Case study CSS Versicherung

Most people think about their health insurance only when they have to submit a bill, or when their premiums for basic insurance are adjusted each year and insurers ramp up their customer retention and acquisition efforts. But CSS Insurance wants to be seen as more than just a “payer” and instead position itself as a health resource as well. Both current and prospective customers should have access to the useful content and helpful tips offered by CSS Insurance all year long. This is why the company decided to launch a data-driven health content marketing campaign in 2019 aimed at improving its position as a health resource that those living in Switzerland can rely on all year long.

Challenges

• Health – a crowded field: Which health-related topics offer the best opportunity to improve CSS’s position? What kind of appealing content can it offer to set itself apart from the competition?
• Vying for user attention: A search on Google for “healthy living” returns more than 90 million hits. Countless platforms, fitness influencers, recipe blogs and lifestyle magazines are devoted to the concept of healthy living.
• Heterogeneous audience: In Switzerland, the 18-and-over crowd is sociographically diverse and made up of about 7 million people with different lifestyles, backgrounds, interests and needs.

Data-driven selection of content and real-time topic monitoring ensure that users are offered something of real value.

The cross-channel segmentation of audiences reflects user habits, potential interests and third-party data, ensuring that the content, which took so much hard work to create, actually reaches the relevant audience at the right time, at the right place, on the right channels and in the right format.

Integrated metrics allow efficient, comprehensive real-time optimization of all paid activities. The campaign can then be carried out most effectively in terms of maximizing the cross-channel “reading with awareness” KPI. The agile project concept, meanwhile, allows the team to collaborate efficiently.

Data-driven topic selection

We want to know what issues, angles and trends the target group actually cares about, which is why we analyzed the search trends of the target group and content offered by competitors. An extensive gap and ranking analysis, more than 1,000 keywords and a content inventory check were used to generate a set of nearly 50 topics relevant to the target group and in areas where CSS Insurance has unique expertise.

Content planning – structured planning process

In addition to ongoing trend monitoring, which picks up on trends early on for the editors, every three months the interdisciplinary editorial team meets to select the topics for the next quarter. Current search engine data and seasonal factors are taken into account to optimize content in a way that addresses the specific questions and interests of the audience.

Content creation

The content is authentic, actually offers users something of value and boosts brand recognition with a consistent image. Articles and posts are written by the editorial team, reviewed by health experts and then prepared for each specific channel. CSS employees also share their own very personal experiences and health tips. What’s important here is continuous monitoring and search engine optimization to ensure organic visibility.

Content marketing

• Push and pull channels: Blog content flows into search ads, native ads, YouTube videos and social media ads to generate as much relevant traffic as possible. The media mix is rounded out with Instagram stories, Spotify audio ads, Passenger TV and placements on CSS-owned channels (newsletter, website, customer portal).
• Right time, right channel: Tried-and-tested mechanisms for data-driven multichannel campaigns are used to market the content with pin-point targeting that reaches the appropriate audience.
• Cross-channel KPI: “Reading with awareness” is defined as a combination of 30-second dwell time and 50% scroll depth for blog posts. This standard metric allows campaigns to be optimized across all channels and the most effective allocation of budget. 

Targeting and audiences

In addition to data-driven campaign optimization, relevance for users is ensured through precision targeting and context data, such as current weather. Ongoing experiments with various targeting and placement strategies allow the segmentation approach to be fine-tuned. And based on website visits and user habits, custom audiences can be identified to reach users with content tailored to their very specific interests or to tackle the performance campaign during the autumn business season. 

Tracking and analysis

A comprehensive tracking concept was developed to ensure comprehensive monitoring of all activities. The data layer captures all relevant and available information about the user and the current page, and then integrates it into a bird’s-eye view in Adobe Analytics. The Management Dashboard provides a better overview of the data, enabling constant analysis of the most relevant campaign KPIs.