Data from Hitwise suggests that “financial aggregators” – comparison sites such as Moneysupermarket.com, Confused.com and GoCompare – are most popular with people living in Sunderland (Mackems).
The table below shows the top and bottom towns/cities in terms of visits to financial aggregators compared to their general internet usage:
Behind Sunderland, the North is well represented in the ten most over-indexed areas – particularly the North-West, with Liverpool, Bolton, Preston, Blackpool and Wigan all heavily over-represented in visits to financial aggregators. However, financial aggregators are less used in London… All London postal areas are significantly underrepresented when it comes to visits to financial aggregators.
So let’s make some sweeping generalisations and say that the less-well-off Northerners are more likely to visit comparison sites to save a bit of cash. But interestingly, although Liverpool is second behind Sunderland in visits to financial aggregators compared with general internet use, they are also most likely to visit insurance providers websites directly, which suggests that unlike the Mackems (Sunderlandites? Sunderlanders?), they’re not happy just using comparison sites, but also want to try and find the best deals by going direct.
This data forms part of Hitwise’s Financial Services Quarterly Review.