Simply Business supercharges brand interest with digital channels
Overview
Simply Business caters for a vast array of different small business types - from butchers to bakers to personal trainers. As such, the brand needs sophisticated audience pools. And, with opera singers and meerkats making it hard to stand out, the insurance market is a crowded space.
The objective of this campaign was to communicate that no matter the size, sector or nature of your business, Simply Business can provide insurance. It used the strapline ‘You Name It, We Insure It’.
Simply Business approached digital marketing agency Brainlabs with the challenge of generating high-intent, small business leads through display, native and video upper-funnel branding activity. From this, it wanted audience lists that could be reached by remarketing teams at scale.
Simply Business, along with agency Truant London, required a strategy that would deliver content to the right people, at the right time and at scale. Through YouTube, a strategy was created that ensured the brand’s assets were delivered to high-intent custom audiences at scale.
The upper-funnel branding activity smashed CTR targets by 36%, reaching 5.5 million people and generating around 150,000 new prospects in three months, proving that the programmatic strategy worked.
What was the role of digital in the media mix?
Long form video helped to provide the awareness that would allow Simply Business’ in-house teams to drive remarketing efforts, with image and copy influenced by native and display tests that ran simultaneously to YouTube activity. Bumper ads were then used for re-targeting. These were also tested, with insights fed into the social strategy, determining which audiences were shown creatives on other platforms.
YouTube’s automated bidding strategies also drove success, while a geographic testing showed whether digital activity was having measurable uplift on performance in specific regions of the UK which had historically seen similar customer profiles and levels of performance.
Key statistics
What results did you attain? What was the biggest achievement?
Simply Business was successful in demonstrating the value of upper-funnel branding activity through digital.
The approach smashed the goal of driving volume to Simply Business’ site, confirming that upper-funnel activity on YouTube was delivering measurable results.
More leads were generated than Simply Business had expected. Clicks sat at around 220,000, a 36% increase on projections; activity reached 5.5 million people, a 323% increase on projections, and generated around 150,000 prospects, a 169% increase on projections.
Furthermore, CPA results demonstrated that conversions were being delivered at a 14% lower cost than increased spending on search.
YouTube was integral to this success. Around 26% of users watched the whole 30-second adverts, compared to an industry average of around 17%. A YouTube brand uplift survey found an 18% lift in brand awareness as a result of the campaign and there was a mammoth 1349% increase in brand interest using a DV360 brand lift survey.
In a sentence...
Insurer Simply Business illustrates the value of upper-funnel branding via digital channels, with its approach supercharging brand interests.
