2016 Gold Best use of search, natural and paid for

Client

Royal London

Campaign summary

Market share goes from 2% to 13% with targeted ads

Campaign overview

Royal London wanted to increase over 50s life cover sales and market share through paid search.

It needed a digital search acquisition strategy to drive growth in web sales by 40%, and at the same time decrease CPAs by 30%, as well as reduce paid advertising spend by 10%.

Strategy

Royal London didn’t target keywords, it targeted individuals, and rebuilt and restructured constantly to make targeting specific.

It noticed a 53% increase in over 50s using mobile devices to research life insurance. So they shaped their strategy to be seen and found when users were ready to buy.

Royal London used bespoke creative ads and optimised their strategy alongside ATL campaigns. The synergy and data from both marketing channels delivered lower CPAs for prospective and remarketing sales.

Creativity

The audience had seen both the ATL and BTL campaigns. Messaging had been developed through audience research, leading to simpler copy flagging the most attractive features and benefits. Headlines supported ‘old-fashioned’ brand values and a money-related incentive helped spur action.

Royal London understood the effect TV, press and direct mail advertising had on search, and so merged ATL and BTL art direction and messaging into a paid search strategy.

Depending which ad prospects clicked, the same messages and USPs were shown on the landing page. Messages were phased, depending on what users had seen previously, to make sure they were nudged along the sales journey.

Results

The support of ATL and BTL campaigns prompted the Royal London audience to act.

The personalised approach to copy boosted click-throughrates and conversions. After successfully testing specific ad copy and device targeting, these two aspects were rolled into one throughout the paid search campaign. This change alone increased click-through-rates by 13%.

Displaying personalised messages and USPs from ad copy on the landing page increased conversion rates from 4% to 10%. Royal London used conversion rate optimisation tools to A/B test and validate these results.

The overall consensus was very positive and in favour of personalising the copy on the landing page. Overall, sales increased by 61% with CPAs decreasing by 45%. Quotes increased by more than 250% with decreases in the cost per quote by over 40%. All of this while growing market share on Google from 2% to 31%.

Team

David Meliveo (Head of Marketing Promotions) • Marta Gonzalez (Acquisition Marketing Lead) • Malcolm Torrance (Data & Marketing science Lead) • Ajay Solanki (E-Business Lead) • Dhiresh Hirani (Marketing Manager) • Fabian Alvares (E-Business Conversion Manager) • Tim Diviny (Copywriter)

Contributors

Elmtree Creative (Design- art direction and production) Starcom Mediavest Group (PPC Agency)