423 in-market super fund researchers. 587 search queries. Thousands of page visits tracked across desktop and mobile. This study maps the complete digital research journey from first search to final fund preference, and the findings reveal a market being reshaped at every stage.

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Comparison sites are picking winners and most funds are watching it happen

38.5% of all in-market researchers visited Canstar or Finder during the study, making it the second most influential channel after search engines. The outcome of those visits was not neutral. Depending on how a fund appeared on those platforms, researchers were driven meaningfully towards some brands and away from others, in some cases by more than 18 percentage points.

The damage begins at the shortlist stage, not the final decision. Funds that perform poorly on comparison sites saw their shortlist rate fall by up to 18 percentage points among comparison-site visitors, before the participant had even named a final preference. Among comparison-site visitors in this study, the best-performing fund reached 26% final preference, more than triple its rate among non-visitors. The worst-performing fell to 9%, down from 24% among those who avoided comparison sites entirely. That is a 33-point spread in final preference outcomes within the same channel, among the same in-market audience.

The funds gaining from comparison sites are not gaining by accident. Aware Super held editorial Outstanding Value positions and award badges on both Canstar and Finder at fieldwork time. ART's landing page for comparison-site inbound traffic leads with a specific dollar outcome, backed by a named third-party source and a switching message that removes perceived effort. Being listed is not the same as being positioned, and the gap between a data-table row and an editorial award placement is the gap between 9% and 26% final preference.

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In-market switchers are the most valuable segment, converting at wildly different rates

27% of study participants ended the research journey by choosing a fund they were not already a member of. They came in with a current provider and left committed to switching. For the brands who captured them, they represent new members, new assets under management, and durable long-term relationships.

The headline finding on switchers is not that they exist. It is that brands convert them at vastly different rates. The best performer converted 65.5% of switcher-shortlisters into final-preference choosers. The lowest performer converted 10%. That 55-point gap is not explained by product differences. It is explained by content.

The brands capturing the most switchers share three characteristics. They lead with a comparison or switching mindset from the first page of the site. They make the financial case concrete with specific dollar figures rather than percentage-based claims alone. And they reduce the perceived cost of switching by naming the steps, estimating the time, and assuring the visitor that the fund handles the transfer process. Switchers are already in-market, already in motion, and already open to persuasion. The brands that capture them are not offering better products. They are offering better arguments at the moment of decision.

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Mobile has become the default research device and it is splitting the market

Mobile devices represented 46.6% of the study sample. These participants searched on the same platforms, visited the same comparison sites, and built shortlists from the same competitive field. Their final preference distribution looked substantially different.

Final preference gaps of 8 percentage points between desktop and mobile exist for some funds in this study. For others, mobile is the stronger conversion environment, with final preference 4 points higher on mobile than on desktop. The determinant is not device type. It is whether content on key pages is built for the small-screen, low-effort research session.

The mobile research gap compounds at the discovery stage. For underperforming brands, the shortlist rate on mobile is 14 percentage points lower than on desktop, a larger gap than at final decision, pointing to a discovery and visibility problem rather than a late-stage experience issue. The most damaging combination in this study is the compound segment: mobile users who also visited a comparison site. Among this group, the worst-performing major fund was chosen by just 4% of participants. Among desktop users who avoided comparison sites entirely, the same fund reached 29% final preference. That 25-point gap represents the full cost of two compounding weaknesses operating simultaneously, and both mobile-first research and comparison-site use are growing.

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The biggest brands are no longer guaranteed to win

Five years ago, Australia's largest super fund by membership recorded 38% final preference in Global Reviews' Attract benchmarking study. In Q2 2026, that figure stands at 18%. In the same period, one emerging challenger has more than doubled its share. The gap between them is now 3 percentage points.

This is not a product story. The 38-to-18 trajectory reflects something different: the conditions that produced market leadership in a pre-comparison, low-digital-engagement environment are not the same conditions that produce it in 2026. Awareness remains a genuine asset. Participants who search a fund's name directly are 2.4 times more likely to shortlist it and 2.4 times more likely to choose it as final preference. But only 10% of all search queries in this study named a specific fund. The 90% who searched generically represent the open, contestable market, and in that market, brand scale alone is not a sufficient competitive moat.

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Search is changing faster than fund content strategies

Across 587 search queries logged in this study, a clear structural shift is visible. In 2023, broad queries like "best super fund Australia" dominated. In 2026, participants were running queries like "best super fund for a 50-year-old with over $500,000 and a self-managed super option" and "best superannuation Queensland for a 32-year-old part-time working mum." The consumer searching for a super fund today is asking a fundamentally different kind of question.

58% of all queries fall into categories where no fund has an inherent brand advantage. Generic category terms account for 38% and comparison or best-of queries a further 20%. These are searches where the fund that appears most credibly, most specifically, and most helpfully will capture disproportionate consideration.

The shift toward scenario-based queries has a second implication beyond SEO. AI-generated search summaries are now appearing in response to many specific queries, providing an initial answer before the user reaches any organic result. In field observations from this study, AI summaries actively named specific funds in response to scenario-based queries. The first competitive battle in the research journey is no longer about ranking on Google. It is about being cited before the user clicks anything.

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The shortlist-to-preference conversion gap is the defining performance problem

The most-considered fund in this study was shortlisted by 40% of all in-market researchers. Of those, only 37% chose it as their final preference. Almost two in three serious considerers went elsewhere.

The gap between best and worst shortlist-to-preference conversion in this study is approximately 30 percentage points. The brands with the highest conversion rates share a common characteristic: their websites are designed for the decision moment, not the discovery moment. They lead with comparison framing. They make the next step easy. They show, in specific and concrete terms, why this fund rather than any fund. The two brands capturing the most lost shortlisters from the market leader are the same two brands with the strongest comparison-site presence, the strongest switching narratives, and the highest per-page conversion rates. These are not separate problems. They have a single solution.

Download the full whitepaper for fund-level data, channel breakdowns, and the complete priority action plan.

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