How Aira Helped Hagerty UK Increases Traffic, Clicks and Revenue in a Fiercely Competitive Marketplace
The Challenge
Traffic, customer and revenue growth for Hagerty in the UK
In the competitive world of finance, automotive insurance provider Hagerty® needs its marketing operation to run like a high-performance, finely tuned engine.
The business builds brand awareness and loyalty in some interesting ways. They’ve cultivated their own community of motor enthusiasts, created flagship automotive events (such as Festival of the Unexceptional®), acquired new ones (such as RADwood®), and have even established an all-new clubhouse headquarters at Bicester Heritage to help grow the business.
Hagerty takes digital marketing seriously. So when Andrew Sergent, its Senior Marketing Strategist for US Direct Insurance and International Products, had his remit expanded to growing Hagerty in Britain, he was excited to rev up the brand.
Andrew says, “At that point, Hagerty had a stable position in the UK. But we saw an opportunity to further grow our brand recognition, expand awareness across the classic car insurance and valuation spaces, and raise the bar with paid media.”
Unlocking local expertise in paid search
Andrew knew what he wanted to achieve—to reach more buyers on the web and turn them into customers. Before he could do that, there was an urgent knowledge gap to fill.
He says, “We have our own digital marketing team that does everything for Canada and the U.S. But we wanted to make sure we understood the nuances of the digital marketing space in the UK and how it was different from North America.”
Andrew didn’t just need to build local acumen. While he’s backed by a digital team with a wealth of experience, he wanted to look outside the organisation for specialist support on paid search.
That’s when Andrew turned to performance marketing leaders Aira. Hagerty had teamed with Aira before and knew they had proven expertise in marketing financial services.
Andrew says, “We knew that Aira does very well in the specialisation of paid search. At that stage, we weren’t confident of performing at the specialist level Aira could achieve right off the bat. So we were happy to work with them to achieve our paid performance goals.”
Ambitious goals to leave competitors behind
Aira took the baton to help Hagerty grow online—and Andrew set big targets.
The business wanted to increase year-over-year traffic and customer acquisition in a highly competitive market. Like any cost-conscious business, they also wanted to drive maximum value and set ambitious targets to continue decreasing their CPA each year.
'At that point, Hagerty had a stable position in the UK. But we saw an opportunity to further grow our brand.'
The Solution
Reaching more buyers with innovative tactics
At the outset, Aira spent time researching Hagerty’s audience and carried out an objective assessment of its paid media and Google Ads campaigns.
Andrew says, “Aira did a good job of understanding our audiences. We’re a unique company. Our main business is insurance and that’s where we earn a lot of our income. But we also run events, share valuation knowledge, and get broad media coverage. Aira were smart about recognising all those pillars to help us build campaigns and support around them.”
Devising a cohesive strategy with big impact
Next, Aira built an action plan based around Hagerty’s KPIs. They needed to ensure their strategies would generate traffic from people who already knew the brand—as well as newcomers to it.
At every step, Aira communicated ideas and progress and quickly established a relationship built on trust.
Andrew says, “Something I appreciate is the quality of the communication with Aira. When we have a conversation, they bring all the information that they need to tell the story and show us what’s going on. If they don’t have something, they provide it within 24-48 hours.”
Optimised targeting and reaching more buyers
Aira implemented tactics to reach more potential customers with ads that
match their intent and drive action. Specific work included:
- Launching a Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) campaign. Aira uses content
from Hagerty’s landing pages to target ads to specific searches. This helps
Hagerty identify new opportunities they weren’t already targeting with
keywords and ultimately gain additional traffic and sales. - Adding more custom intent audiences for Hagerty’s classic car and bike
events. This allows Hagerty to target people who are currently searching
for their events and in the market for buying a ticket. By reaching buyer
traffic at the right time, they show ads to more of the right people and
reduce wasted ad spend. - Optimised landing pages for every campaign. Landing pages play a
major role in turning clicks into customers. Aira ensures every campaign
has a tailored landing page. Each one is fully optimised with all the
information a user needs and ensures they’re sent to the right place with
the right call-to-action. - Increased impactful clicks by placing more budget behind their
highest converting campaigns, enabling Hagerty to get the best ROI
and performance. - Constantly investigated new ways to make their SERPs more prominent
and help increase conversions.
Andrew appreciates Aira’s forward-thinking tactics on paid media.
He says, “A massive USP with Aira is that they present innovative ways that paid search campaigns can set up. They show us different features within paid search that a lot of people don’t take advantage of. We’ve seen a lot of site traffic growth based on features that some companies aren’t even aware of.”
'We’ve seen a lot of site traffic growth based on features that some companies aren’t even aware of.'
The Results
Maximising their marketing investment and exceeding their goals
With Aira doing the heavy lifting on paid media, Hagerty hits and exceeds its targets. Campaigns driven by Aira have a direct impact on growing quote volumes and new policy sales.
Since partnering with Aira on paid media, Hagerty has:
- Achieved year-on-year growth in traffic and revenue from
paid campaigns - Increased clicks for paid search ads by 150% from 2020 to 2023
- Exceeded their target for completed quotes. The business had already set
a tough target—and with Aira’s support, they exceeded that by 7%!
Andrew says, “Aira set up specific campaigns to support the flow of visitors to a new quoting platform. They direct a lot of traffic there and we’re seeing a lot of new business come from that tool, which is a great feeling.”
Trust translates to time savings
Andrew appreciates how transparent, knowledgeable, and personable Aira’s team are. He’s developed such a deep level of trust, he doesn’t waste time cross-checking or validating what they’re doing.
He says, “There is a really big level of trust with Aira, which having worked with a lot of different third parties, is not a common thing. We don’t have to double-check what they’re telling us, because we’re seeing the figures and the impact it’s having on our business. This gives us valuable time back.”
A true creative partner that strengthens their team
There’s another benefit to having Aira in the paid search driving seat. Andrew gets an impartial perspective from them, which helps raise the bar on campaigns.
He says, “It’s super valuable to have an unbiased third party to throw ideas against. We work closely with our digital marketing and marketing strategy teams, but we’ve also got Aira to throw ideas around with. This helps us come up with the best-possible campaigns and solutions.”
Conquering financial marketing
Andrew recommends Aira as the ideal partner for conquering the challenge of marketing financial organisations.
Andrew says, “With the campaigns that Aira drives to our website, we see additional traffic and higher-quality traffic. They also drive a lot of awareness of the Hagerty brand through the campaigns they develop.”
He concludes, “It really just comes back to trust. You know that once Aira has a complete understanding of your business—which they take the time to do—they come up with good ideas that take campaigns to the next level using features you might not have known before. So your business is more successful.”
'There is a really big level of trust with Aira, which having worked with a lot of different third parties, is not a common thing.'
