SureHits Finds That Marketplaces Top Search Engines for Financial Services Shoppers and Advertisers.

EDMOND, Okla. -- SureHits, the leader in marketing financial services online, announced research findings for internet shopping behavior.

"General purpose search engines are wonderful tools that have revolutionized information retrieval, but they usually produce an unsatisfactory shopping experience for financial service products," said John Jones, CEO of SureHits. The problem, SureHits found, is that search engine queries don't easily allow shoppers to narrow down results to a specific product in a specific geographic location. The vast majority of financial services companies do not offer services in every state. Further, most companies don't offer a full suite of products in any given category.

SureHits found recent developments in local search by the major engines ineffective in helping consumers narrow search results or find companies that can help them with their specific needs. "For many common products, consumers can go to any of the top three search engines and get what they're looking for," said Jones. "However, when it comes to a specific search for an insurance or loan product, we found that the search results presented to consumers included many irrelevant options that would simply waste their time."

SureHits compared the experience of shopping for financial services on a search engine to shopping via one of its Marketplaces. The SureHits Marketplaces provide consumers with a streamlined experience where they can specify the product they want such as life insurance or a home equity loan, and then see a list of providers who offer that exact product where the consumer lives. Consumers that are shopping for car insurance in Toledo, Ohio, are given different listings than those shopping for home insurance in Los Angeles, California.

SureHits found that because the Marketplaces allow consumers to easily specify their needs, they also produce better results for advertisers. On search engines, advertisers tend to waste money putting ads in front of users who they may not be able to serve. On the SureHits Marketplaces, advertisers can tailor their campaigns to a specific audience. Jones noted, "Our research shows that because of the consumer's ability to easily specify what they are looking for and where, advertisers are producing a higher return on their marketing dollars than they do on standard search ads."

SureHits offers advertisers additional tools to enhance their campaigns' effectiveness. These tools allow advertisers to bid for position by state, offer real-time reporting of campaign stats, and provide software that allows advertisers to track their campaign performance.

"It is important to everyone at SureHits that our advertisers' return on advertising spending be the highest in our industry," said Chris Hayt, Vice President of Sales. "For this reason, we offer advertisers the ability to take advantage of our free AdProve software, which allows them to track their campaign performance and help maintain the quality of the sites within our Marketplace. We continue to receive feedback that our conversion rates in the Marketplace are a multiple of those provided by search engines."

About SureHits

Founded in 1995, SureHits is a privately-held internet marketing company located in Edmond, Oklahoma. The SureHits Marketplaces bring together advertisers, consumers, and website owners in the financial services industry by providing shopping engines for auto insurance, health insurance, home insurance, life insurance, motorcycle insurance, small business insurance, auto loans and home loans. SureHits also operates a full-service internet advertising agency, focusing on management of pay-per-click search campaigns. More information about the SureHits Marketplaces and other SureHits internet marketing services can be found at http://www.surehits.com/marketplaces.asp.

SureHits is a registered trademark of Cyberspace Communications Corporation, Edmond, OK.