“The higher number of clicks on our Sitelink Extension ads, and the overall boost in the traffic to our site since we started using the tool has definitely exceeded our expectations.” - Ian Lopuch, Vice President of Search Marketing, eHealthInsurance
The Challenge: Find New Ways to Connect with Consumers Online
When it comes to buying health insurance, “convenience” and “transparency” are not often the first words that come to mind. But for a growing number of consumers, eHealthInsurance delivers exactly that. Visitors to its website can compare benefits and pricing on more than 10,000 plans from more than 180 different health insurance carriers.
With its e-commerce business model, eHealth relies heavily on Internet marketing to reach consumers. The company wanted to further differentiate its search ads and gain flexibility in segmenting traffic to its site. Specifically, it looked for a way to incorporate additional links to promote specific site pages and imbue the ads with more personalized copy to grab readers’ attention.
The Prescription: Guide People to the Right Information, Faster
In the summer of 2012, as part of an early test of this search ad format, eHealth started using Sitelink Extensions on the Yahoo! Bing Network to complement its use of other Yahoo! advertising solutions, including Rich Ads in Search.
Advertisers can use Sitelink Extensions to add extra links, as well as more detailed copy to text ads. And, while Rich Ads in Search campaigns are keyed to a company’s top-performing branded terms, advertisers can use Sitelink Extensions on all search queries.
With Sitelink Extensions on the Yahoo! Bing Network, advertisers can add links to promote specific pages.
“By enabling us to incorporate even more links into our search ads with Sitelink Extensions, we can help people find and navigate directly to the section of our site they’re most interested in,” says Ian Lopuch, Vice President of Search Marketing at eHealthInsurance.“That’s critical to delivering a strong customer experience and improving conversion rates.”
eHealth also takes advantage of the expanded dimensions of ads created with Sitelink Extensions. Advertisers can choose to include up to six links per ad. “We’ve noticed that the ads are more prominent on the page,” adds Michael Wong, Search Marketing Specialist at eHealthInsurance. “That gives us more of a chance to capture the interest of potential customers and communicate our message in different ways.”
The Prognosis: Increased Customer Engagement
By incorporating the use of Sitelink Extensions on the Yahoo! Bing Network into its search advertising strategy, eHealth has experienced the following benefits:
Better Differentiation from Competitors
eHealth has found that it now has greater flexibility in creating ads that stand out from its competitors. “At the most practical level, Sitelink Extensions gives us a way to draw the consumer’s eye to our ads first because it looks fundamentally different than our competitors’ ads,” says Lopuch. “And the ability to incorporate so many different links into a single ad goes straight to the heart of our mission to deliver comprehensive health insurance resources to consumers in the fastest, easiest way possible.”
Deeper Insight into Ad Performance
Through with Sitelink Extensions’ reporting capabilities, eHealth benefits from improved visibility into key performance indicators. “We can instantly see the impact of adding extra links to our ads, track conversion on those ads, and determine the cost of acquisition—all from a single tool,” says Lopuch. “This gives us a new way to hone the precision of our search strategy to attract even more people to our site,” adds Wong.
Increased Click-Through Rate by 10 Percent
On ads that incorporate Sitelink Extensions, eHealth has seen more than a 10 percent increase in click-through rate compared to standard search ads. And the company directly attributes recent customer growth to its adoption of this search ad format. “The higher number of clicks on our Sitelink Extension ads, and the overall boost in the traffic to our site since we started using the tool has definitely exceeded our expectations,” says Lopuch.
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