Go Compare, Meerkats etc
 

How does their business model work ?

Was pondering their advertising spend, the fat Opera Dick appears every 10 seconds on seemingly every channel, they basically must get a kickback when someone buys a service via their site as a referral fee, do they really sell that much or is the advertising speculative to build the brand and will eventually tail off.

I personally like the Meerkats, the Opera Dick needs to STFU.

Yea, I often find myself turning the volume down or changing the channel when that cnut comes on, I can't stand him.

It's got to be one of the most annoying adverts ever!!!

Agree re the Meerkats oh and i hate the Go Compare adverts as well!

There must be some gullible people out there unable or unwilling to shop around. I tried the Meerkats and Go Compare when renewing my car insurance last time and the quotes where 2-3 times as much as Keith Michaels. as soon as i had completed and got the results the phone started ringing with pushy insurance telesales people trying to get me to take the insurance from several companies.

I find many adverts annoying these days,the opera bloke i'd bloody shoot the fecker,deflate his fat ass :mad:
Same as the Jacamo advert :mad:

What is it with adverts now.
Some guy in a suit dancing in a kitchen is not in anyway gonna make me go out and buy.
Where do they get these people and ideas.
:hjtwofing

The Meerkat business, no matter how it entertains children is a tenuous link at best. Basing a whole advertising campaign on the fact that someone misread 'meerkat' for 'market', really?

Everything I watch is recorded on Tivo, so apart from the odd interesting-looking movie trailer I don't think I've watched a whole TV ad for ages.

I tried to get quotes for my motorbike through a couple of these sites last week, but at least one of them didn't list the right model (it came out at the beginning of this year - hardly "new"). Another rejected my details, unable to understand that although I've not yet had my license X years today, I will have had it that long by the time the policy comes into effect in a couple of weeks' time.

And don't get me started on modifications... yes, my bike has heated grips, so that's... umm.... er.... "Other unlisted modification" selected, and what a surprise, the price goes up.

I ended up calling another broker and got a policy with the same underwriter as I'd have been with had I simply renewed, for £50 less and with business cover included. And even after we went through the details several times on the phone they STILL got them wrong on the proposal form... muppets :mad:

Heated grips? What power increase do you see with them?

Seriously, those sites are for the lazy........people should do what you did and hunt around.

About 30bhp extra, judging from the insurance increase :D

the technical term for these types of sites is "aggregators" and they work on the click thru referral model

so once the data links into the providers backend database/quote portals have been setup all the aggregators have to do is generate traffic to their sites

money for old rope

I don't know if anyone is aware that confused.com is owned by Admiral, so even if they can't sell you their own products they will make a % of what they find for you through their search engine if you buy a product via their site.

Same way as insurance brokers. A broker's job is to find their client the most appropriate and best value insurance for their needs and do all teh donkey work inbetween.

As part of that arrangement, the broker gets a cut out of the deal. Obviously its substantial as there are plenty of brokers still in business (I use one for my home and one of my cars).

So if a comparison website were to refer you directly to an insurer, techincaly they are doing exactly what a broker does but without the customer service, as you the client still has to do the donkey work (online forms, phoning through etc).

Essentially its the old middleman system.

I understand the clickthrough referral stuff, I just cant get my head around the amount of advertising they do, must be big money !

I do like the Meerkats my thinking is that it was a throwaway, one advert type thing but people like the characters so they got a life of their own and people are very fond of them, kids love them and I find them quite endearing myself, I have to stop myself when one of the bosses rings as he is called Steve Smith and I have to not say "Helllooo Steve Smeeeth....", does get under your skin. Like the 118 runners as well, dont know why.

It is!

Take a look at Quidco for an idea on how much they can begin to get per policy, Aviva £70, RAC £75, More Than £70 etc... quidco work on volume bonuses so I would expect these compare sites get volume bonus payments too.

I have never found those comparison type sites anywhere near being close on price (I don't have a scoob anymore, just what you might call a standard car - Audi) and I wouldn't even use Go Compare if they were cheaper, purely on the basis of the stupid tw4t on the advert.

Meerkats can be quite funny though (when they come out with a new advert).

Meerkats quote was half price for Wifey last week compared to Tesco renewal quote.

You can slate these people all you like.Every year my rubbish insurance quote comes through,go on confused .com or whatever and save bloody loads!!

This year,More Than quote £450. Got it sorted for £290.

Bloody insurers get right on my pap just lately.They should check themselves first before sending rubbish quotes out

Renewal quotes are always stupid; Its intentional because alot of people are on direct debit and many insurers employ auto renewal. So if the customer does not tell them they want to cease, they'll auto renew at the higher rate.

And of course, the renew letters usually only come through less than two weeks before it expires, putting pressure to make quick/rash decisions: Easy money from people who let the post pile up on the sideboard.

What I find very naughty these days is pre-arranaged agreed values which are starting to crop up on normal cars (been around on classic car polices for ages). I've had renewals come through which are only a few quid more than last year, then I find they've dropped my agreed value to some ridiculous figure that is way under market value for the vehicle. Basically an underhand trick that potentially could leave me severely out of pocket in an accident - and I'm only aware of it AFTER I renew and read the policy schedule!

Meerkats have saved me £200 on house insurance this year over anything else I could find. It's an even better deal with the meerkat toys being sent out at the moment as they are fetching £40 -£70 on Ebay, adding a further 10/20% discount.
Ours will be swiftly dispatched to in an auction when it comes, before anyone in the house starts to think its is cute. :mad:

This ^^^

Find your cheapest quote for car / home insurance on the comparison site then use Quidco or Topcashback to actually buy the policy. Typically between £30 and £70 cash back per policy. Good for mobile phone contracts too. Saved me loads over the years. Check out Martin Lewis' Money Saving Expert web site for loads of tips and tricks like this. :)