Objectives

Simplify digital marketing platform

Improve insights into customer behaviours and preferences

Enhance paid search campaigns to boost conversion

Results

Achieved 45% overall cost savings on campaigns

Insurance application starts increased by 118%

Improves visibility into campaign performance

Better integration simplifies marketing and increases confidence

Born for the road

The classic car culture is in Hagerty’s DNA. The company provides insurance coverage for collector cars, motorcycles, boats, vintage race cars and more. Membership also provides access to the company’s roadside assistance programmes, an award-winning automotive magazine, invitations to seminars and events and one of the world’s largest automotive communities. It’s not just an insurance company, but a force in the enthusiast car market.

Hagerty employees believe it is their responsibility to support organisations and initiatives that help make sure the vehicles they love—and the lifestyles that revolve around them—not only survive, but thrive. The company is dedicated to supporting car culture through youth, education and heritage through its youth programmes and support of the RPM Foundation and Historic Vehicle Association.

“The name Hagerty has become synonymous with classic cars,” says Joe Niemer, Vice President of Digital Commerce at Hagerty. “We want to broadcast our message to even larger audiences as the community grows and becomes as diverse as the cars people like to drive.”

Though many classic cars are associated with days gone by, Hagerty embraces the digital world where most customers look online via computers or via mobile devices to research or purchase insurance. This requires the company to look forward and engage customers with more advanced digital strategies. In turn, Hagerty also needs integrated analytics and digital marketing solutions that help marketers cut through the complexity, as well as scale and grow the business.

“With every challenge we faced, we used to either adopt a new tool or pull in a new agency to address it,” says Niemer. “That approach created new challenges, such as integrating solutions, scaling or co-ordinating efforts. We needed to switch gears and look for fewer, smarter solutions to simplify digital marketing.”

Hagerty turned to Adobe to help make sense of digital marketing and advertising by choosing Adobe Advertising Cloud Search and Adobe Analytics Cloud, both part of Adobe Experience Cloud.

**Start your engines **

To help ensure a smooth transition from its previous ad and marketing tools to Adobe solutions, Hagerty tapped into Adobe Customer Solutions. Adobe solution engineers and architects helped set expectations across teams, trained Hagerty marketers on best practices and optimised campaigns. Engaging with Adobe Customer Solutions not only established a strong foundation, but also accelerated wins. In just over one month, insurance application completions were up 37%, while cost per application was down by nearly 27%.

“Adobe has a unique ability to create integrated marketing and analytics solutions and backs its solutions with fantastic training and support from Adobe Customer Solutions,” says Mick Bassett, Search Engine Marketing Analyst at Hagerty. “Early on, we saw how Adobe Analytics and Adobe Advertising Cloud can work together to give us data and insights that are more actionable and reliable.”

Adobe Analytics provided key insights that accelerated success for new campaigns. The data and analytics enabled greater understanding of conversion points within the digital experience. By identifying those points and building KPIs according to specific goals, Hagerty can create pinpoint campaigns that deliver optimum results.

Additionally, at the outset of launching campaigns with Adobe Advertising Cloud Search, the team bundled its campaigns into a single portfolio to collect as much data on as many keywords as possible. This enabled Hagerty to jumpstart machine learning and build data-driven insights about keywords and marketplaces faster.

Learning machine

Having actionable, clear insights was especially important for the company’s next step in transforming digital marketing strategies—bringing marketing activities, such as paid search marketing, back in-house. In-house marketing capabilities offer Hagerty a strategic advantage since it knows its own customers and the classic auto insurance market best. At the same time, leveraging a cloud-based platform allows marketers to take advantage of multiple best-of-breed solutions in a seamlessly integrated and scalable environment.

Using machine learning with Adobe Advertising Cloud enables the company to automate and scale campaigns, as well as improve the precision behind marketing efforts. The result is more efficient, data-driven campaigns that Hagerty marketers can manage directly.

“We can see changes in digital marketplaces as they happen and initiate changes quickly with Adobe solutions,” says Bassett. “We’ve moved from making a few hundred monthly keyword bid changes to over 23,000 keyword bid changes per month and 181 campaign budget changes. By automating and optimising bids and budgets more regularly, we can extract the most value from our investments.”

Adobe Advertising Cloud Search helps Hagerty pinpoint the most relevant keywords across search engines. At the same time, Analytics feeds engagement information into Adobe Advertising Cloud Search, helping to further refine keyword bids in categories where information is otherwise limited. Integrations between Adobe solutions also offer a single source of truth for conversion data, helping the company see the road ahead and respond faster.

By weighting campaign goals with their objectives, Advertising Cloud Search helps align campaigns with their most important KPIs. At the same time, machine learning helps to ensure that Hagerty can achieve the most value per conversion.

“Adobe Advertising Cloud is the largest driving force behind our ability to make smarter decisions about digital marketing,” says Bassett. “In only four months, we’ve cut spend for campaigns by 45% and cost-per-click by 10.4%.” Bassett also notes that the number of people coming to the site through paid search who start applications has increased by 118%, while cost per application start has dropped by 33.5%.

Light at the end of the tunnel

After completing the first phase of its digital transformation, Hagerty is motivated to continue innovating. The company is encouraged by its rapid, early wins, as well as new clarity into digital channels and support from Adobe.

“Overall, Adobe solutions have been the right solution at the right time for Hagerty,” says Niemer. “We expect our engagement with Adobe to play a major role in our growth and success for the foreseeable future.”

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