Winning Consumer Attention in the $147.8 Billion Home Insurance Industry

Welcome to part one of this month’s edition of our Brand Breakdown series, a deep dive into markets, consumers, and brands through the lens of owned asset optimization (OAO), a new approach to building consumer connections.

$147.8 billion

The homeowners insurance industry is fiercely competitive. With an estimated value of $147.8 billion, the industry’s biggest brands have massive marketing budgets for ads, sponsorships, and activations to capture a few magic moments of consumer attention.

But it’s the brands that convince homeowners they’re relevant and trustworthy that position themselves to capture the most market share.

In this three-part edition of the Brand Breakdown, we’ll explore consumer search data to reveal which insurance topics people care most about, which brands are meeting their needs, and how they optimize their owned assets to connect with audiences.

Brand marketing matters, but it’s not everything

If someone asks you to name three insurance brands, you can probably rattle them off easily. That’s because brand marketing matters. It powers unaided brand recall and makes companies part of the social discourse so they’re top of mind when decisions are made.

The companies with the biggest marketing budgets (State Farm, Progressive, and GEICO) tend to have the strongest brands.

That leads to lots of branded home insurance searches, like “Progressive homeowners insurance” or “State Farm home insurance quote.”

You might think that the brands that are top of mind for consumers would have the biggest share of premiums. But data for direct homeowners insurance premiums written reveals that Allstate earns more business than every competitor except for State Farm despite spending significantly less on marketing.

How does Allstate drive home insurance leads more efficiently?

They listen to the millions of questions consumers are asking in search and answer them better than nearly everyone else.

Allstate builds trust with its audience by connecting early and often throughout the customer journey. Not all brand marketing is ad-based. These micro touchpoints that meet consumers in their moments of need create high-value brand impressions that stack up over time and accrue brand equity.

That’s marketing efficiency!

There’s plenty more to reveal about what consumers are asking throughout their journey and which brands are competing for attention. Stay tuned for those answers and more in part two of our next brand breakdown.

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