Direct: Ensuring the success of performance campaigns

Thanks to long-term brand building and key changes in the marketing mix, including a new TV and YouTube strategy and a completely new creative concept, we were able to get the most out of performance campaigns for the Czech insurance company, Direct. The results are outstanding - a 59% increase in sales by, 65% more leads and a strenghtened brand’s position on the market.

I want that too!

What we achieved

A significant change in our approach to performance campaigns occurred in April 2022, and we are continuing our regularly refined new setup to the present moment of first publishing this article - that being July 2023. That is the time period we use to demonstrate the metrics we have achieved. Now let’s get straight to the results:

Meet Direct: Czech insurance company

What Direct insurance deals with

Direct pojišťovna is a Czech non-life insurance company that has been operating on the market since 2015. It is striving to simplify and digitalize this traditional sector, for which it has been ranked among the most client-friendly insurance companies in the recent years. As such, it also provides its services online or through a mobile app to more than 400,000 individual and corporate clients. Its portfolio of services includes car insurance, travel insurance, property insurance, liability insurance and trade insurance, as well as insurance for businesses, fleets and companies or institutions.

What were our objectives

The quantifiable objectives for both years were set as follows:

Target for 2022: Year-on-year revenue growth of at least 25 %

In April 2022, we consulted with Direct on their need to maximise new client acquisition and increase awareness of the Direct brand. Despite an extremely competitive environment where low price is still key for potential clients, we set an ambitious target with the client. It made sense - the campaigns were part of a complex marketing mix. Its individual activities promised a solid foundation to reach our goals. Even so, we knew we would have to increase the budget for the campaigns, and the client agreed with that.

After meeting the 2022 target, we moved on to refine the optimal campaign effectiveness model in the following year.

The target for 2023: a significant reduction in the cost of sales compared to 2022. In addition to meeting this target, we also managed to achieve year-on-year growth - a great 48%!

At first we looked at the complete PNO (a Czech abbreviation of cost of sales – it is the inverse value of ROAS) for the entire website, then at the PNO per product, and then we switched to the combination that we use now. The client now has a detailed overview at the individual product level, which they can place in the wider context of the overall numbers.

In order for Direct to have all the data immediately available in a clear and understandable way, we also used the services of our partner Databy. On its website you can also find a case study of how we implemented Business Intelligence for Direct.

Read the BI case study (in Czech)

How we approached the cooperation

April 2022 - December 2022

In April 2022, we began increasing our media budgets to maximise effective new client acquisition through the website and the app.

Our hypothesis was clear - we felt there was an opportunity to leverage the performance campaigns significantly more building on other successful marketing activities at Direct. We continued this approach throughout May and June.

Starting in July, we began to focus more on performance efficiency in terms of individual products, and then in August we monitored cost of sales at the level of specific products. We continued to do this through September.

It has to be said that due to the cookie bar and therefore limited measurement capabilities, we could not continue to work with this model completely as we envisioned.

So, in October, we proceeded to track a single effective cost of sales for the entire website and app across all insurance products, which we continued with until the end of 2022.

January 2023

PNO = Cost of sales

However, in the new year, the company wanted to focus even more on the efficiency of new client acquisition and on reducing the PNO, even at the cost of a possible lower year-on-year growth.

The marketing channels that insure this

Google Ads

On the performance side of Google Ads, we work primarily with search campaigns, with complementary PMAX campaigns and keyword-targeted “how-to” campaigns driven by detailed blog articles.

The Direct Blog itself has very good organic potential due to the consistent work on its SEO, making it ideal for building brand credibility.

We use Discovery campaigns for quality acquisition display targeting. We optimize everything according to tROAS and virtually target using free hits and a minimum number of ad sets, which allows us to optimize more easily, while still getting the best results. We’ve confirmed this by testing a total of three different approaches to campaign management over the last 16 months.

From maximum SKAG to HAGAKURE to “something in between”, what we might call STAG. We supplement the campaign mix with app support campaigns that we segment and optimize according to each part of the marketing funnel.

We segment all of our performance campaigns by product portfolio and based on the differences between the customers who buy those products.

Sklik

Although traffic from Sklik makes up a significantly smaller part of our clients, we are maximizing the search network and meeting the required efficiency. We use a completely different approach in search compared to Google Ads - we still work on a breadcrumb structure and divide campaigns into exact and phrase/​free match.

In Sklik, on the other hand, we make significantly more use of the content network - in remarketing and acquisition, due to significantly better targeting and placement. Similar to Google Ads, we communicate, target and optimize according to the different needs of clients and the products in question. At the same time, as in Google Ads, we also change the creative on a regular basis.

DV360

We use DV360 as a complementary platform, in order to take advantage of additional targeting options that Google Ads or Sklik do not offer, and especially the wide choice of formats.

We run long-term campaigns with low budgets (we target first-party data created in Campaign Manager), but more often we run impact themed campaigns with higher investments.

For our client, in addition to classic branded display or video campaigns, we tested audio campaigns on Spotify or radio, and in winter we ran a DOOH campaign in the SKI Klínovec ski resort. Similarly to last summer, this year we are running App Install campaigns, this time targeting also the customer match audience.

As we run campaigns in DV360 mainly to support brand building, the focus is on metrics such as viewability, reach and frequency of impressions.

Bing

In Bing, we work with a similar structure to Google Ads and Sklik. Despite the smaller market share in the Czech Republic (below 5%), we manage to invest our funds efficiently.

This is mainly due to the use of:

• simple campaign structure, which we divide by individual products,
• manual bidding, which allows us to effectively manage individual reports,
• all types of keyword matching with regular analysis of search queries (although we approach free matching much more carefully with lower bids and test its engagement more),
• and engaging ads using DKI (dynamic keyword injected into the ad title/​description). 
   

Facebook Ads 

In Meta, we use a combination of long-term year-round campaigns and short-term campaigns, where we can fulfill the seasonal potential of individual products and further promote awareness of their seasonally relevant benefits. Thanks to the data we gather from the market, we are able to select promotions and seasons well, thus maximising the return on advertising.

We also track other soft conversions in the account that we’ve set up to see where visitors are most likely to land.

We can’t do without a creative approach

Creative is the foundation of functional advertising in Meta. When we run a campaign for a client, we always have several different creative options ready to go, which may vary in copy or format. We look for the right creatives where we get good results, and then scale those to the highest possible budget with an acceptable cost of sales. But it’s not just the creative that’s important, it’s also the website we bring the client to. We test new landing pages with the client that are tailored to the creative we are promoting.

An important part of any account is its complexity and setup. We try not to make account campaigns unnecessarily complicated. There are campaigns that cover the entire marketing funnel. There are awareness campaigns that are designed to maximize reach, but it is primarily made up of campaigns that are designed to sell a specific insurance and, additionally, app campaigns.

We’re trying out all the new trends

This includes Advantage+ campaigns, which work great thanks to the wealth of account data available. Also, product campaigns with a “fake” product feed work very well for us, where we can use dynamic remarketing and dynamic prospecting by product, so we can get the most out of these campaigns even for a non-shopping site.

Youtube

A large part of our online brand promotion is YouTube campaigns. We focus primarily on hitting at an effective frequency. Thanks to the client’s open approach, we always have the opportunity to test new products that are not yet available to the general public. 

Within the funnel, we also make the most of in-market audiences (those interested in buying insurance) with creative tailored to each audience. For example, for audiences interested in buying travel insurance, we show videos featuring the benefits of travel insurance with Direct. As part of our testing, we tried different combinations of audiences and tracked the evolution of their awareness of the Direct brand.

Of course, we included video remarketing, both to site visitors and to people who have watched a particular video.

At the same time, we regularly measure Brand Lift and Search Lift to verify the effectiveness of the campaigns and awareness growth on both the exposed and control groups for the most comprehensive picture of the effect of the overall multi-channel communication.

Success that delights and motivates

Thanks to testing new approaches to campaign management, a very open client approach and, most importantly, a functional marketing mix of which campaigns are an integral part, we have managed to significantly increase both sales in general and the number of new leads and sales generated from them in the period since April 2022.

This success was only possible by testing new types of campaigns and significantly increasing the budget while focusing on maintaining maximum efficiency. We are very happy with the results of our marketing activities!

Do you also want to get your brand to more customers?

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