Admit it – you check up on your competitors from time-to-time to see what they’re up to. It’s human nature, and in many cases it’s a prudent business move.

That’s why we’re launching our Competitive Spotlight series, where we’ll rank and compare landing pages in a competitive niche using EyeQuant‘s design analysis technology.

(Note: EyeQuant uses machine learning to measure and predict attention, clarity and excitingness on designs.)

Today, we’re looking at Car Rental landing pages in the UK, and identifying how the landscape has changed since last year.

First, let’s look at the 2017 rankings:

Once again, Europcar and Sixt are the top 2, although they’ve switched positions since last year. Alamo‘s design wins Most Improved, primarily through an increase in visual clarity. Avis also made a key improvement in visual clarity.

See the full rankings below.

Competitive Spotlight: Measuring Design Effectiveness in the UK Car Rental Market (2017) from Kurtis Morrison

Here are last year’s rankings just for reference:

Competitive Spotlight: Measuring Design Effectiveness in the UK Car Rental Market from Kurtis Morrison

So what about the space as a whole: what’s changed, and what can we learn?

Looking at the aggregate statistics for all 8 competitors, there are some clear trends.

1. Designs are getting cleaner and more focussed.

The average Visual Clarity score in this group has  increased by nearly 13%, from 63 to 71 (out of 100). This reflects a general design trend and follows basic conversion principles. Consumers today are overwhelmed with marketing clutter, and they’re rewarding companies that give them clear, focussed messages and obvious next-steps.

2. Brand emphasis.

Company logo visibility has increased by a whopping 27%, from a +85% ROI score in 2016 to +108% in 2017.

(ROI scores measure how visible specific content is compared to the page average, so a score of +100% would indicate that an element is twice as visible as the average content on the page.)

This is partially driven by the general emphasis on de-cluttering pages, but may also speak to the brands’ desire to differentiate on something other than price.

3. The importance of continuous improvement.

Sixt lost its #1 spot in the rankings because it failed to increase the clarity of its design. Enterprise also failed to improve, and fell from 3rd overall to 5th, and Thrifty still sits in last place after not making any changes at all to its website. Meanwhile, Alamo has changed their design most since last year and saw the biggest improvement in the rankings, jumping from 7th place up to 3rd.