No matter how strategic or effective your agency website is, most of your traffic isn’t ready to purchase a new policy when they first visit your site. In fact, studies show that many consumers need to see your ads and branding at least seven times before they will take any kind of action — that’s the marketing Rule of 7.
View this webinar on-demand as Digital Marketing Coordinator Chelsea Peterson offers insights into who’s visiting your website, how likely they are to get a quote or contact your agency, and how to win your website visitors back with retargeting ads.
How to Win Your Agency Website Visitors Back
Watch the webinar, read through the full transcript, or jump ahead to the section you’re most interested in to see how you can win your agency website visitors back to your website while also boosting your brand awareness.
- Key Statistics on First-Time Website Visitors
- Retargeting Ads Definition
- Retargeting Ads Benefits
- Tips on Creating Effective Retargeting Ads
- How BrightFire’s Pay-Per-Click Advertising Service Helps
Watch the Webinar
Additional Questions?
If you have any questions about this webinar, our Pay-Per-Click Advertising service, or any of our digital marketing solutions, please schedule a call with sales.
Webinar Transcript
Hello everyone! My name is Chelsea Peterson, and I’m a Digital Marketing Coordinator here at BrightFire, as well as your host for today’s webinar. Thank you all for joining us.
In January, we covered How Agency Website Designs Generate Leads. If you missed it, or any of our previous webinars in the 20 Minute Marketing Webinar series, you can access the whole series on-demand by visiting brightfire.com/webinars.
Our goal with these webinars is to provide you with digital marketing advice and discuss current digital marketing topics in a brief 20-minute format followed by a Q&A period to answer any questions you may have. If you have questions during the webinar, please use the Q&A feature in Zoom found at the bottom of the screen. We’ll do our best to answer all of the questions that come through; otherwise, we will personally reach out to you afterward.
Today’s webinar topic is The Rule of 7: How to Win Your Website Visitors Back. No matter how strategic or effective your agency website is, most of your traffic isn’t ready to purchase a new policy when they first visit your site. In fact, studies show that many consumers need to see your ads and branding at least seven times before they will start a conversation with you — that’s the marketing Rule of 7.
In this webinar, we’ll help you understand who’s visiting your website and offer insights into how likely they are to get a quote or contact your agency. Then, we’ll dive into what retargeting ads are, as well as how you can leverage them to stay in front of potential customers and bring visitors back to your website, while also boosting your agency’s brand awareness.
Today’s webinar is being recorded, so everything we discuss will be saved and emailed to you in the next business day or two so you can watch it later on-demand.
Lastly, we have a couple of polls for today’s webinar. When launched, you’ll see the poll pop up on your screen with the question and response options. Every poll is anonymous. We’ll give you roughly 30 seconds to share your response, and then we’ll discuss the results with the group.
About BrightFire
Before we dive into winning your website visitors back with retargeting ads, I’d like to share a brief background on BrightFire, since we have a mix of current customers and agents that are new to BrightFire attending today.
BrightFire began by providing insurance agency websites in 2000. Over the years, as the needs of insurance agents grew, we expanded our digital marketing services beyond agency websites to also include:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media Marketing
- Local Listings Management
- Reviews & Reputation Management
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Currently, there are over 2,500 independent agencies across the nation using at least one of BrightFire’s digital marketing services.
So with that background on BrightFire, let’s get started.
What’s Ahead
If you’ve ever taken a look at your agency website’s analytics, you probably noticed that your form submissions and other conversions pale in comparison to the number of people who visit your website. And it’s not just your website. This is the case for most websites across most industries.
That’s because 97% of people aren’t ready to take action or make purchases when they first visit any website. With the Internet at their fingertips and so many varying choices to select from, consumers want to explore their options and do their research to make sure they’re getting a combination of the most affordable products with the greatest quality and customer service available.
While they’re in the research process, though, your agency has an excellent opportunity to stay top of mind. By displaying relevant retargeting ads to your previous website visitors, consumers will become more familiar with your brand and more comfortable selecting your agency over another.
In this webinar, we’ll cover key statistics on first-time website visitors and their usual behavior. We’ll also dive into what retargeting ads are, their benefits, and some tips on how you can create effective retargeting ads.
Finally, we’ll share how BrightFire’s Pay-Per-Click Advertising service can help your agency leverage retargeting ads so you can increase brand awareness, get them back to browsing your website, and ultimately have a higher chance of winning their business.
Who’s Visiting Your Website?
So, let’s first talk about who’s visiting your website. I briefly mentioned on the last slide the idea of analyzing your website data to know more about your website visitors and their usual behavior, which also ties into whether visitors are taking your desired actions like filling out forms on your website.
Seeing these responses is really interesting because it’s so important to analyze your data so you can know who’s coming to your website.
Of course, you’ll never know data such as whether John Smith specifically is viewing your website. But, you can learn key information that can help drive future advertising strategies, such as how many new or first-time visitors you have, what pages they’re viewing, and what actions they’re taking, if any.
Statistics say 68% of insurance consumers did not have a particular company in mind when they started searching online. Another general statistic and marketing rule of thumb is that many consumers need to see your branding at least seven times before they will take any kind of action.
These two statistics tell us that people don’t always know who your agency is when they first come to your website. And even if you make an amazing first impression for new website visitors, choosing the right insurance agency to protect an individual, their business, their loved ones, and their assets is an important decision to make. One that may take some time.
While it’s okay for consumers to shop around and do their research, you want to make sure your agency stands out and stays top of mind so they can become familiar with your brand and feel comfortable choosing your agency.
The last statistic I want to share about who’s visiting your website is that returning visitors will have a 75% higher chance of making a purchase than new visitors. This key point brings us to our next slide.
Get Your Agency Website Visitors Back
How can you get those first-time visitors to come back to your website and start converting?
Let’s go back to our example from earlier about your website analytics not telling you that John Smith specifically was visiting your website. Even if there was a way for us to know that John was browsing your homeowners insurance page, website analytics won’t give you any contact information like a phone number or email address to reach out to him. Unless of course, he filled out a form that asked for that info.
But there is still a really great opportunity for you to reach back out to your website visitors through Google Ads. After placing a small snippet of code on your website, you will be able to create a target audience in Google Ads that includes people who have visited your website.
From then on, when someone visits your website, the tracking code, also known as an anonymous cookie, is placed in their browser. Digital cookies are text files that contain bits of information used to identify the computer, tablet, or mobile device.
When a cookied visitor browses the Web, the cookie will let Google’s display network of websites know when to serve ads, ensuring that your ads are served only to people who have previously visited your website. This network is essentially a group of millions of different websites, apps, and videos where your ads can appear.
It’s important to note that this code doesn’t capture any personal or sensitive information on your website visitors like names and addresses.
These ads are called retargeting ads because they are a strategic type of pay-per-click advertising campaign that spreads awareness of your agency by targeting only the people who have already visited your website.
Benefits of Retargeting Ads for Insurance Agents
Let’s move on and dive into the benefits of leveraging retargeting ads to bring your previous visitors back to your website.
First, we’ll go through the benefits that all pay-per-click ads provide, which first includes increasing your website traffic. Whether you create traditional search ads or retargeting ads, when you launch ads online through Google, you’re helping your agency get found across the web at the exact moment when interested consumers are looking for an insurance policy.
What’s more, studies show that retargeting ads generally achieve a click-through rate 10 times higher than that of your more traditional display ads.
Another more generic benefit is that you only pay when a user actually clicks on your ad — hence the name pay-per-click. That means your agency is getting a lot more visibility on search engine results pages and websites included in the Google Display Network, but you’re only paying when a user actually clicks on your ad to view your website.
One huge benefit of retargeting ads specifically that I think can’t be emphasized enough is the increase in brand awareness that your agency can achieve. We all know how critical brand awareness is for local independent agents in order to compete against some of the larger names in insurance.
And based on the marketing rule of 7 that we’ve talked about today, it takes consumers seeing your brand name and messaging at least seven times before they will decide to take action and consider purchasing a policy. So retargeting ads have the potential to make a huge impact on improving your brand awareness as your website visitors come across your ads while they browse different sites on the Internet.
Retargeting ads also prove to be effective because you have the advantage of knowing they are already interested in your agency and are likely looking for a new or updated policy since they viewed your website recently.
So instead of reaching consumers who are closer to the top of the sales funnel and might not have ever heard of your agency before, you’re able to re-engage people who already know about your agency, who are likely farther down the sales funnel, and who are getting closer to being ready to make a decision on which agency will win their business.
Another great benefit of leveraging retargeting ads is their timeliness. Once a campaign is launched and your audience begins populating in the ads platform, website visitors will start seeing your ads almost immediately after they view your website.
And finally, some of you may be thinking, “Well, I don’t want to spend my advertising dollars on my current customers who visit my website.”
But retargeting ads can even be beneficial in this situation, as they can help you re-engage your customers who maybe haven’t updated their policy in a while or who could benefit from bundling some additional policies.
Say for example, Susan is a customer who unsubscribed from your email list and she doesn’t currently follow you on social media. When she goes through a big life event like having a baby, calling your agency to update her life insurance policy might not be the first thing she thinks about.
If you have retargeting ads in place, though, you can still get in front of customers like Susan and remind them to reach out to your agency to review their policies.
In doing so, you can also potentially extend their customer lifetime value as they begin to bind and bundle more and more policies with your agency.
Creating Effective Retargeting Ads
So how can you reap all of these amazing benefits with an effective retargeting ad campaign?
The first step is to craft concise, yet compelling content with statements that will spark your audience’s curiosity and speak to the needs of your prospects and the solutions they’re looking for. Studies show that 56% of consumers online are more likely to return to a website that recommends products, so mentioning common policy types or coverages consumers should consider can encourage them to click through to your website.
The last point I’ll make on content is to provide a strong and clear call to action. If you offer vague content or simply state facts with no direction, consumers will read your ad and just continue scrolling. Help them move through the sales funnel more easily and get them to take action on your website by telling them exactly what they need to do next. Should they get an instant quote on your website? Is it better if they call your agency to discuss their coverage needs? Clearly state exactly what it is you want them to do so they aren’t left confused.
The next piece of advice I would offer is to provide several different image sizes and formats for your ads, as well as different content themes because your ad will show in a number of places. Keep an eye on your metrics and consider making adjustments based on your ad’s performance.
The last batch of tips that I’ll talk about today are website optimizations and landing page best practices. It may not seem like this is very relevant for your retargeting ads campaign, but the experience that your users have on your landing page after they click on your ad is crucial to the overall success of your campaign.
At a minimum, you have to make sure that the tracking code is active on your website. This will help you properly analyze how your campaigns are performing, as well as track who is visiting your website so your retargeting audience will be populating accurately and consistently.
But ideally, you would optimize the landing page your ad is linking to as well. It’s important to note that your retargeting ads should point to a landing page rather than your website’s homepage. This is because your homepage is more of a general entrance for anyone who comes across your agency online. When someone views your homepage, they will be encouraged to browse through your website, get to know your agency and the policies you offer, and then potentially also contact your agency.
However, when it comes to retargeting ads — and really any type of pay-per-click ad — you want to point consumers to a landing page that is much more specific and relevant to the content mentioned in your ad. Landing pages tend to receive more conversions than a homepage because they are focused on a single goal or conversion like filling out a form or calling your agency.
And when it comes to landing page best practices, you want to make sure that your landing page content, especially your headlines and calls to action, matches the content reflected in your ad.
Your landing page should also be designed with a really clean layout that is very easy to navigate on all devices, including tablets and smartphones. You’ll want to reduce distractions for your visitors by removing your main navigation menu and other links that point visitors to other pages on your website.
It’s also a best practice to highlight the benefits of being an independent agent, as well as any insurance policies your ads may mention. To help build trust and credibility with consumers that click on your ads, you can even include social proof by adding a section for customer reviews with their names and photos.
Finally, similar to what I mentioned with creating effective ads, effective landing pages should also include strong and clear calls to action that will encourage your visitors to convert by filling out a form or contacting your agency.
If your retargeting ads are getting a ton of clicks to your website, but then those people are leaving almost immediately, it’s likely the content on your landing page is not resonating with them and needs to be reworked. Review your ad assets and your landing page to confirm that consumers will have a great experience when they click one of your retargeting ads.
By optimizing your ads in these ways, you can ensure you’ll get the most out of your advertising dollars.
How BrightFire Helps with Retargeting
If all of this sounds amazing to you, but you’re not sure how you could possibly make it all happen with your already busy schedule, BrightFire’s Pay-Per-Click Advertising service is available to you with retargeting ad campaigns.
Our team of Digital Advertising Strategists and web and graphic designers are experts in writing effective ad copy, designing eye-catching ads, and ensuring everything is optimized based on your agency’s goals and ideal audience.
We’ll manage Google Ads to get your retargeting ads in front of your previous website visitors. Doing so will help you increase brand awareness, help consumers trust your agency more, and stand out locally against the biggest names in insurance.
We provide everything you need to generate leads from retargeting ads, including:
- Account Setup for Google Ads
- Copywriting
- Graphic Design
- Custom Ad Design
- A Custom Landing Page for Each Campaign
- Call Tracking with Local Phone Numbers
- Monthly Reporting
- Consultation Calls with one of our Digital Advertising Strategists
With the help of our Google Ads certified experts to take care of your retargeting campaigns, you’ll be able to spend more time tending to your leads, saving you time, energy, and money.
How to Get Started with Retargeting Ads
If you’re new to BrightFire and would like to take advantage of our services, you can sign up for BrightFire’s Pay-Per-Click Advertising service for only $125 per campaign per month. We do require a minimum monthly ad spend of $200, which is paid directly to the advertising network.
Our digital marketing services don’t have any setup fees or contracts and also include a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Our onboarding process is designed to take the burden off of you as much as possible and consists of two 30-minute phone calls. During the initial consultation, we’ll determine your goals and target audience. Then, our team of experts will configure your campaign appropriately. Typically, we can launch your ads within a week of your onboarding call.
As a thank you for attending today, we’re offering a $50 promo to webinar attendees. You can receive a $50 account credit for signing up for our Pay-Per-Click Advertising service. This promo ends next Wednesday, April 5.
To get started with BrightFire, please schedule a call with sales. On our website, you can submit your purchase, start a live chat with us, or schedule a call with a BrightFire expert.
Q&A on Leveraging Retargeting Ads
That concludes our presentation on The Rule of 7: How to Win Your Website Visitors Back. Now we’ll head into our Q&A session if anyone has any questions!
As a reminder, we’ll do our best to answer any questions that come through. If we aren’t able to address your question during the webinar, someone from BrightFire will follow up with you via email. Let’s get started.
Can retargeting ads reach past website visitors from before the campaign was launched?
Great question! In order to get your retargeting campaign launched, there is a small snippet of code that will need to be added to your website. This allows Google to start building your audience and know what other sites your visitors are browsing on the Internet in order to place your ads. Because of that, your retargeting audience will only start populating after the code is placed on your website.
Does BrightFire’s service cover both normal paid search ads and retargeting ads?
We can absolutely launch both your more standard paid search ads that would target your ideal audience, even if they haven’t previously visited your website, as well as the retargeting ads we’ve discussed today. You would simply sign up for two campaigns at $125 each per month, in addition to the actual ad spend on both campaigns.
How many pay-per-click leads should I expect each month, and how do I know if the campaign is a success?
That’s a great question, and the answer varies based on a number of factors, including the type of insurance you’re advertising, how much website traffic you’re currently getting, the area you’re targeting geographically, and your budget.
As far as tracking success goes, we do offer our Pay-Per-Click Advertising clients a dashboard that includes several features like call recording and call tracking. Call recording automatically records calls for your training purposes, and call tracking helps you easily associate your advertising leads with your ad campaign to know how many phone calls your ads are generating.
Well, I think that is all the time we have for questions today. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question, and again, we’ll follow up with you individually after the webinar if we didn’t get to your question today.
But before we close, I’d like to remind everyone of our upcoming 20 Minute Marketing Webinar.
Upcoming 20 Minute Marketing Webinar
Our next webinar is in May and will cover 6 Reasons Why Accurate Local Listings are a Must.
As an independent agent, you likely already know how important online local business listings are for helping consumers in your area find your agency. Yet far too often, the true value of an agent’s listings becomes underestimated when they aren’t properly maintained — from both an SEO perspective and a consumer’s perspective.
In this webinar, we’ll unpack six powerful benefits your agency can realize when you consistently monitor your local listings and keep them up-to-date. Then, we’ll share how you can effectively manage and leverage your listings so you can stay ahead of the competition and more easily get found across the web.
This webinar will be held Thursday, May 25, at 2 PM Eastern or 11 AM Pacific.
You can reserve your spot at these webinars by visiting the webinars page on our website at brightfire.com/webinars.
So that does it for today! From me and the rest of the BrightFire team, we’d like to thank all of you for attending.
