CASE STUDY
Insurance
A Data-Driven Answer to Find the Optimal
Creative Rotation
Goal: Identify Optimal Creative Rotation for Introducing Brand Ads into a Direct Response Display Campaign
A large insurance provider set out to introduce brand ads into creative rotation with direct response ads for an
existing programmatic display campaign. The provider wanted to maintain the success of its direct response
results while allocating impressions to the brand ads. Its existing direct response ads already drove inquiries and
sales by encouraging prospects to enter their zip code to get started. The campaign now simply needed to include in
its creative rotation the new brand ads that invite consumers to play an engaging game on Facebook, with minimal
impact on inquiries and sales.
Solution: Produce a Data-Driven Answer with Turn DataMine Analytics
The insurance provider easily uncovered the optimal creative rotation for its display
Brand ads that run less than 10 percent of the
campaign by ingesting A/B test results into Turn DataMine™ Analytics and analyzing
time minimally impact inquiries and sales, but
this new data with respect to existing campaign data. The A/B test exposed a control
drive high Facebook engagement.
group to only direct response display ads and exposed another group to a combination
of direct response and brand ads for a period of 30 days. Since DataMine Analytics stores
all data—including RTB media performance data—at the most granular level, it was easy to add the A/B test data by
matching it to existing Turn user IDs. In this way, attributes related to the A/B test became a part of the ready-to-use
store of data.
DataMine Analytics made quick, high-value analysis possible and prevented loss of time due to data collection and
cleanup tasks. Just hours after Turn served the last impression of the test, the insurance provider could use DataMine
Analytics to draw initial insights. After the close of the campaign’s time lag to action window, when all actions
associated with the campaign were known, the insurance provider engaged the Turn Marketing Science Services
team to run a final analysis. Very quickly, the Marketing Science Services team ran queries in DataMine Analytics to
uncover the impact on inquiries and sales when brand ads run at low, medium, and high rotation levels.
Results: Maintain Campaign Efficacy with the Optimal Creative Rotation
DataMine Analytics helped the insurance provider keep its inquiries-per-user and sales-per-user results high while
still allocating impressions to the brand ads. The provider found that at low rotation levels, when the brand ad ran
less than 10 percent of the time, the introduction of brand ads had no impact on sales per user and minimal impact
on inquiries per user. However, when the brand ad ran between 10 and 25 percent of the time, the inquiries and sales
per user decreased too much. With rotation frequencies above 25 percent, DataMine Analytics made it easy to tell
that the sample size and confidence level were too low to draw a reliable conclusion (see figure 1). In response to the
creative rotation analysis, the insurance provider adjusted the display campaign to run brand ads at the low rotation
level of less than 10 percent (see figure 2). The net result was greater Facebook engagement with minimal impact on
inquiries and sales.
Case Study | Insurance: A Data-Driven Answer to Find the Optimal Creative Rotation
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Figure 1. Impact of brand ads varies at low, medium, and high rotation levels.
At low rotation,
impact is minimal
<10% Rotation
At medium rotation, users
become significantly less
likely to quote and buy
10%–25%
Rotation
Low confidence in data
due to small sample size
>25% Rotation
–15% –10% –5% 0% 5% 10%
Inquiries per user
Sales per user
Source: Data from Turn DataMine Analytics for a large insurance provider.
Figure 2. Brand ads at a low rotation level work with direct response ads.
Inquiries per user
Sales per user
0.35%
0.040%
0.30%
0.035%
0.25%
0.030%
0.025%
0.20%
0.020%
0.15%
0.015%
0.10%
0.010%
0.05%
0%
0.005%
Branding & DR
All Users
DR Only
All Users
Inquiries per user decreased by 1.7% when DR ads
were replaced by branding ads. We have 98%
confidence that this decrease was non-random.
0%
Branding & DR
All Users
DR Only
All Users
Sales per user is not impacted by being exposed
to the insurance company’s branding ads.
Source: Data from Turn DataMine Analytics for a large insurance provider.
© 2014 Turn Inc. All rights reserved. Turn and the Turn logo are registered trademarks of Turn Inc. DataMine is a trademark of Turn Inc. Other trademarks are trademarks of their respective companies. All services are subject
to change or discontinuance without notice. March 2014
Case Study | Insurance: A Data-Driven Answer to Find the Optimal Creative Rotation
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