We’ve previously discussed the importance of having a modern website. It’s a great tool to increase inbound leads. While simply having a website will increase your agency’s inbound leads, that’s just half the battle. The next challenge is that it’s very hard to convert ice cold website traffic into leads and sales. In fact, 96% of visitors to your agency’s website aren’t ready to buy. This means they’re going to leave your website, and most of the consumers who make up that percentage won’t come back. So how can you get those visitors back on track to convert? Well, this is where insurance agency retargeting comes into play.
WHAT IS RETARGETING?
If you’ve ever checked out a product online, like shoes or clothes, chances are when you leave the retail website the same product appears in an ad wherever you go online. That isn’t coincidental, that’s retargeting at work!
Retargeting keeps track of visitors to your agency website, through a simple script known as a ‘Retargeting Pixel’, and displays your ads to them as they visit other websites online. Insurance agency retargeting can assist in taking your leads from merely ‘just browsing’ to converted sales.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
If you’re like us, the first question that comes to mind when you hear of some new strategy or technology tool is ‘yea, but does it work?’. In short, yes! Absolutely! Here are some statistics as to why this strategy is worth adding into your digital marketing strategy:
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- Website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert on your website
- Nearly 3 out of 5 U.S. online shoppers said they notice ads for products they looked up on other sites
- Conversions Per Impression: B2B retargeting outperforms B2C retargeting by 402%
- Conversions Per Click: B2B retargeting outperforms B2C retargeting by 273%
- CTR: B2B retargeting outperforms B2C retargeting by 147%
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Insurance agency retargeting is a great, cost-effective digital marketing strategy that can assist in generating leads, driving conversions, and expanding your agency’s brand awareness. Now that you understand what retargeting is and the benefits, you may be wondering how exactly it works and how can you as a broker use it? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
HOW IT WORKS
Ad Exchanges
So the first thing you need to understand about retargeting (and digital paid advertising in general) is how media buying works in the digital realm. An ad exchange is a digital marketplace that provides a platform for advertisers to buy and sell advertising space through bidding auctions.
Competitors who are targeting similar leads as your agency will be competing for relevant spots, thus ad spaces are sold in auctions. Don’t worry, bidding is digital and automated based on the budget you set. You won’t be locked in a small room with a bunch of brokers throwing up signs bidding for an ad space on Facebook. So now that we’ve had our digital marketing jargon lesson for the day let’s get into how retargeting works.
There are two common methods you can take when implementing your insurance agency retargeting strategy.
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- Website-based retargeting
- List-based retargeting
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Website-based retargeting
This is the most common strategy utilized by most companies. This is the process we previously explained; when anyone visits your agency’s website, they’re “tagged” through a pixel provided by a retargeting platform. This process enables you to serve them ads through various ad exchanges.
What makes this such an interesting strategy is that you can create refined retargeting campaigns based on the landing pages that users viewed. So if a user checked out your employee benefits page but didn’t request a quote because they’re still researching options, you can use a retargeting campaign to keep your agency at the top of their mind wherever they go online.
List-based retargeting
List-based retargeting, also known as “CRM Retargeting”, utilizes email addresses as the basis for who your retargeting campaign will populate ads for online.
In this case, a retargeting vendor will use a network of data partners to tag a user based on their email address. This approach has various use cases. It’s a great way to re-engage with leads that haven’t visited your site in a while. It’s also a great strategy for advertising sales promotions, new product offerings, or upselling to existing customers.
There are a wide variety of other retargeting strategies, like dynamic, mobile, and video retargeting. But, once you understand website based and list based retargeting you can easily grasp these other strategies. As you research retargeting platforms you’ll see which strategies they offer.
RETARGETING TOOLS
AdRoll
With over 35,000 customers it’s one of the most popular platforms in the retargeting space. Adroll provides access to over 500 ad exchanges, which includes most of the popular social media networks. It offers a self-service platform, but you also have the option of leveraging the expertise of their employees for additional help if needed. Adroll has a lot to be proud of as they have numerous success stories with some ridiculously impressive results; reports range from a 35% lower Cost Per Click rate (CPC) to a 265% lift in sales in some cases.
Google Adwords
Google Adwords covers all facets of PPC, and of course that includes retargeting (Google calls it ‘remarketing’ but it’s the same thing). They offer a diverse array of retargeting strategies; everything from site-based, list-based, mobile, video, and so much more. It’s a great tool to test different methods of retargeting. Given the diverse nature of the average broker’s book of business this is an interesting tool to consider to ensure your agency gets in front of more relevant consumers.
LinkedIn Matched Audiences
When it comes to B2B retargeting strategies LinkedIn provides a great channel to reach the professional crowd. Remarketing on LinkedIn targets users who have already visited your website—or whose information you have—and serves ads to them based on predetermined parameters you set.
On LinkedIn you can retarget users with HR Manager as their title, segment by state, company size, and other relevant categories for the B2B crowd. A study found that advertisers who use LinkedIn Matched Audiences saw a 30% increase in CTR and a 14% drop in post-click cost-per-conversion with Website Retargeting
INSURANCE AGENCY RETARGETING CAN WORK FOR YOU
Insurance agency retargeting is a digital marketing strategy a brokerage of any size can utilize no matter your budget. Given that it mainly targets consumers who have already been exposed to your agency website it provides quality leads as compared to trying to convert ice-cold leads who haven’t heard of your agency at all. Also, given the automated nature of remarketing, it doesn’t take too much time and effort to manage. You can test different types of ads to see which generates the highest CTR and optimize to suit.
