October 10, 2023 - If you’re an insurance agent, chances are you either have a third-party company handling your leads or you’ve at least received sales emails promising astronomical numbers.
However, keep in mind not all marketing agencies are equal — and in fact, some can over-promise or artificially inflate their data.
In the ever-changing world of insurance marketing, finding the right partners to generate leads for your agency can be a daunting task, and mistakes can cost you time and money.
Here are five common insurance marketing red flags to watch out for!
1. Lack of Targeting
Effective lead generation starts with understanding your target audience. Marketing agencies who fail to understand your specific niche may provide leads that are irrelevant or uninterested in your services.
2. Inaccurate & Inflated Data
The quality of lead data matters significantly. Leads with incorrect or outdated information can lead to wasted resources and frustration. Even worse, companies can misrepresent numbers by inflating them—despite not being quality leads.
3. Inadequate Qualification
Leads should be pre-qualified to ensure they have a genuine interest in insurance products. Marketers who fail to do this may provide leads with no real intent to purchase.
4. Overpromising
Be wary of marketers who promise unrealistic results or a high volume of leads at an unusually low cost. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
5. Non-Exclusive Leads
Always make sure to inquire about your internet leads’ exclusivity. Non-exclusive leads may be sold to multiple agencies simultaneously and can cause competition and lower conversion rates.
Our Approach at Melon Local
At Melon Local, we utilize reporting from your company’s domain provider to ensure the optimal performance of our Google Ads account. One of our strategies includes defining certain ad groups with specific targets in mind.
For some ad groups and individual keywords, we aim for a 30 percent or higher conversion of clicks versus quote starts and phone calls—well above average rates! There are also ad groups and keywords where we observe an exceptionally high conversion rate.
In instances where we note anomalies, such as an ad group having more clicks than views, it suggests the presence of display ads or instances where a browser window—be it on a phone or desktop—has been left open and keeps refreshing. In scenarios like this, we ensure that we secure those clicks at the most minimal cost possible, understanding the unique nature of these interactions.
To achieve the finest granularity in tracking, nearly every keyword is tagged with a unique code that only Melon Local can track. This meticulous methodology allows us to precisely monitor which specific keywords and ads are yielding the best results. However, it’s imperative to understand that not all quote starts translate to actual leads.
What About our Competition?
Although it might appear that some of our competitors generate a high volume of quote starts, there’s an evident discrepancy. Oftentimes, the actual leads don’t consistently mirror the quote starts as portrayed by your domain provider’s campaign reports. In addition, our team of insurance pros has the expertise and knowledge to generate comparable volumes of quote starts. Yet, through our analysis, we’ve identified a high percentage of the clicks our competitors receive aren’t genuine — and in some cases, we’ve seen more quote starts than actual clicks.
Our methods of discerning this remain proprietary—a part of our “secret sauce,” if you may. It’s a little concerning that many competitors may be allocating valuable customer resources to unproductive and spurious clicks, isn’t it?
At the end of the day, our dedication to continual optimization emphasizes the importance of agents sharing their quote starts with us on a monthly basis. Our routine calls allow our team to further improve and optimize the Google Ads account more effectively.
We understand insurance agents may be enticed by other companies and witness a temporary boost in results. Keep in mind, though, Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, and these gains are not sustainable.
Melon Local remains steadfast in our rigorous keyword tagging approach, as our primary goal is to synchronize the actual number of quality leads with the quote starts detailed in the reports, ensuring both consistency and authenticity in outcomes.
Join a Fruitful Partnership
When it comes to generating leads, you need an agency like ours to be transparent, provide real data and give insightful strategies for converting prospects into customers.
Besides being your go-to agency for leads, we can help with a variety of other insurance marketing efforts, including organic search optimization and social media management.
Learn more about how we can deliver fresh, quality leads and generate buzz for your agency by scheduling a demo today!