A Successful OperationPublished: August 2011 | By Yahoo!
Where there is change, there is uncertainty. But as eHealthInsurance.com, an online source of health insurance for individuals and families, approached the moving of its Yahoo! Search Marketing account to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform in 2010, any uncertainty it was facing with this change quickly moved to opportunity. Its longtime use of both paid search providers, and its trust in its Yahoo! team, ensured that this company’s account would get a clean bill of health.
The Challenge
Online marketing, particularly search marketing, has always been very important to eHealthInsurance.com. The site advertises on all major search engines, and has been doing so almost since the inception of each. “We’ve been on Yahoo! since the GoTo days,” says Ian Lopuch, Director of Search Marketing at the firm. “I’ve always been a fan of Yahoo! and the Panama platform even before the alliance--we’ve been really happy for a very long time. The paid search channel drives a significant part of our business and so it is critically important that we are optimizing this channel, I feel that there are many instances when Yahoo! and Bing are driving the industry forward.”
The news of the impending Search Alliance thrilled Lopuch. “As a search marketing team, we’re really busy,” he explains. “Managing numerous search engines can take up a lot of time. So the beauty of having a unified marketplace with both Yahoo! and Microsoft is that you only have to work with one account, but you get twice the benefit because it’s scaling across two search engines. Also, that there would be better technology, better tools and better support. And finally, that the level of innovation would be even better as a result of the Alliance. So we were very excited, and felt the opportunities were significant.”
The Solution
eHealthInsurance’s Yahoo! account manager began preparing Lopuch and his account for the switch to adCenter. Over the years, Lopuch and the AM had put a lot of thought and time into eHealthInsurance’s Yahoo! account, which contained thousands of keywords. “What we had in Panama had been perfected over the years,” says Lopuch. “But we felt a high level of confidence going into this transition, because of the Yahoo! sales team.”
Lopuch’s Yahoo! account manager began reviewing and organizing eHealthInsurance’s keywords, taking on a lot of the legwork that made the transition much easier for the client. Yahoo! examined keyword performance from both platforms to determine where the winning bidding strategies and ad copy were; fixing ads, match types and negative words as necessary. “They actually built the campaign for us,” Lopuch remembers. “They worked with us around the clock, really, in terms of getting our account prepared. And honestly, without all their support, I don’t think it would have been as successful as it was.”
The Results
The day of the transition finally arrived, and it was “a non- event,” says Lopuch, due to the time and effort invested. “In my experience, this is probably one of the biggest things that’s ever happened in the search marketing space. And any time a change like this happens--when you’re responsible for numbers and you’re responsible for your marketing campaign--you tend to worry.”
eHealthInsurance’s metrics have been a good salve for any initial concerns. “We’re very happy with the results,” Lopuch reports. “A lot of the expectations that I had have really been met. Now that we are on one system, our people are getting a lot more done in a lot less time. Year over year, the conversion rate on our Yahoo!/Microsoft paid traffic for Q1 2011 is up 29 percent. And the traffic we are receiving post-Search Alliance is of high quality.”
Lopuch has also noticed some attributes of the Yahoo!/ Microsoft Search Alliance that have the competitors beat. “There are some really great features Yahoo! offers that the competition doesn’t,” Lopuch explains. “One example is the ability to have partner-only campaigns. I can advertise just on partner sites and exclude Yahoo. com and Bing, which is great. It’s important so that you can bid separately and correctly on partner traffic. With the competition, there is no easy way to single out search partners and bid separately.”
The terrific transition experience, the improved results and Lopuch’s faith in his Yahoo! account manager also have him issuing a glowing diagnosis for the future: “Yahoo! is gaining ground on its competitors, the market’s growing, and there’s more traffic than ever available through the unified marketplace. Yahoo! is focused 100 percent on the account management side--that’s what Yahoo! really has always excelled at. They’re pushing the industry forward, and people are taking notice. More than ever, people now are looking at Yahoo!/Microsoft as a solid contender in this industry.”
About eHealthInsurance.com: eHealth, Inc. is the parent company of eHealthInsurance, a leading online source of health insurance for individuals, families and small businesses. Through the company’s website, www.eHealthInsurance. com, consumers can get quotes from leading health insurance carriers, compare plans side by side, and apply for and purchase health insurance.
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