Commentary

The Search For Consumers Without Brand Loyalty

Natural Intelligence, which focuses on paid search and finding consumers without a preference for a specific brand, expanded this week into the United States from Israel with the opening of its Atlanta office.

Founded nine years ago in Tel Aviv, more than 90% of the company’s financial services clients now are in the U.S. Brands include LendingTree, Shopkeep, and Lightstream.

The majority of the company’s revenue -- close to 60% -- comes from the U.S. The company also operates in Europe.

The interesting niche for this company remains its focus for on shoppers who have not demonstrated preferences in specific brands.

About 300 employees support Natural Intelligence’s clients. “We expect to have between five and ten in our Atlanta office by end of 2019,” Adi Orzel, Natural Intelligence COO, wrote in an email to Search Insider.

A large part of Natural Intelligence’s operation is dedicated to research and development. Improving the user experience is a major focus. Data is used to analyze traffic in real-time, and it enables analysts to continually improve funnel performance.

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Natural Intelligence also released the results of a study about consumer behavior in online mortgage shopping. The report, Online Mortgage Trends: How Mortgage Professionals Can Acquire Untapped Leads, found that when it comes to searching online for mortgages, consumers have less allegiance to specific brands. 

Searches for non-branded keywords such as “best mortgage rates” rose 211% since 2010, while branded searches that include the name of a specific mortgage lender decreased by more than 6%.

As a result of this shift, the average cost of non-branded mortgage terms is now seven times higher than branded mortgage terms. Non-branded mortgage keywords are the third most expensive category in cost-per-click search engine marketing.

The way people purchase online is changing, Orzel notes. Too many choices make decision-making difficult, and shoppers respond to this in the way they conduct online research.

During the past couple of years there has been an 80% increase in mobile searches containing the keyword “best,” he wrote. They’re looking for the “best,” so they search for online reviews of the products that interest them. More than 90% of consumers say that they are influenced by online reviews, so the technology identifies these consumers through their searches and through other channels.

When asked to cite the biggest challenge in 2019, Orzel wrote that it is “standing out in a crowded marketplace and identifying the highest value customers when they are most likely to make a purchase.”

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