In the highly competitive insurance market, Hiscox is always aiming to improve their performance marketing tactics. Their goal is driving higher volumes of insurance quotes at a reduced cost per quote. Hiscox set out to understand the intent of users searching for the brand in order to then optimise ads according to audience needs.
With a better understanding of their needs, Hiscox delivers tailored, relevant ads to core consumers.
About Hiscox
Premium home and business insurance provider
www.hiscox.co.uk
About Croud
Digital marketing agency, specialising in PPC, SEO and content, programmatic, paid social, creative and analytics
www.croud.com
Goals
Understand users’ intent when searching for Hiscox
Drive higher volume of insurance quotes
Reduce cost per quote
Approach
Adopted in-market audiences in Google Ads
Optimised search ads according to audience needs
Results
Drove 8.15% more quotes
Improved conversion rate by 27%
Reduced cost per click by 24%
Decreased cost per quote by 41%
Hiscox had adopted Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) in order to show ads to consumers who had previously visited the Hiscox website. But the team noticed that a proportion of users who had already visited were not in fact prospective new customers. For example, many previous site visitors wanted to return to simply contact the customer service desk about or make a change to their existing policy.
Together with their digital marketing agency Croud, Hiscox decided to use Google Ads in-market audiences to understand the intent of people searching for the brand. The team could then deliver targeted, relevant ads to people who had not previously been on the site but who had displayed an intention to take out an insurance policy on a commercial property.
Since Google Analytics and Google Ads share the same in-market functionality, Croud was able to further analyse the intent of certain in-market audiences to ensure they were capturing the most valuable customers
Compared to their previous approach of using RLSA, in-market audiences drove considerable performance wins for Hiscox. For instance, the conversion rate improved by 27% and cost per click dropped by 24%. Significantly, Hiscox drove 8.15% more quotes while the cost per quote came in well under target, in fact decreasing by 41%.
"Working closely with Croud, we're always looking for smart ways to optimise our paid search activity and drive more leads. Using in-market audiences has not only increased the number of people requesting insurance quotes, but importantly we've seen a considerable uplift amongst our most valuable audiences.”
– Stuart Mahoney, Head of Acquisition Marketing, Hiscox
Hiscox is now using these audience insights to inform activity on other channels. Having shifted their strategy to an audience approach, they’re seeing ripple effects across other digital media initiatives including video and display.
“Leveraging in-market audiences has been a key driver of achieving best-in-class audience depth in the business insurance space, as well as helping inform our wider strategy.”
– Stuart Mahoney, Head of Acquisition Marketing, Hiscox
