Prudential introduced a new annuity-focused public site that exclusively features product information, performance data and educational resources related to annuities. While many firms provide annuity information alongside products such as mutual funds or life insurance, an exclusive annuity website conveniently offers an abundance of information for prospective annuity customers as well as existing clients and advisors. These websites also allow firms to target annuity investors with updates and pro-motions.

Despite the advantages of annuity-specific public sites, Prudential recently became only the second Annuity Monitor firm to offer such a website. The other, John Hancock Annuities, serves as a prime example of an effective and attractive annuity-focused public site. It provides detailed information and literature for annuities and optional benefits as well as forms, education, calculators and private and advisor site login.

Welcome back! The summer drew to a close with speculation about a possible merger between E*Trade and TD Ameritrade. While there has been a lot of talk since about the strategic ramifications for both firms, I began to wonder what the impact of a united firm would have on the customer.

Interestingly, this merger would be the culmination of two very strong acquirers  - at least from a website standpoint. That is, looking at their past acquisitions, each firm’s site has historically "won out" and became the customer website of the newly merged firm.  Looking through our e-Monitor archives, for example, TD Ameritrade’s history includes:

• In 2001, Ameritrade merges with National Discount Brokers (remember the duck?) and Ameritrade’s site wins.
• In 2002, Ameritrade and Datek merge and Ameritrade’s site ultimately wins (the Datek site was dropped in 2003).
• Finally, in 2006 TD Waterhouse merges with Ameritrade and TD’s site wins.

For E*Trade, their acquisition of Harrisdirect resulted in Harris customers become E*Trade site users. So, who would win this time? Our research shows that both E*Trade and TD Ameritrade have very strong sites. In our annual e-Monitor Awards report, where we highlight best practices within a number of categories, both E*Trade and TD Ameritrade have consistently fared well: This year, for example, E*Trade received 7 awards (2 Gold, 5 Silver) while TD Ameritrade received 4 (2 Silver, 2 Bronze).

Similarly, in our 2007 Brokerage Website Audit, which is currently being finalized, E*Trade finishes 3rd with a score of 2.94, while TD Ameritrade is 6th with a score of 2.54 (out of a possible 4.0). What is interesting, however, is that our Audit shows that the areas in which TD Ameritrade is strong happen to be areas in which E*Trade does not fare as well, particularly:

• Account History
• Quotes
• Fixed Income Research
• ETF Research
• Estate Planning
• Alternative Investments

So, for kicks, I used the What If? planning tool in our Audit software to see how a theoretical site would rank if it combined the best of both worlds - that is taking the strengths of E*Trade and pairing them with the strengths of TD Ameritrade. While this is purely hypothetical, the results are interesting - the combined site would rank a close second behind Fidelity.

Thus, a combined E*Trade and TD Ameritrade would not only present a strong competitor to leaders Schwab and Fidelity from a physical infrastructure (i.e. branches and reps), but the combined firm’s online presence could be a formidable force as well - assuming, of course, the proper strengths from each firm’s current site are adopted. We eagerly await to see how this shakes out.