Acxiom®,
the data and technology foundation for the world’s best marketers, today
at Dig|In 2019, released a new report in partnership with
SourceMedia Research. The study explores the top martech issues facing
senior leaders at P&C (Property & Casualty), life and multi-line
insurance companies. Despite significant investments being made in the
martech space, insurance carriers are struggling to get value out of
their investments. The joint report, ‘Marketing Transformation for
Insurance – A Study of MarTech Through the Eyes of Insurance Leaders,’
unveiled top-tier and mid-tier carrier strategies and challenges in
maximizing the value of their martech investments, influenced by
increased volumes of prospect and customer data from various channels.
“The rapid proliferation of channels, devices and data sources has
impacted the complexity of identity resolution strategies. This, in
turn, increases the risk of brand loyalty erosion as competition soars
in this transformative climate,” said Clark Wooten, group vice president
of insurance services at Acxiom. “Customers expect carriers to deliver a
seamless and highly personalized experience, but organizational and
industry obstacles, including data silos and evolving data privacy
policies, can create barriers between the expectations of customers and
the experiences delivered by insurers.”
Key Findings:
-
Twenty-three percent of insurance executives indicated that enhanced
customer experience is their primary indicator of marketing success in
2019 -
Thirty-six percent of executives cited data quality and accuracy as
their biggest obstacle to being able to obtain a 360-degree view of
the customer, curate actionable insights, assign accurate marketing
attribution and measurement, and prove ROI -
Nearly three-fourths of insurers are currently using between five to
14 martech solutions— clear evidence of the data fragmentation
challenge within insurance organizations -
Nearly thirty-five percent of executives did not understand the
martech solutions they were developing or purchasing, finding the
tasks of achieving data quality/accuracy, marketing ROI, removing data
silos and managing data governance very challenging -
Customer acquisition and retention (66 percent), personalization (60
percent), and increased competitiveness (56 percent) were ranked by
executives as the most important martech investments in the next 12
months
The study also found that seventy-six percent of customers said they
were willing to take their business elsewhere if they weren’t getting a
highly personalized experience, and fifty-one percent said most brands
fell short of delivering a great customer experience. A Forrester report
in 2018 had similar findings. Data from Forrester’s CX Index proves that
when customers have a better experience, their intentions to stay with a
brand, buy more from that brand, and recommend that brand all increase.
But great customer experience in auto and home insurance is still rare.
That means that there is huge financial upside for insurers that
transform their customer experience.1 But simply
understanding the importance of making customer experiences better and
bringing together various martech tools designed to improve customer
experience are not leading to the success insurance marketers hoped to
achieve. The reason is that martech alone cannot solve the customer
experience problem.
“There is an overwhelming disconnect between results versus expectations
of the martech solutions insurance executives have purchased,” said
Jennifer Liptow, director of research operations at SourceMedia
Research. “Carriers must take a step back in order to get the data
foundation right, ensuring accuracy and compliance, in order to
effectively target customers and clearly differentiate their value
propositions among competitors.”
“The report clearly demonstrates that connecting the martech platforms
into what Acxiom terms a unified data layer or framework is much harder
than carriers realize. Many are trying to do this in-house but struggle
with integrations due to data challenges, lack of expertise and internal
resource constraints,” said Karen Imbrogno, senior insurance industry
strategist at Acxiom. “The majority of carriers are placing primary
focus on enhancing the customer experience yet struggle to measure
success with multiple projects continuously in play. The only way one
can measure accurately is by bringing all the data together — online,
offline, first-party, second-party and third-party data—into an
integrated framework.”
Findings from the report, which was conducted in 2018, are a telling
indicator of insurance executives’ priorities, with seventy-eight
percent of respondents stating that they are interested in implementing
a unified data framework solution to optimize their martech investments.
Partnership is key to uniting martech ecosystems at the data layer.
Since integrating marketing data and platforms is not a core part of an
insurer’s business, it is essential for them to work with an expert
partner who has a proven way to increase ROI and improve the customer
experience.
“Successful marketing depends on connected data at the foundational
layer,” added Wooten. “With a strong focus on creating a connected
ecosystem of marketing and advertising data services and technologies,
insurance companies will be able to create a single 360-degree view of
their customers while improving their ability to acquire, engage, and
retain customers, all of which is critical to proving ROI and maximizing
value.”
The report leveraged quantitative and qualitative interviews of 106
respondents at the director level or higher at top-tier and mid-tier
insurance carriers. To download the full report and learn more about
marketing transformation of the insurance industry, click here.
About Acxiom
Acxiom provides the data and technology foundation for the world’s best
marketers. We enable people-based marketing everywhere through a simple,
open approach to connecting systems and data that drives seamless
customer experiences and higher ROI. A leader in identity and ethical
data use for nearly 50 years, Acxiom helps thousands of clients and
partners around the globe work together to create a world where all
marketing is relevant. Acxiom is a registered trademark of Acxiom LLC.
For more information, visit Acxiom.com.
About SourceMedia Research
SourceMedia Research is a full-service B2B market research service that
draws upon SourceMedia’s market expertise and proprietary database of
engaged executives to develop information and insights for clients.
SourceMedia Research provides research solutions for marketers, agencies
and others targeting sectors such as banking, payments, mortgage,
accounting, employee benefits and wealth management.
1 “The US Auto and Home Insurers Customer Experience Index, 2018:
How US Auto and Home Insurers Earn Loyalty with The Quality of Their
Experience,” by Ellen Carney, Faith Adams, August Du Pont, June 20,
2018, Forrester.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190530005072/en/