Each year, millions of Americans seek auto insurance policies, and continued growth in the auto insurance industry is projected. The global auto insurance market size was valued at $739.30 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $1.06 trillion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 8.5% from 2020 to 2027. As the auto insurance industry continues to grow and the market becomes more and more competitive, many auto insurance agents have turned to lead generation campaigns to acquire and engage new prospects. The leading practices below will help ensure lead generation campaigns geared toward auto insurance prospects are set up for success.
Careful preparation is essential for any successful lead generation campaign. Developing and following through on a well-thought-out plan can be the roadmap to success. This will result in a growing, engaged auto insurance prospect base.
Identify KPIs (key performance indicators) that will be tracked and measured throughout the campaign. When working with third parties, be clear about campaign goals and how success will be measured upfront. Key KPIs for auto insurance campaigns include contact rate, quote rate, closing rate, cost per policy, and item count. Most large carriers give leads at least three months to fully mature. As a result, it is critical to track progress toward conversion throughout the sales cycle.
Make sure you have a plan in place for outreach and nurturing, and determine how to effectively track lead status, ideally by leveraging a CRM. If you choose to work with a seasoned lead provider, setting up an auto insurance lead generation campaign can usually be completed over a quick phone call, so it is crucial to have all infrastructure elements in place upfront. Some auto insurance lead providers, like ZipQuote, give agents the option to post-date campaigns, streamlining the setup and launch processes.
In order to maximize yield from auto insurance lead generation campaigns, insurance agents need to be strategic with their outreach plans.
With many agents vying for attention from the same pool of consumers, it is crucial to follow up with interested prospects as close to real-time as possible. The first call, email or communication should occur within minutes of the lead being received. Act quickly, as it is likely prospects are shopping around. Be realistic about your capacity for prompt follow up. To ensure immediate outreach it will help to set caps with third-party publishers as needed to keep lead flow in check. Consider accepting live call transfers in addition to online leads. Since these inbound calls have a 100% contact rate, they tend to have a shorter sales cycle compared to standard data leads.
Establish a robust outreach workflow that includes more than calling. A well-planned email cadence can be highly effective for auto insurance lead generation campaigns. A waterfall approach with a welcome email, follow-ups and more personalized content tends to perform better than one-size-fits-all “canned” messaging. SMS can also be a useful tool to engage consumers and set appointments. Having a multi-channel approach helps successful agents to communicate with auto insurance shoppers the way they prefer to communicate.
As with any marketing campaign, monitoring results and making adjustments based on outcomes is essential for auto insurance lead generation campaigns, as making incremental improvements over time drive growth and profitability.
Test various headlines, copy and images to determine what creative mix is resonating best with your target audience. Iterate to improve creative performance throughout the campaign lifecycle.
Empower your partners to optimize by providing them with outcome data as close to real-time as possible, enabling them to make adjustments to quickly and effectively improve campaign performance.
ZipQuote helps insurance agents convert digital prospecting efforts into written policies with consistent and reliable digital performance advertising. Deploying proprietary consumer-behavior modeling, predictive analytics and advertising technology, ZipQuote engages consumers at the peak of their insurance buying intent.