiOS. Unlike common coaxial cables, fiber-optic cables are not subject to electromagnetic interference and can transmit more data, faster and farther. While this presents a high performance alternative to cable, it’s not clear that prospects are getting the message.

In July, 8 million unique visitors (UVs) went to verizon.com. 25% of them clicked-through to broadband FiOS and/or DSL-related pages. A healthy 88% of UVs visiting these pages did not exhibit customer-related behavior, and looked more like prospects rather than existing Verizon customers. Many of them actually subscribed to competitors, like Cox, Comcast, Qwest or RCN. While Comcast subscribers were the overwhelming majority of this last group, they represented less than 3% of Comcast’s massive subscriber base overall. Meanwhile, at least 16% of RCN subscribers visited Verizon’s broadband pages, and virtually all of those UVs were interested in FiOS.

But this interest in FiOS was the exception to the rule:
• In July, Verizon’s DSL-related pages saw 150% more UVs than all its FiOS-related pages together. Remove Verizon subscribers (who probably already have DSL) and that figure jumps to 250%.
• Qwest subscribers appear the least interested with only 1 in 6 viewing any FiOS pages.

With FiOS being a substantively better product (technically speaking) than cable, Verizon should have the opportunity to compete as a premium player in the broadband market. Strong branding is a good first step. Prospects currently view FiOS as Verizon’s “DSL upgrade” and as comparable to cable, but they need to view FiOS as having leapfrogged cable into the high-end of the marketplace. 54% of visitors who entered “fios” into a search-engine clicked through to verizon.com and affiliated sites. As a next step, Verizon may want to decrease, or continue decreasing, its DSL marketing efforts… and begin retraining consumers (especially the competition’s customers) that FiOS is what they really want.

In a previous blog, we listed the 20 most heavily searched stocks during the bearish week of July 30. That analysis showed a lack of any statistically significant relationship between the number of searches on a given stock and the common financial measures of that stock, such as EPS or Beta. In that light, stock-search data provides a novel, “extra-transactional” measure that financial analysts may find valuable. But this would assume that all stock searches are the equal.

The 10 most heavily-searched stocks, listed by site, vary a bit from the aggregated top 20 list. This variation is more pronounced on sites like MarketWatch and CNN Money, than on Yahoo! Finance and MSN Money who, together, comprised 86% of the stock-searches that week. In fact 40% of all the stocks searched on MarketWatch were unique to the site. This was also true for Google Finance, but it is important to recall that 64% of the content viewed on that site was search related. Search content on MarkeWatch watch made-up only 13% of the site’s traffic for the week, and 15% of the traffic throughout July. Additionally, this traffic was provided by only 7% of all MarketWatch users.

MarketWatch users are a small, but distinguished group; their searches appear a less random than searches on other sites. On MarketWatch, the most heavily-searched stocks had distinctly lower per-share incomes and more conservative valuation than those on other sites. MarketWatch users also viewed more volatile stocks, but appeared unmoved by the trading volumes of those stocks. To further evaluate this unique, financial search data, it is important to note that each financial search engine may attract a different investing demographic. As such, the potential value of data from each of these search-engines cannot be weighed equally.

Measures of volatility, anticipated earnings and a dozen other ratios are all meant to help finance professionals foresee the next trend in the market. But these figures are all based on completed transactions. Burton Malkiel argued, that they predict the future about as well as a blind monkey throwing darts at the WSJ (random and less hilarious). Perhaps ‘extra-transactional’ data, such as prospective investor behavior, would help analysts better link the past with the future.

In the week following the Dow’s bearish performance, 12.3 million consumers tried to make sense of it all and logged on to Google Finance, Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, MarketWatch and CNN Money. 3.4 million of those consumers went on to conduct over 9 million different stock searches, mostly on Yahoo! Finance. The five most heavily searched securities were Apple Inc., Dow Jones (of course), AHM Investment Corp., Sun Microsystems, Inc. and General Electric.

It’s not so clear what drove these numbers. Media mentions probably drove interest in the Dow, but it does not appear that this was the case for other heavily searched stocks.* The traditional volatility and earnings measures did not appear to separate these stock from others in any statistically significant way either. The least searched stocks, also from an array of industries, returned simple averages on their numbers similar to those in the following table.** Average volatility (beta) was 1.18 and average anticipated earnings were 25.09.

However, a 10% increase in a stock’s average daily trading volume was associated with a 2% increase a stock’s search numbers. But this relationship proved to be as tenuous as getting a monkey with better vision to throw darts at the Journal.

In this light, financial search metrics appear wholly independent of traditional finance data. Despite increased access to the numbers, stock searches may be driven more by a computer logo than a hot stock tip. Whatever the cause, a rigorous collection of this behavioral data may reveal what truly drives a curious individual to convert into a meaningful investor.

* Media mentions for week 31, from Google Finance, August 13
** Includes: PKD, NOC, QCOM, OSUR, CVBF, WWY, WRI, BHI, GD, CPSL, HES, RADN, PEG, TIF, JRC, CAL, ALK, TTEK, UMPQ and PBR

The Simpsons is a pop-cultural paradox. The show retains its irreverence, while its broad commercial appeal should allow Fox marketing executives to leave the franchise on autopilot. Instead, to generate interest in The Simpsons Movie, Fox launched its second proprietary Simpsons site last year, simpsonsmovie.com. Ahead of the movie’s release, the site’s visitor-count averaged 118% growth in May and June. Meanwhile, traffic to the established site, thesimpsons.com, dropped by 50% in June.

There is more to this than textbook market cannibalization. Together the sites had 340,000 visitors in May, but lost 38% of that traffic into June. So, where are they going? Further, should Fox invest in winning them back?

In the past 90 days, 18% of traffic to the two sites came from search, and most of those search-visitors (68%) arrived through any of the top-10 search terms. Those same terms also led some would-be Simpsons visitors to other sites. These sites included internet behemoths, like YouTube and MySpace, as well as reference sites, like Wikipedia, IMDB and the fan-run Simpsons Archive (SNPP).

But from April to June, visitor counts to Wikipedia and SNPP dropped 4% and 12% respectively, while IMDB’s traffic stayed flat. However, for a sampling of Simpsons-related content on IMDB and Wikipedia, traffic actually grew in that period. Wikipedia saw a 6% increase in such traffic, while IMDB saw a 22% increase in the same. On Wikipedia, traffic to Simpsons content, as a fraction of overall traffic, rose from 0.21% in April to 0.25% in June. Although it seems miniscule, this represents a 19% increase in Wikipedia’s “Simpsons Ratio.” IMDB saw a 10% increase in that same ratio.

Though not exhaustive, this analysis provides a better view of The Simpsons true online presence. Simpsons fans do not express their devotion by exclusively surfing to Fox-approved content. Instead, they visit Wikipedia to confirm that Ned Flanders’ Hispanic cousin is named José Flanders. They visit IMDB to learn that the voices behind Homer, Krusty and Mayor Quimby are all Dan Castellaneta. And forwarding a Simpsons clip from YouTube will always lower one’s chance of embarrassment. In that light, Fox never even lost these Simpsons fans.

Odds are that if you use the Internet and you take vacations, you visited a Travel Aggregator website this summer. These are sites like Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity and they typically see 14% more visits in June and July than they do throughout the year, not so surprising. The more interesting issue is how we get to these sites. Usually, we click ads, use our “favorites” menu, or—if William Shatner has done his job—type the URL from memory.

The other 21% of the time, when we are more impervious to traditional marketing, we use a search engine. Compete.com’s new Search Analytics tool reveals which search terms drive us to eCommerce sites like travel aggregators.

Top branded terms, like “Travelocity,” “Expedia” and “Orbitz,” route nearly 15% of search visitors to travel aggregators. Since 68% of users who enter “Travelocity” into a search engine end up at Travelocity.com, this can be a competitive advantage. Travel sites with lower brand-awareness may invest in generic terms like “tickets,” “hotels” or “travel” to increase traffic. The top five generic terms send another 4% of search visitors to these travel sites. CheapTickets.com, for one, grabs over 80% of all its search visitors from generic terms.

But, search visitors are fickle. When looking at, say, hotels, they are 14% less likely to book that room than visitors overall. Search visitors to cheaptickets.com—who typically arrive through generic terms—are 44% less likely to convert than visitors overall. Conversely, search visitors to the ubiquitous Travelocity are actually 4% more likely to book that room than visitors overall. So, while generic terms may increase visits to a travel site, they also decrease the overall conversion rate of that site.

The most popular (or expensive) generic search term is not necessarily the best investment for a travel site. A savvy marketer needs to connect with target markets, not create window-shoppers. And even still, simple brand-awareness remains a critical part of the mix. Unfortunately, the availability of other Star Trek actors for endorsement is currently beyond the scope of the Search Analytics tool.