Driving Direct Line’s Lifetime Value Bidding to Success

Client: Direct Line Group

Direct Line Group is a major insurance company in the UK that encompasses several renowned insurance brands. By closely partnering with their media agency Carat and utilising the Search Ads 360 platform, a collaborative new approach was implemented within their motor insurance paid search activity that significantly increased the number of valuable customers they were able to acquire.

Prior to this implementation, the approach had been to drive a large volume of motor insurance quotes, regardless of the outcome, by utilising a target cost-per-acquisition strategy. This approach did not reflect the final important conversion - a sale, nor did it reflect differences in the lifetime value of acquired customers. The new approach was highly sophisticated, as Direct Line was able to model their rich first-party data to be activated in a compliant manner through campaigns clustered by lifetime value. The Carat team optimised each cluster using their bespoke value-based bidding approach, assigning different target returns on ad spend strategies to achieve the maximum gain. This approach was highly scalable, too, as it could be replicated across other Direct Line products and efficient in the face of an increasingly expensive insurance market. With this new approach, Direct Line could bid towards their most important conversion whilst differentiating value and directing media spend effectively towards customers of the highest lifetime value. The approach achieved 19% more value, which outperformed Google’s own benchmarked uplift of 14%. This was for a 4% lower cost, indicating an incremental value added to the business.