Mint.com Stands Out in Online Portfolio Tracking

In July, we posted a blog about the rising traffic of the finance sections of the major portals (e.g. Yahoo! Finance, MSN MoneyCentral). In the blog, we hypothesized that the increase in online interest for financial research and information is contributing to increased interest by people researching their personal finances online as people are taking a closer tab on their finances these days.

This interest caused me to take a closer look at how several personal finance sites are performing online. Each site, which allows people to aggregate and track all their personal finances, has its own flavor. Three of the most popular sites are:

• Wesabe.com provides a community-like atmosphere where people share tips about personal finance
• Geezeo.com is an ad-driven site with a heavy emphasis on selling credit cards
• Mint.com uses the information you provide to serve up comparisons of your accounts with competing accounts that could save you money

From personal experience tracking my finances is becoming an obsession (of course, never during business hours). Apparently, I’m not the only one obsessing about my dwindling 401k. Mint.com was viewed by more than 480k visitors during August 2008. Since August of 2007, Mint.com has grown in traffic by more than 965%. As the chart below demonstrates, none of Mint.com’s competitors has come close to that kind of traffic or growth.

So why are people visiting Mint.com more than Wesabe.com or Geezeo.com? The reasons are both experiential and strategic:

• Mint.com does not serve up one ad on its website. Got that? Not one ad. Now, you might get a “money-saving” offer like the one in yellow shown below, but those offers are on a separate tab and you can choose to ignore them completely.
>
• There is a limited population of consumers who want to do their personal finances as a group activity. I think I’m pretty loose-lipped when talking about money, but I’m not going to “open my kimono” on a website.


• Mint.com has a smart marketing strategy. Mint.com is prominently placed in search listings for keywords like “Quicken” and “personal finance software.” As a result, there is less likelihood that consumers are going to find Geezeo.com or Wesabe.com.

Mint.com recently announced the capability to add your mortgage, student, and auto loans to your portfolio to give users a broader picture of their finances. In this economic climate, this seems to be what people need right now, and it should be interesting to see how Mint.com will continue to expand its capabilities and grow its customer base.

Comments

[User 10913:]

what about portfoliomonkey.com and stockalicious.com? I have been meaning to try them out. Will add mint to the list..

2008 Oct 01 02:27 PM

[User 10913:]

Hmm... Mint is really more personal finance tracking than Portfolio tool. While I haven't tried them yet, portfoliomonkey and stockalicious are trying to be real/better portfolio tracking tools. Calculate risk and return metrics etc. Riskmetrics is good for risk analysis too. Waiting for them to improve portfolio import (a la yodlee).

2008 Oct 01 02:32 PM

[User 273360:]

Mint is buying their users, search for 'Online Personal Finance'
you'll find thie Googd Ad:

Personal Finance Software
Mint is Safe & Secure Online Money
Management. Free to Use. Sign Up!

2008 Oct 01 06:36 PM

[Cyrus:]

Going a step beyond basic personal finance, what about covestor?

2008 Oct 01 10:36 PM

[guliamo:]

If you want to manage your portfolio, discus strategies and follow others MarketGuru.com is the absolute best!
You can view my page on my personal link. Recommended.

2008 Oct 02 11:51 AM

[User 273751:]

Mint.com is launching a full suite of investment portfolio analysis tools this month along with many other improvements. Be sure to check it out!

Jason M. Putorti
Lead Designer, mint.com

2008 Oct 02 12:35 PM

[LennyL:]

Mint is just checking your private life to make money..... so it's unsafe.... The next step is what you vote, when you go to the rest room..... Not for me!!! It's the new FBI...

2008 Oct 14 06:20 AM

[User 283685:]

I've been using Mint for several months and, while a couple of the comments posted are right with regard to its primary use as a personal finance tool, there have been some nice investment / portfolio features added recently. The bottom line is this--Mint is way better than Quicken or other personal finance tools because it's intuitive, easy, and you realize ROI through saving opportunity cost associated with choosing Quicken (which is really the only other viable alternative for budgeting). Mint will continue to crush Geezeo.com and Wesabe.com for a number of reasons--not the least of which is their name. It's fresh (Minty), memorable, and creates the type of viral word of mouth marketers love. Their value prop when pitching to offerers, such as Etrade, Chase, etc... is much more compelling than the competition. Anyway, my two cents...

2008 Oct 22 10:06 AM

[Salesman:]

Mint.com is the most informative and helpful financial planning site on the web today.

Another site I really like is www.chillmybills.com.

2008 Nov 22 12:05 PM

[Fredtrader:]

Mashable just recently did a review of Portfolio Monkey. All in all, it seemed pretty positive. Will check that out and the other ones you mentioned.


On Oct 01 02:32 PM User 10913 wrote:

> Hmm... Mint is really more personal finance tracking than Portfolio
> tool. While I haven't tried them yet, portfoliomonkey and stockalicious
> are trying to be real/better portfolio tracking tools. Calculate
> risk and return metrics etc. Riskmetrics is good for risk analysis
> too. Waiting for them to improve portfolio import (a la yodlee).

2008 Nov 24 04:54 PM