Moneysupermarket chief Peter Plumb faces an epic struggle with Google This week Moneysupermarket will release Q3 numbers. Although a slowdown in revenue growth is likely, the business is still performing strongly. "Our job isn't done until we've got more and more people understanding why they need to use a free service to save money," he says. We have to evangelise. Plumb puts his money where his mouth is as well. I've just fixed my energy price for 14 months. It took a few minutes and I feel pretty good about that. Or "epic" presumably. The site makes its revenue from persuading people to change supplier for everything from banking services to pet insurance. They then receive a payment from the provider whose product gets chosen. The company claims to be independent - Plumb says he has "no incentive to sell one product over another" - but it does work closely with providers to make special deals for its customers. In fact, Plumb says, some banks and insurance companies are so close to the site that they use its London site - a trendy ex-advertising agency space with a wine fridge and compulsory box of Krispy Kremes - as a drop-in office. Comparison sites are big business, and they have significant growth potential. Consensus figures compiled by Bloomberg predict pre-tax profits of £48m for 2012, rising to £66m by 2014. With consumers dealing with rising living costs and static incomes, searching for a better deal on household bills has become a way of life for some. The Retail Distribution Review, which will see people pay upfront for financial advice from the end of the year, will give the sites another market to exploit. It is anticipated the review will spawn a new generation of "DIY investors" who use websites to compare and buy investment products. Even Google wants a slice of the action. The search giant launched its own car insurance comparison site, Google Advisor, last month, and accused rivals like Moneysupermarket of steering users to inappropriate "no frills" policies in an attempt to show them the cheapest headline price. Plumb hits back with his own accusation against Google. I'm very clear what I will and won't do with your data. Google is a much bigger beast. If you opt into Google Advisor, you opt into its whole data policy, and we all know where Streetview went. Nonetheless, he must be concerned. "Google has launched the tool - it's entered a market which we play in," he said. A recent Numis analyst note estimated that half of Money-supermarket's profits come from Google traffic and that insurance is the company's biggest division. David McCann, at Numis, believes that because Google can use its position as a prime search engine to push other comparison sites down search rankings, Moneysupermarket is at risk. Plumb disagrees. We've got more customers buying from us than ever before, and it's still a young business in a growing market. Only half of people have ever switched their energy provider. Only 20pc of car owners buy their car insurance through an aggregator site. We've got big ambitions. Where Moneysupermarket differs from its main UK rivals is that it is a listed business. The company floated on the stock market in 2007, at the time the world's biggest technology float since Google in 2004. The founder, Simon Nixon, became a multi-millionaire, and handed the reins over to Plumb a year later. Nixon retains his deputy chairman role, however. After a turbulent few years as the company flagged up problems with weak demand for mortgages and other money products, the shares still trade below their 170p flotation price, closing at 152p this week. That, though, is a huge improvement from the 40p low. The company has just completed the £87m purchase of TV presenter Martin Lewis's Moneysavingexpert site, known as MSE, which netted Mr Lewis £60m in cash and shares. Apart from MSE, Plumb sees the future of comparison sites tied very closely to the mobile phone. I'm not talking about comparing tariffs, because you can do that already. However, there is no reason why we should not get to the point where customers can save £400 to £500 on their motor insurance just by responding on their phone to an email we sent them. It is about making the things we have to buy easier to buy. Plumb should be an expert on that. Despite a civil engineering background which saw him designing oil platforms off the Scottish coast and bridges on the M42 during his student summer holidays, he has spent most of his business career persuading people to buy things. Whether princess pencil cases at Disney, Polish biscuits during a stint at PepsiCo or groceries when he worked at Tesco's loyalty partner Dunnhumby, understanding why people purchase what they do is a vital part of his make-up. He loves the internet because it enables companies to change things more quickly. "You know so much about how customers interact with your product," he says. After all, it's not about what people say they do when they are in a focus group, it's what they really do. You can constantly make things better in a way that high street stores can struggle to do. Epic, as a money saver might say.