Online Marketing for Agents: Part Two
Part two of my TAAR Report recap on online marketing for agents. Haven't read part one yet? You can do that here.
PPC advertising, which accounts for sponsored listings (the links located on the top and to the right of a search results page), is a process that marries text ads with interest search results. In its simplest form, PPC involves bidding on keywords like “health insurance quotes” and creating corresponding ads to attract searchers.
When a web user clicks on the ad, two things happen:
- The advertiser is charged for the click (the funds from which go directly to the search engine).
- The searcher is directed to a general homepage or targeted landing page, which typically contains keyword-rich content relevant to what the consumer has searched for.
Sending users to a targeted landing page (rather than a company home page) containing educational insurance information has become an insurance industry best practice. Free insurance information has been found to entice consumers and push them towards the objective: to participate in the lead generation process, be it through an email to the advertiser or an online quote application.
Encouraged by the staggering figure that over 80 percent of web traffic comes through search engines (rather than from direct-entered web site addresses), insurers are finding numerous other benefits to investing in PPC.
The Benefits of PPC Advertising
For starters, PPC aligns very well with the attributes of permission-based marketing. Take, for example, a consumer who Googles "free insurance quote." “Free insurance quote” just happens to be a phrase that an advertiser like InsureMe is bidding on. As a result, InsureMe is given permission to share their advertisement with a consumer who’s specifically asked to see it. This tends to have must stronger results than, say, a huge direct mail or cold-calling campaign that intrudes upon the homes of people who really have no interest in what you’ve got to offer.
What PPC really allows you to do is connect with people who are looking for your product—resulting in more qualified sales leads.
Cost-Effective, High Quality Leads
In addition to increasing the quality of sales leads, PPC is also one of the most cost-effective ways to generate those leads. Mike Sajdak is InsureMe’s chief financial officer and overseer the dynamic search marketing department. Sajdak contends that PPC is generally more affordable than popular insurance advertising channels like the Yellow Pages and radio. “With those outlets, you pay with no guarantee that anyone will read or listen to your ad,” says Sajdak. “In contrast, with PPC, you generally pay only if someone clicks on your advertisement.”
And because well-designed campaigns often pique users’ interest with useful and educational information, marketers can quickly earn the trust of online shoppers and convert clicks to actual sales leads.
Measuring Ad Performance
PPC also brings the added bonus of being able to continually test and measure your advertising performance, adds Sajdak. New search engine technologies allow advertisers to change, pause, or remove an ad at a moment’s notice if it’s not performing well.
Furthermore, online advertising mediums allow marketers to make side by side comparisons of their ads, comparing the number of clicks the ads receive, conversion percentages and how often the respective ads are being shown to consumers. Try getting these kinds of stats from an offline marketing campaign!
Geo-Targeting
This is all well and good, you might be saying, but how can I reach the customers I want and weed out the millions of others I can’t help?
Major PPC players have made it possible for advertisers to zone in on geographic areas of interest, both by state and city. This feature is especially beneficial for smaller insurers and independent agents who want to market only to local shoppers.
For example, Jane Insurer from Detroit can create a geo-targeted campaign using keywords that reflect the life insurance products she sells, and create ads that only reach searchers in the Detroit area looking for life insurance. This way, Jane carvers herself a lead generation niche and becomes a force to be reckoned with amongst life insurance representatives in the Detroit area. (In theory, anyway.)
The Future of Online Advertising
It’s the flexibility, combined with the cost-effective ability to create tight, targeted campaigns that make PPC such a good tool for those in the insurance industry. And while insurers would be wise to get on the stick so to speak, they'll be kept in good company by new PPCers in other markets. According to reports by Jupiter Research, by 2011, 43 percent of all online advertising budgets will come in the form of search-based ads, accounting for over $11 billion in the PPC department. And with more shoppers turning to the web to find insurance, there’s no better time for the insurance industry to get its PPC feet wet.
Want to learn more about PPC and online marketing? You're in luck—InsureMe has a blog devoted to exactly that. Head over to the InsureMe Affiliate Blog to learn more. I'd start with Penny's post, "PPC for the Novice" to see how she started taking the PPC world by storm.
